EU-Mercosur tariff schedule, sector by sector

The three regimes, in short

Every tariff line in the EU-Mercosur agreement sits in one of three regimes: it is eliminated immediately, reduced on a staged schedule that runs from 4 to 15 years, or covered by a quota. Of the Mercosur offer's 10,029 lines, only 10.7% go to zero straight away and 8.9% are excluded, staying at the base rate.

The remaining 80% or so sit between those two extremes, spread across five staged categories that eliminate the duty in 5, 8, 9, 11 or 16 equal annual steps. A small group of lines, 45 in total, 0.4% of the schedule, carries a quota or another conditional mechanism instead of a straight percentage cut.

A sector-level summary, such as "machinery duties fall to zero," does not describe a specific eight-digit code. Two products in the same tariff heading can land in different categories, one duty free next year, the other stuck at the base rate.

The trade part of the agreement, the Interim Trade Agreement, has applied provisionally since 1 May 2026; the wider EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement is not yet ratified. The staging years below run from that 1 May 2026 date.

How the staging categories work

Annex 2-A sets out seven staging categories, identified by a code attached to each tariff line. Category "0" means the duty is eliminated immediately, from entry into force. Category "E" means the line is excluded from preferences and stays at the base rate with no reduction, ever. Between those two sit four staged categories: "4", "7", "8" and "10", which eliminate the duty over 5, 8, 9 and 11 equal annual steps respectively, plus category "15", which spreads the cut over 16 equal steps. A further category, "15V", applies only to electric and hybrid vehicles and combines a delayed start with a separate quota, covered below.

The table gives the share of the base rate already removed at each stage, as set out in the annex. A blank cell means the base rate still applies in full; once a category reaches 100%, it stays there for every later year.

Year	0	4	7	8	10	15	15V
0	100%	20%	12.5%	11.1%	9.1%	6.3%	0%
1		40%	25%	22.2%	18.2%	12.5%	0%
2		60%	37.5%	33.3%	27.3%	18.8%	0%
3		80%	50%	44.4%	36.4%	25%	0%
4		100%	62.5%	55.6%	45.5%	31.3%	0%
5			75%	66.7%	54.6%	37.5%	0%
6			87.5%	77.8%	63.6%	43.8%	0%
7			100%	88.9%	72.7%	50%	19%
8				100%	81.8%	56.3%	38.1%
9					90.9%	62.5%	57.1%
10					100%	68.8%	64.3%
11						75%	71.4%
12						81.3%	78.6%
13						87.5%	85.7%
14						93.8%	92.9%
15						100%	100%

The year count does not follow the calendar year in which the agreement entered into force. Year 0 runs from the date of entry into force to 31 December of that same calendar year, however many months that turns out to be. Year 1 begins on 1 January of the following calendar year, and each later step takes effect on 1 January after that.

Provisional application of the trade part of the agreement began on 1 May 2026, which is entry into force for staging purposes. Year 0 therefore runs from 1 May to 31 December 2026, and year 1 begins on 1 January 2027. A line in category "4" already carries a 20% cut as of 1 May 2026, moves to a 40% cut on 1 January 2027, and reaches zero duty on 1 January 2030, the start of year 4.

Machinery and industrial equipment

European Commission trade figures for machinery describe current duties in Brazil of 14% to 20%, falling to zero over 10 years, covering 93% of the lines in the sector. That is a reasonable description of the sector as a whole. It does not describe how a specific eight or ten-digit code inside that sector is actually treated, and the gap between the two can be wide.

Take subheading 8413.70, centrifugal and submersible pumps. The annex assigns the tariff lines inside this one subheading to two different regimes. 8413.70.10, submersible electric pumps, and 8413.70.80, other centrifugal pumps with a flow rate up to 300 litres a minute, both sit in category 15, the slowest staged category, reaching zero duty only on 1 January 2041, year 15 of the schedule. 8413.70.90, other centrifugal pumps outside that flow threshold, is excluded from preferences altogether and stays at its base rate for the life of the agreement.

NCM	Description	Base rate	Staging category
8413.70.10	Submersible electric pumps	14%	15
8413.70.80	Other centrifugal pumps, flow up to 300 l/min	14%	15

Applied duty today: 12.60% on 8413.70.10 and 8413.70.90, 20.00% on 8413.70.80. | 8413.70.90 | Other centrifugal pumps | 14% | E (excluded) |

None of these three lines matches the sector's "10 years to zero" headline. Two take 16 years from entry into force to reach zero, and one never reaches zero at all. An exporter reading only the sector summary would reasonably expect a 10-year phase-out; the schedule for this particular pump family is considerably slower, or permanent, depending on the exact classification.

The base rate for all three lines is 14%, but the duty Brazil applies today is not the same across them. On the submersible pump line (8413.70.10) and on the excluded line (8413.70.90) it is 12.60%, per a Portal Único Siscomex query on 7 September 2026, which is the 14% base reduced by 10%. On 8413.70.80 it is 20.00%, well above the base. That matters for anyone comparing a preferential rate against what they pay now: on 8413.70.80 the year 0 preferential rate of 13.12% already beats the applied duty, while on 8413.70.10 it does not. That 10% reduction lines up with Brazil's horizontal cut to the common external tariff, applied in 2022 and 2023, though the annex itself does not state that cut as the reason; the two figures simply match. The preferential schedule in the annex runs off the 14% base rate, not off the 12.60% rate an importer actually pays today, and the two move independently.

Cars and components

The Commission's sector figure for cars states that the duty on electric and hybrid vehicles falls from 35% to 25% immediately, and the duty on internal combustion vehicles falls from 35% to 17.5% immediately. That is the headline used in Commission communications about the agreement.

The annex uses a more detailed mechanic for vehicles, staging category "15V," which applies to electric and hybrid vehicles. Under "15V," the base rate is held in full through the end of year 6, with no reduction in that period. Elimination then begins in year 7 and proceeds in steps until the duty reaches zero on 1 January of year 15. On the 1 May 2026 timeline, year 7 falls on 1 January 2033 and year 15 falls on 1 January 2041.

Alongside that schedule, "15V" also carries a separate quota: 50,000 vehicle units at 50% of the base rate, open from entry into force to the end of year 8, so to the end of 2034 on the current timeline. Vehicles inside that 50,000-unit quota pay half the base rate; vehicles outside it pay whatever the staged schedule specifies for that point in the calendar.

The Commission's "35% to 25% immediately" figure and the annex's "15V" mechanic describe the same vehicle category through two different sources, a public communications summary and the legal staging category, and this page does not reconcile them into one number. An importer of electric or hybrid vehicles needs to check which mechanic, and which quota position, applies to the specific tariff line before pricing a shipment.

Chemicals and pharmaceuticals

For pharmaceuticals, Commission figures describe current duties of up to 14%, falling to zero over 10 years, covering 90% of the sector's lines. For chemicals more broadly, duties run up to 18%, and the Commission estimates the agreement adds EUR 4.8 billion to EU chemical exports to Mercosur, a rise of about 50%.

Cosmetics and perfumery are not broken out as a separate line in the Commission's published sector figures. There is no cosmetics-specific duty range and no cosmetics-specific timeline in that material. The only verified figure for this category comes from a single tariff line, 3304.10.00, lip make-up preparations, with a base rate of 18% in the annex, staged under category 15.

Today's applied MFN duty on that line is 16.20%, again the base rate reduced by 10%, the same pattern seen on two of the three pump lines. Because category 15 moves slowly, the preference itself starts out smaller than that 10% gap: the year 0 preferential rate on an 18% base is 16.87%, still above the 16.20% an importer pays today under ordinary MFN treatment. The preferential route only becomes cheaper than today's applied duty from year 1, 1 January 2027, when the preferential rate on this line drops to 15.75%.

An importer of lip make-up, or another cosmetics line taxed on a similar base, needs to compare the preferential rate for the exact classification and year against the duty applied today, rather than assume the trade agreement is the cheaper route from day one.

Wine, spirits and food

Wine shows the clearest nomenclature mismatch between the annex and today's classification. Appendix 2-A-2, the product-specific schedule, is written in the Mercosur Common Nomenclature as it stood in 2012, not in the current NCM. For most products that distinction does not matter, because the codes carried over unchanged. Wine did not.

The 2012 nomenclature used in the annex splits still wine into two lines by container size: 2204.29.11, for wine in containers of 5 litres or less, staged under category 8, duty free from year 8, and 2204.29.19, for wine in containers over 5 litres, excluded from preferences entirely and held at its 20% base rate. Today's current NCM code, 2204.29.10, "Vinhos," merges what the annex treats as two separate products with two different outcomes. A bottled case of wine and a bulk wine shipment sit under the same current code, but would fall into different annex lines, one eventually duty free, one permanently excluded.

Grape must, 2204.29.20, is a separate line again, also excluded from preferences at a 20% base rate; today's applied MFN duty on that line is 18%, the familiar 10%-reduced figure. The applied MFN duty on the merged current wine code, 2204.29.10, is also 18% today, per the Portal Único Siscomex simulator on 7 September 2026.

Chocolate runs on a different mechanism again. Subheading 1806.31 sits under category "CH2," a quota rather than a straight staged reduction, administered first come first served across the EU with no country allocation. A separate page on this site sets out the chocolate quota's in-quota rates, tonnage and out-of-quota rate, year by year. The short version: once a given year's quota is used up, the ordinary 20% rate applies for the rest of that year, above today's 18% applied MFN duty, so the quota only helps while it lasts.

How to find your own line

Finding the treatment for a specific product means working through four steps, in order.

First, confirm the current, full NCM classification for the product, at the eight-digit level, as it is actually declared on import documentation today. The wine and pump examples above show that a less precise classification is not enough.

Second, correlate that current code to the equivalent code in the 2012 version of the Mercosur nomenclature, since that is the version the annex uses. Most codes carried over unchanged between 2012 and today, but not all, and wine is a documented case where they diverge. Where a current code merges or splits what the 2012 nomenclature treated separately, the correlation itself becomes part of the answer, not a formality.

Third, look up the 2012-basis code in Annex 2-A to find its staging category, the letter or number set out above, and read off the base rate and the resulting preferential rate for the relevant year.

Fourth, and often the step that changes the practical answer, compare that preferential rate against the duty actually applied today, not against the annex base rate. The two can differ by the size of Brazil's horizontal tariff cut, and for slower staging categories the preferential rate can start out higher than today's applied duty rather than lower. Checking the applied rate directly, for the exact code and the current registration date, is the only way to know which route is cheaper at the time of import. A classification, a staging letter and a percentage are three separate facts, and a shipment decision needs all three.

Sources

• Mercosur tariff offer, Annex 2-A, Section A, item 6: staging category definitions, the official preference table and the line count by category (10,029 lines total). Source: planalto.gov.br, checked 7 September 2026.
• Sector figures for machinery, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and cars: European Commission, DG TRADE.
• Base rates and staging categories for the worked lines (8413.70.10, 8413.70.80, 8413.70.90, 3304.10.00, 1806.31.10, 2204.29.11, 2204.29.19, 2204.29.20): Annex 2-A, Appendix 2-A-2, NCM 2012 nomenclature.
• Applied MFN rates: Portal Único Siscomex, queried 7 September 2026.
• Chocolate quota mechanics, category CH2, subheading 1806.31: Annex 2-A.
• Status and dates: Council Decision (EU) 2026/183, CELEX 32026D0183, and Decision (EU) 2026/185, CELEX 32026D0185; Decreto nº 12.953/2026, 28 April 2026.

Tariff schedule verified: 7 September 2026. Rates and staging details in this agreement can change before ratification; check the applied rate for the exact NCM code before pricing a shipment.