Every eligible shipment you send without claiming trade preferences is a missed opportunity to reduce your landed cost. For teams managing cross-border sales, that often comes down to documentation that was not prepared or maintained in full.
DHL Express provides tools that help trade teams check the rules that apply before a shipment leaves your facility. Here's how to identify eligible tariff cuts, organise your paperwork, and reduce your exposure to back-tax bills.
Preferential tariffs can help improve your price competitiveness in import markets, because customs duties are reduced or removed for goods that qualify. That can make your total landed cost more competitive.
Here's what that advantage looks like in practice:
Duty Cuts: Agreements can reduce or remove import duties for goods that meet the eligibility conditions.
Competitive Pricing: Lower tax barriers can give you more room to optimise your pricing in the destination market.
Supply Resilience: Sourcing parts from treaty-aligned countries helps you build a more stable supply chain.
According to the 2025 Thomson Reuters Institute Corporate Tariffs Survey, only 33% of surveyed businesses use technology to automate their FTA compliance. The survey covers corporate respondents across markets rather than Vietnamese exporters specifically. The rest still rely more heavily on manual processes.
Missed preferences can have a significant effect on cost and margin on high-volume shipments. MyGTS helps you find the correct export and import tariff codes for your goods, and once you've entered those codes, the Pre-Shipment Plans tab shows you the customs and trade documents you'll need, along with the trade and documentation requirements that apply to that lane.
If you're shipping from major manufacturing centres like the industrial parks in Binh Duong or Bac Ninh, understanding these rules is even more important. On a larger scale, frameworks such as the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) can provide preferential tariff treatment for eligible goods, with a commitment to eliminate duties on 99% of tariff lines over the agreement's implementation schedule, according to the European Commission.
Claiming lower tariff rates requires a correct Certificate of Origin that meets the verification requirements of the customs authority. Customs offices enforce strict rules to verify your goods qualify under the trade deal, and a mistake on the form can lead to your preference claim being rejected or queried.
DHL Express's Multiline Entry and Export Declaration services can support your export documentation. DHL Express supports you with document preparation and handling in line with service requirements, but final compliance remains your responsibility.
Structure your records around these four checks:
Prepare your files early to avoid bottlenecks during busy seasons. Processing and transit times may vary during peak periods such as Tet Nguyen Dan, which makes early preparation even more important.
Customs agencies can audit your trade records after a shipment clears the border, and if they find your origin claims were incorrect, they can issue back-tax bills and serious penalties. A clear compliance trail helps you produce the documentation when an audit happens.
Automated screening tools in MyDHL+ help you find and fix missing data before you submit files to customs, catching the kind of gap that turns into a problem years later.
Review your current trade risk against these common gaps:
Compliance Risk | Operational Impact | How to Protect Your Business |
|---|---|---|
Expired Documents | May trigger additional requests or processing at the border | Set automatic alerts for treaty certificate expiry dates |
Incorrect Formulas | Causes errors in your regional value calculations | Standardise your bills of materials with updated costs |
Poor Document Storage | Leaves you unable to produce proof during an audit | Keep digital records of all manufacturing logs for the period required under the applicable regulations and trade agreement |
Wrong HS Codes | May result in tariff reassessment and further action over misclassification | Review products regularly against customs updates |
Failing to track these details can increase the risk of unexpected tax liabilities. Small errors on individual invoices can add up when applied retroactively over a whole year of shipments.
Reducing your export costs comes down to correct paperwork and proactive tracking, done consistently. DHL Express supports that with MyGTS for tariff code lookups and Pre-Shipment Plans, plus Multiline Entry and Export Declaration services to support your document preparation and handling.
Speak to a DHL Express specialist today to check your lanes and streamline your export process.
They lower or remove the import duties on your goods when they enter a destination country, sometimes down to zero under the right treaty. That tax relief makes your products more price-competitive against firms shipping from countries with no agreement in place.
It is the document used to demonstrate the origin of your goods under the rules of the applicable agreement. Customs authorities require this document to verify your shipment meets the rules outlined in the trade deal.
Yes, customs authorities can audit your trade records after your goods clear the border, with audit and record-retention periods varying by market and trade agreement. If they find errors in your paperwork, they can charge substantial back-taxes, interest, and regulatory fines.
MyGTS helps you find the correct export and import tariff codes for your goods across different countries. Once you've entered those codes into the Pre-Shipment Plans tab, you can see the customs and trade documents required, along with the trade requirements that apply to that lane.
DHL Express supports this with Multiline Entry, Export Declaration, and permit processing services, supporting your document preparation and handling in line with the applicable requirements. Your team still carries the final responsibility for compliance, no matter how much of the groundwork we handle.
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