UK Quota Tracker

The UK steel safeguard (now termed a steel trade measure) sets a tariff-rate quota for each of 20 or so steel product categories. Imports within the quota enter at the normal rate of duty. Once a quota for a category and origin is exhausted, further imports of that product from that origin pay the out-of-quota safeguard duty (50% under the measures in force since July 2026) until the next quota period opens.

Quotas run in quarterly periods: 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October. Each period opens with a fresh volume for every category and origin. Unused residual volume does not carry forward in the current measure.

Each category has country-specific quotas for the largest historic suppliers (for example the EU, Turkey, India, South Korea) and a residual quota shared by all other countries. The residual pool is usually the first to run out, which matters for origins such as Vietnam, North Macedonia, the UAE or Malaysia that have no allocation of their own in most categories.

From July 2026 hot rolled sheet and strip (Category 1) has a second, much larger quota reserved for importers holding an authorised use (end-use) authorisation, typically processors re-rolling or coating the material in the UK. It runs alongside the standard Category 1 quota under order numbers 058673 to 058675.

Every figure on this page is read live from the UK Trade Tariff API published by HMRC and the Department for Business and Trade under the Open Government Licence v3.0, using quota order numbers 058600 to 058675. Nothing is estimated except the straight-line "projected to exhaust" date.

Hot rolled coil, sheet and strip; metallic coated (galvanised) sheet; organic coated (PPGI) sheet; tin mill products; quarto plate; merchant bar and light sections; rebar; stainless bar and wire rod; wire rod; angles, shapes and structural sections; railway material; gas pipe; hollow sections (SHS, RHS, CHS); large and other welded tubes; cold finished bar and non-alloy wire.