Kraft paper and board is the packaging world's structural material — kraftliner and testliner are the fibres that become corrugated boxes, while sack kraft carries cement, food and chemicals. As e-commerce and packaging demand grow, so does the trade in it.
This page tracks the European Union's trade in uncoated kraft paper and paperboard (HS heading 4804 — kraftliner, sack kraft and other kraft grades) with the rest of the world, live from official data: the import and export unit values in euros per tonne (declared trade averages, not spot prices), the tonnes and value moving in and out, the trade balance, the euro–dollar rate, and which non-EU countries the EU buys its paper from. Paper is a useful contrast to plastics and metals: it enters the EU almost entirely duty-free, so the cost levers are pulp, energy and freight rather than tariffs. Below you'll find the tariff detail and the customs HS/CN codes. Other grades — newsprint (4801), uncoated printing (4802) and coated paper (4810) — sit under their own headings.
How this page is built. Every number above is fetched live in your browser from
Eurostat COMEXT (EU international trade in goods,
HS 4804) and the
European Central Bank (euro reference rates).
The unit value is the declared customs value divided by the net mass — a trade average across every shipment in the
month,
not a spot or contract quote; see
how customs unit
values differ from market prices. COMEXT publishes with roughly a two-month lag and revises earlier months, so the
latest point can move. Duty rates are indicative and come from the European Commission's TARIC / Access2Markets;
confirm the legal rate before you trade on it.
Worked example — illustrative FOB quote to landed cost
- Assume an illustrative supplier FOB quote of €760/t, excluding international freight and insurance. This is not the customs unit value above or a current supplier offer.
- Eurostat import values are already CIF: do not add international freight and insurance again.
- Add sea freight and insurance to a north-European port, say €85/t → CIF €845/t.
- Duty: most kraft paper and board enters the EU at 0% MFN from all origins, so nothing is added here. Check the duty table if you import a different grade or code.
- Add local handling and inland haulage, say €20/t.
Paper imports by origin country
Because paper is duty-free from almost everywhere, origin here is about supply and freight rather than tariffs. Explore individual suppliers:
For the month-by-month figures, see the EU paper import statistics, or the full paper import tariff explainer.
What the numbers mean
The "unit value" is the declared trade value divided by the net mass — a customs-derived average price, not a live market or contract quote. This page anchors on HS 4804 (kraft paper & board), the dominant traded packaging grade, so the figures track containerboard-type material rather than all of chapter 48. "Extra-EU" trade is trade with countries outside the EU. All figures come from Eurostat's COMEXT database and the European Central Bank, reused under their free-reuse terms with attribution, and update monthly with roughly a two-month lag. MatQuo is an analytical tool, not investment advice.