How to claim EU-Mercosur preferential origin

A shipment claims the EU-Mercosur preferential tariff through a statement on origin, a short text made out by the exporter on the invoice or another commercial document, under Article 3.17 of the interim trade agreement, using the wording set out in Annex 3-C. Brazil's system does not work with an EUR.1 movement certificate for this agreement: that document belongs to other EU trade arrangements and plays no role here.

The rules described on this page sit in the Interim Trade Agreement, in provisional application in Brazil since 1 May 2026 under Decreto nº 12.953/2026. The wider EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement has not been ratified.

One point is worth stating plainly. Brazil's own customs tax simulator, queried on 7 September 2026 with a German origin, applied the ordinary duty and no agreement preference on every product code tested. The preference does not appear on its own. The importer has to claim it, and hold the paperwork that supports the claim.

Who can make out the statement

The statement on origin can only come from the exporter, the company in the EU that sells and ships the goods. There is no equivalent role for the Brazilian importer to fill from its side of the transaction: origin is established at the EU end, before the goods leave.

To make out a statement without a value limit, the exporter needs to be registered in the REX system, the EU's registered exporter scheme for self-certifying origin on trade agreements of this kind. Registration happens once, through the exporter's own member state customs authority, and the resulting reference number is what goes into every statement the exporter issues afterward.

An exporter that has not registered in REX can still make out a statement, but only for consignments worth up to EUR 6,000. Above that threshold, an unregistered exporter has no self-certification route open to it under this agreement, and the shipment clears at the ordinary duty rate regardless of where the goods were actually made.

That EUR 6,000 ceiling matters most in two situations. A company sending commercial samples ahead of a first order, or shipping a first, small test order to gauge a Brazilian buyer's interest, can often stay under the threshold and claim preference without registering in REX first. Once the relationship moves toward volumes closer to a normal order, or the exporter expects to ship to Brazil on a recurring basis, REX registration stops being optional in practice. It is what lets the exporter keep issuing statements without checking the invoice value against the ceiling on every single shipment.

Registration itself sits outside Brazilian customs procedure entirely. It is an EU-side formality, handled through the exporter's home customs administration, with no Brazilian counterpart to apply for. A Brazilian importer relying on an EU supplier's statement has no way to register on the supplier's behalf. The only lever available on the Brazilian side is to ask the supplier, before an order crosses EUR 6,000, whether it already holds a REX number.

What the statement must contain

The statement on origin is text, not a form with boxes to fill in. It goes on the invoice or another commercial document that identifies the exporter and the goods clearly enough to be checked against them.

The wording below is quoted from European Commission guidance dated April 2026, not from the text of Annex 3-C itself, since the annex wording has not been verified directly for this page:

"The exporter of the products covered by this document (Exporter reference No...) declares that, except where otherwise clearly indicated, these products are of ... preferential origin."

Read closely, that sentence carries a few variable elements. "Exporter reference No" is the REX number, left blank only under the EUR 6,000 exception described above. The clause "except where otherwise clearly indicated" exists for mixed shipments, where some products on the same invoice qualify for preferential origin and others do not: the statement then has to mark which items the origin claim actually covers. The blank before "preferential origin" takes the name of the country or group the agreement recognises, which for a shipment from an EU exporter into Brazil reads as the European Union.

The statement needs a date. Details such as signature requirements, exact placement on the document, and any language or translation requirement are set out in Annex 3-C itself, which has not been independently verified for this page. An exporter preparing a statement should confirm those specifics against its own REX registration guidance or current European Commission material, rather than working from the wording above alone.

What the statement does not need is a Brazilian government stamp, a separate certificate number, or pre-approval from any authority. It travels with the commercial documents and is checked, if at all, only after the goods have already been declared for import.

Cumulation: bilateral only

Cumulation is the mechanism that lets material from one country count as if it originated in another, for the purpose of meeting a rule of origin. Under Article 3.3, the EU-Mercosur agreement allows bilateral cumulation only: EU material used in a Mercosur-made product can count toward Mercosur origin, and Mercosur material used in an EU-made product can count toward EU origin. Nothing outside that pair counts.

There is no diagonal cumulation with third countries. A component sourced from a supplier outside the EU and outside Mercosur, and built into an otherwise EU-made product, does not become EU-originating because the EU or Mercosur separately happens to have its own trade deal with that third country. It stays non-originating for the purpose of this agreement, regardless of what other agreements exist elsewhere.

That has a direct consequence for exporters whose supply chains are not purely European. A manufacturer assembling a finished product in the EU but sourcing a subassembly from outside the EU-Mercosur pair needs to work out whether that subassembly's value and processing push the finished product past the applicable product specific rule for its tariff line, on the actual bill of materials. The subassembly's own origin, and whatever agreements the supplying country has with the EU or with Mercosur, do not carry over into this calculation.

In practice the origin check has to be run on the real inputs, not on where the company is headquartered or where final assembly takes place. A product that is largely European in value and processing, with only a small non-originating input, is more likely to clear the applicable threshold than one where a substantial subassembly comes from outside the EU-Mercosur pair, even where that subassembly's country of origin maintains good trade relations with both sides.

Record keeping and verification

A statement on origin is valid for 12 months from the date it is made out, under Article 3.18. An importer declaring a shipment against an older statement is relying on paper that has already expired. The practical fix, for an order placed close to a year after the original invoice date, is to request a fresh statement rather than reuse the existing one.

Underneath the statement sits the actual origin determination: which product specific rule applies to the tariff line, and whether the goods in question meet it. Those rules are set out line by line in Annex 3-B, with the general definitions and methods used to read them collected in the introductory notes in Annex 3-A. A statement is only as good as the underlying rule it asserts compliance with, which makes checking the relevant Annex 3-B entry a step that comes before drafting or accepting a statement, not after.

Records supporting the origin claim have to be kept for 3 years, under Article 3.22. In practice that covers the documents used to establish and support the claim: the statement itself, the commercial invoice, and whatever background the exporter relied on to satisfy the applicable product specific rule, from bills of materials to supplier declarations.

Verification, when it happens, works backward from that file. A customs authority questioning a claimed origin is asking whether the paperwork on record actually supports the specific rule claimed for that tariff line, for that shipment, on that date. An importer or exporter with nothing to point to has no way to answer that question, independent of whether the goods genuinely qualified in the first place.

Mistakes that void the preference

1. Submitting a EUR.1 movement certificate instead of a statement on origin. The EU-Mercosur agreement does not use the EUR.1 system. A certificate format built for a different agreement carries no weight here, whatever the exporter is used to producing for other markets.

2. Letting the importer, a freight forwarder, or anyone other than the exporter draft the statement. Article 3.17 places the statement with the exporter. A Brazilian importer that writes its own origin text and asks the supplier only to sign it is not following the procedure the agreement sets out.

3. Issuing a statement above EUR 6,000 without a REX number behind it. Past that value, an unregistered exporter has no self-certification route open under this agreement, and the shipment clears at the ordinary duty.

4. Using a statement that is more than 12 months old. Article 3.18 sets a fixed validity window. An expired statement does not support a preference claim, regardless of whether the underlying origin facts have changed since it was made out.

5. Crediting non-EU, non-Mercosur inputs toward origin. Article 3.3 allows bilateral cumulation only. A bill of materials that leans on the idea that a third country has its own separate deal with the EU or with Mercosur does not satisfy this agreement's rule.

6. Assuming the customs system applies the preference on its own. Brazil's tax simulator applies the ordinary duty by default. Nothing in the declaration process finds and applies the EU-Mercosur rate automatically; the claim, and the statement behind it, has to be put forward by the importer.

Sources

• Interim Trade Agreement (iTA), Council Decision (EU) 2026/183, CELEX 32026D0183; agreement text CELEX 22026A00184. Rules of origin provisions cited: Article 3.3 (cumulation), Article 3.17 (statement on origin), Article 3.18 (validity), Article 3.22 (record keeping), and Annexes 3-A, 3-B and 3-C. Checked 7 September 2026.
• European Commission guidance document, April 2026, for the quoted wording of the statement on origin. Checked 7 September 2026.
• Decreto nº 12.953/2026 (Brazil), 28 April 2026, provisional application of the iTA from 1 May 2026. Checked 7 September 2026.
• Portal Único Siscomex, official customs tax simulator, query run with German origin. Checked 7 September 2026.

Rules on this page verified 7 September 2026. Rates and rules under this agreement can change; confirm current terms before relying on this page for a specific shipment.