Mercosur TradeFlow
The EU–Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement has been provisionally applied since 1 May 2026. Poland's action for annulment before the EU Court of Justice (Case C-460/26) is pending. Savings shown are estimates. Official Journal notice

EU–Mercosur agreement status

The EU–Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement has been provisionally applied since 1 May 2026 between the European Union and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The start date was published in the EU's Official Journal in notice OJ L 2026/868 of 15 April 2026. Since that day, goods that qualify as originating can be imported at the preferential rates of the agreement's tariff schedules.

Provisional application is not the same as formal entry into force. The trade rules apply, but some legal steps are still pending. They're listed below.

Timeline

Date What happened
16 January 2026 The English texts of the agreement, including the tariff schedules, were published on Brazil's Siscomex portal.
17 January 2026 The Interim Trade Agreement was signed.
21 January 2026 The European Parliament asked the EU Court of Justice for an opinion on the agreement. That request is still pending.
15 April 2026 The EU published the notice on the date of provisional application (OJ L 2026/868).
20 April 2026 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/888 opened the EU's tariff quotas for Mercosur goods.
1 May 2026 Provisional application started. This is the first day of "year 0" of the tariff schedules.
29 September 2026 The Court of Justice dismissed Poland's request to suspend provisional application. Poland's action for annulment (Case C-460/26) continues.

What provisional application means for duties

The schedules count time in agreement years. Year 0 runs from 1 May to 31 December 2026. Year 1 is calendar 2027, and every later cut takes effect on 1 January. So a product in staging category 4 got its first 20% cut on 1 May 2026, gets the next one on 1 January 2027, and is duty-free from 1 January 2030.

Not every product moves at the same speed. On the EU side, 9,376 tariff lines are scheduled. About 5,090 of them were duty-free from day one (category 0), while 106 are excluded from any cut. On the Mercosur side, 10,029 lines are scheduled, and the largest group (about 3,520 lines) is phased out over ten years. Some sensitive products, like beef, poultry, rice and sugar into the EU, only get a preference inside tariff quotas.

You can see the exact path for a product, year by year, in the tariff calculator. The methodology page explains how it's worked out.

What's still open

Opinion of the Court of Justice. The European Parliament's request of 21 January 2026 hasn't been answered yet. Provisional application continues in the meantime.

Poland's annulment case. Poland challenged the Council decision on provisional application (Case C-460/26). Its request to suspend provisional application while the case runs was dismissed on 29 September 2026. The case itself is pending.

The wider Partnership Agreement. The interim agreement covers trade. The broader EU–Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA) still needs ratification before it can enter into force.

None of these steps changes the rates that apply today. If one of them does change something, we'll update this page and the calculator.

Official sources

Status checked on 18 October 2026. This page is general information, not legal advice.