Beef under the EU–Mercosur deal: tariffs, quotas and what changes each year

Beef is the product most people think of when they hear "EU–Mercosur", and it's also where the agreement is most cautious. Into the EU, Mercosur beef gets no tariff cut at all on its normal duty. What it gets instead is access to two new quotas at 7.5%, plus a zero rate inside the existing Hilton quota. Going the other way, EU beef into Mercosur gets an ordinary ten-year phase-out. Here's how both sides work, with the numbers from the schedules.

Mercosur beef into the EU: the duty that doesn't change

Take fresh boneless beef, CN 0201 30 00. The EU applies 12.8% plus EUR 303.40 per 100 kg today, and that's also the base rate in the agreement. Frozen boneless beef (0202 30 90) is almost identical: 12.8% plus EUR 304.10 per 100 kg.

These lines don't have a normal staging category in the EU schedule. They're marked BF1 (fresh and chilled) or BF2 (frozen), which means the only preference is inside a quota. Outside it, the full duty stays in place in 2026, in 2031 and after.

That specific part is what makes beef expensive to import. Say a 10-tonne shipment of 0201 30 00 is declared at EUR 10 per kg (a made-up value, just for the arithmetic). The ad valorem part is EUR 12,800 and the specific part another EUR 30,340, so the duty comes to EUR 43,140. Inside the quota, the same shipment pays 7.5%, or EUR 7,500.

The BF1 and BF2 quotas

The two quotas grow in six equal steps and then stay flat:

From 2031 that's 99,000 tonnes a year in total. The volumes are in carcass weight equivalent, so boneless cuts are converted back to carcass weight with the factors in Annex 2-A and use up more quota than their net weight.

BF1 covers seven lines (fresh carcasses, bone-in and boneless cuts, and thick skirt and thin skirt). BF2 covers fifteen, including frozen cuts, salted and dried beef and some prepared beef from heading 1602.

Two practical points. First, both quotas are managed with import licences (TARIC order numbers 09.4920 and 09.4925), so you need a licence before the goods arrive, and the EU doesn't publish a running balance the way it does for first-come quotas. Second, year 0 is shorter than a calendar year, and the volume for it is pro-rated. Our calculator estimates about 6,091 tonnes for BF1 and 4,984 tonnes for BF2 by counting the 245 days from 1 May. We haven't seen the EU's own year-0 figure for beef published, so treat those two numbers as an estimate.

The Hilton quota goes duty-free

The EU already had a WTO quota for high-quality beef, known as the Hilton quota (order numbers 09.4450, 09.4452, 09.4453 and 09.4455). For originating Mercosur beef, its in-quota duty drops to zero from the start of the agreement. This didn't need a phase-in and it's not part of the 99,000 tonnes. It's an existing quota that became cheaper to use.

EU beef into Mercosur: a normal phase-out

On the Mercosur side, beef is a regular staging-10 product. Fresh boneless beef (NCM 0201.30.00) has a base rate of 12% in the schedule, but Brazil applies 10.8% today. Under Article 2.4(7) of the agreement, the cuts are then calculated from 10.8%, not from 12%:

There's no quota on this side, so any volume of originating EU beef gets these rates. Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay have their own applied rates, and the calculator shows all four next to each other.

What to check before you ship

If you're exporting from Mercosur, the questions are whether your product is on the BF1 or BF2 list, whether you hold a licence for the period, and whether the shipment meets the rules of origin. Without a quota licence, you pay the full duty. If you're exporting from the EU, the phase-out applies to every originating shipment the importer claims it for, with no volume limit. The only thing that varies is the starting rate in each country.

To run your own numbers, enter the code in the calculator with the quantity in kilograms; the specific part of the EU duty can't be worked out without it. For background on how quotas are opened and used, read how the EU–Mercosur quotas work. The methodology page explains where each rate comes from.