Brexit Calculator
Calculate the financial impact of Brexit on your business: tariffs, customs costs, regulatory compliance, workforce expenses, and currency effects.
About
Brexit introduced a structural cost layer between UK and EU trade that did not exist under Single Market membership. This calculator quantifies that layer across five domains: tariff costs under WTO MFN or EU-UK TCA schedules, customs declaration overhead (estimated at £30 - £120 per declaration depending on complexity), regulatory divergence costs from dual CE/UKCA marking compliance, workforce friction from the end of free movement, and currency depreciation effects on import purchasing power. The model assumes standard commercial trade flows and does not account for sector-specific exemptions or temporary easements that may expire.
Miscalculating these costs leads to margin erosion. A 4% average tariff on £1M of goods trade produces £40,000 in direct cost before customs paperwork is factored. Businesses that treated Brexit as a one-time adjustment rather than a permanent cost structure have consistently underestimated cumulative impact. This tool applies WTO Most Favoured Nation rates and TCA preferential rates from the UK Global Tariff schedule published by HMRC. Pro tip: Rules of Origin compliance alone typically adds 1 - 6% to cost of goods, even when the tariff itself is zero under TCA.
Formulas
The total annual Brexit cost is the sum of five independent cost components. Each is calculated from user-supplied trade and business parameters.
Where each component is defined as:
where Vtrade = annual goods trade value with EU in £, and rtariff = applicable tariff rate (WTO MFN or TCA preferential, depending on Rules of Origin compliance).
where Ndeclarations = estimated annual customs declarations and cper-decl = cost per declaration (typically £30 - £120).
where rregulatory = regulatory compliance overhead rate and FUKCA = one-off UKCA re-certification cost (amortized annually).
where NEU-staff = number of EU nationals requiring sponsorship, cvisa = Skilled Worker visa sponsorship cost per person (£1,579 - £5,000), and psalary = annual salary premium from labor market restriction.
where FXpre = pre-referendum GBP/EUR rate (1.30) and FXpost = current or user-specified rate.
Reference Data
| Product Category | WTO MFN Tariff Rate | TCA Preferential Rate | Rules of Origin Overhead | Typical UKCA Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dairy Products | 36% | 0% | 4 - 6% | £2,500 |
| Beef & Meat | 48% | 0% | 3 - 5% | N/A (SPS checks) |
| Passenger Cars | 10% | 0% | 2 - 4% | £15,000 |
| Auto Parts | 4.5% | 0% | 2 - 3% | £5,000 |
| Chemicals | 5.5% | 0% | 1 - 3% | £8,000 |
| Pharmaceuticals | 0% | 0% | 1 - 2% | £20,000 |
| Textiles & Clothing | 12% | 0% | 3 - 5% | £1,800 |
| Electronics | 2.5% | 0% | 1 - 2% | £6,000 |
| Plastics | 6.5% | 0% | 2 - 3% | £3,000 |
| Machinery | 3.7% | 0% | 1 - 3% | £7,500 |
| Wine & Spirits | 14% | 0% | 2 - 4% | N/A |
| Fish & Seafood | 12% | 0% | 3 - 5% | N/A (SPS) |
| Ceramics & Glass | 5% | 0% | 2 - 3% | £2,200 |
| Steel & Metals | 7% | 0% | 2 - 4% | £4,000 |
| Furniture | 5.6% | 0% | 2 - 3% | £1,500 |
| Paper & Cardboard | 0% | 0% | 1 - 2% | £1,200 |
| Professional Services | N/A (non-tariff) | N/A | N/A | Regulatory equivalence |
| Financial Services | N/A (non-tariff) | N/A | N/A | Passporting lost |
| Digital Services | 0% | 0% | N/A | GDPR adequacy |
| Agriculture (Other) | 15% avg | 0% | 3 - 6% | N/A (SPS) |