THE PROCESS IN MOTION

What is looked at when a container of green coffee arrives at the port?

Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.

▶ Play the process01Unloading02The gas03The declaration04Without a certificate05The sample06The warehouse

Unloading

The container is set down on the dock. Each bag carries a lot-specific mark, required by the rules of the International Coffee Organization at export, with a certificate of origin. This is an obligation of the exporter toward its organization: no Union text read makes this certificate a condition of entry.

Read the stages without animation

1. UnloadingThe container is set down on the dock. Each bag carries a lot-specific mark, required by the rules of the International Coffee Organization at export, with a certificate of origin. This is an obligation of the exporter toward its organization: no Union text read makes this certificate a condition of entry.
2. The gasThe container may have been fumigated at departure, that is, treated with an insecticidal gas. Fumigation is done at origin; what the Union checks on imported beans is the residues, through maximum limits: 70 mg/kg of bromide ion, a trace of methyl bromide, 0.15 mg/kg of phosphine, 0.05 mg/kg of sulfuryl fluoride.
3. The declarationThe declarant enters code 0901 11 00 of the combined nomenclature, unroasted, non-decaffeinated coffee. The customs duty box shows “exemption,” whatever the origin. The duty rises with processing: 7.5% for roasted, 8.3% for decaffeinated green, 9% for decaffeinated roasted and instant.
4. Without a certificateA “phytosanitary certificate” box, the document of the plant protection service of the exporting country, stays empty, and no lamp lights up. The regulation requires it only for fresh coffee cherries. Green coffee therefore requires no passage through a border control post.
5. The sampleAn inspector picks this container, takes a sample and sends it to the laboratory; the others leave. Official controls on coffee are done according to risk, at the point of entry, at release for free circulation or in the warehouse. A residue found may be enough to refuse the lot.
6. The warehouseThe bag reaches the importer’s warehouse. Later, roasted in France, it will move from subheading 0901 11 to 0901 21 and become French for customs. For the label, never: consumer information law requires saying where the bean comes from.

To remember: Green coffee enters without duty, without a phytosanitary certificate or mandatory border post; controls are risk-based and focus mostly on residues.

In history: In history: methyl bromide has no longer been usable in the Union, even for quarantine, since March 18, 2011.

Read the full article and its sources ↓

State of the law as of October 21, 2026. One deadline falls after this date; it is at the end of the section.

Six lines of nomenclature

Every good that enters the Union is classified in the Combined Nomenclature (CN), Annex I to Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87, redone every year. The 2025 version was published by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2522 of September 23, 2024; the version consolidated as of January 1, 2026, reread for this section, keeps exactly the same rates for coffee (source 1; source 2). The column that counts is that of the “conventional duty,” the rate that the Union applies to member countries of the World Trade Organization that have no more favorable arrangement.

Duty rises with the degree of processing, which makes it more attractive to import the raw material and process it in Europe; economists see in this a protection of the European processing industry. The nomenclature gives no reason, it is content with the figures. The case of decaffeinated green is telling: decaffeinated at origin, the bean pays 8.3% on entry; decaffeinated in the Union, it paid no duty, because green enters exempt. The page Roasting at origin discusses what this calculation does to producing countries.

Preferences: the rate displayed is often not the one that is paid

The Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP, Regulation (EU) No 978/2012) modulates these rates according to the country of origin (source 3). In the general arrangement, roasted coffee, decaf and substitutes are classed as “sensitive” in Annex V, which reduces their duty by 3.5 points (Article 7, paragraph 2): 4% for roasted instead of 7.5%, by calculation of this pass. In the special arrangement known as GSP+, reserved for countries that apply conventions on human rights and the environment, all of chapter 9 is exempt (Article 12 and Annex IX). In the “Everything But Arms” initiative, intended for the least developed countries, all products except arms enter duty-free (Article 18): this is the case of Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi or Yemen, entered in Annex IV in the version consolidated as of January 1, 2025. The general scheme and GSP+ apply until December 31, 2027; the least-developed-countries initiative has no expiry date (Article 43, paragraph 3).

The big producers of Latin America and Asia mostly do not appear in these lists of beneficiaries: Colombia, Peru, Honduras or Vietnam are only “eligible” there (Annex I), because they trade with the Union through bilateral agreements whose tariff dismantling schedules were not read in this pass. In every case, the preference is acquired only by whoever proves preferential origin according to the rules specific to each arrangement, which are not those of the next paragraph.

Origin: two notions that do not coincide

So-called non-preferential origin, the one used for statistics, trade defense measures and marking, follows the rules of Annex 22-01 to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446, consolidated version of July 1, 2026 (source 4, chapter 9). Green coffee, decaffeinated or not, has the origin of the country where it was “obtained in the natural or unprocessed state”: a Colombian coffee decaffeinated in Germany remains Colombian. Roasted coffee follows the rule noted “CSP,” the change from another subheading to its own: roasting moves the bean from 0901 11 to 0901 21, and so gives it the origin of the country of roasting. For a blend, the origin is that of the materials that make up more than half the weight; if none reaches that, that of the country where the blend was made.

A Brazilian coffee roasted in France is therefore French for customs. It is not for the label: consumer information law forbids letting people believe in an origin that is not that of the main ingredient without saying so (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Article 26, and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/775, treated in sections 3 and 11). A notification of May 2026 to the Union’s rapid alert system for food (RASFF) shows the two origins side by side: a coffee “delivered by Italy, originating in Honduras” (case 1; source 12).

Value added tax: the bean, the cup, the machine

In France, coffee in beans, ground, in capsules or instant is a food intended for human consumption: its sale falls under the reduced rate of 5.5% value added tax (VAT) (General Tax Code, Article 278-0 bis, A, 1°) (source 5, § 1). The same cup changes rate according to how it is served. Takeaway or delivered sales of prepared products “for immediate consumption” fall under 10% (Article 279, n), and the Bulletin officiel des finances publiques (BOFiP) expressly places there “non-alcoholic beverages presented in non-airtight containers” and the products of vending machines in single portions (source 5, § 300 and 320). Consumption on the premises also falls under 10%, like catering (§ 300, Article 279, m). The Conseil d’État specified, on February 11, 2013 (No. 357348), that this rate applies only to sale to the final consumer, not to that from the manufacturer to the reseller (§ 315); the coffee beans that a roaster delivers to a bar remain an ordinary food at 5.5%.

Plant health: why green coffee passes without a phytosanitary certificate

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072, consolidated version of October 15, 2026, lists the plants that require a phytosanitary certificate, a document issued by the plant protection service of the exporting country. For coffee, a single line: “coffee cherries (other than beans), fresh, whole in the husk, unroasted” (source 6, Annex XI, Part B). Green beans are not there, and the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei), the main pest of the coffee plant, is named nowhere in the regulation. Consequence: green coffee belongs to none of the categories that require passage through a border control post (source 7, Article 47), and it does not appear either in the list of foods subject to increased controls on import, version consolidated as of June 30, 2026 (source 8). Official controls on coffee are therefore carried out “on a risk basis,” at the point of entry, at the place of release for free circulation or in the importer’s warehouse (source 7, Article 44, paragraphs 1 and 3).

Fumigation: what the border measures

A container of coffee may be fumigated, that is, treated with an insecticidal gas, at departure. In the Union, methyl bromide has no longer been usable, even for quarantine and pre-shipment treatments, since March 18, 2011; Regulation (EU) 2024/590 keeps only an emergency authorization, limited to 120 days and 20 tonnes (source 9, recital and Article 10). What the Union checks on imported beans is residues, through maximum residue limits (MRLs) set for coffee beans: 70 mg/kg (milligrams per kilo) of bromide ion, a trace left by methyl bromide, 0.15 mg/kg of phosphine, 0.05 mg/kg of sulfuryl fluoride (source 10). The MRL for phosphine was even raised for coffee in 2016, on the opinion of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (Regulation (EU) 2016/1785, recital 4).

The papers of a bag

The certificate of origin of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) is a rule of that organization, not of the Union. Its rules, revised on October 7, 2022, require that “each export of coffee, in all its forms,” from an exporting member country be covered by a certificate issued in the country of origin, that each bag carry a lot-specific mark, and that a copy be sent to the organization within 60 days (source 11, rules 3 and 4). Box 15 collects, on an optional basis, conformity with the standards of Resolution 420: no more than 86 defects per 300 g in arabica, 150 in “Robusta,” and a moisture content between 8 and 12.5% measured according to ISO 6673 of the International Organization for Standardization, coded “S,” “XD,” “XM” or “XDM”; importing countries “may notify” the organization of a coffee marked “S” that does not meet them (Annex V). No Union text read in this pass makes this certificate a condition of entry.

The other papers belong to other sections: the due diligence statement against deforestation (section 8), the inspection certificate for organic products (section 9), and incoterms, which say who pays for transport, insurance and formalities, treated by the economics plate.

The sources for this section

1. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2522 of September 23, 2024, Combined Nomenclature 2025, headings 0901 and 2101 · online · primary
2. Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87, Annex I, consolidated version of January 1, 2026 (CELEX 01987R2658-20260101), headings 0901 and 2101 · online · primary
3. Regulation (EU) No 978/2012, generalised scheme of preferences, consolidated version of January 1, 2025, Articles 7, 12, 18, 43 and Annexes I to V and IX · online · primary
4. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446, Annex 22-01, introductory notes and chapter 9, consolidated version of July 1, 2026 · online · primary
5. BOFiP, BOI-TVA-LIQ-30-10-10, version of November 19, 2025, § 1, 300, 310, 315, 320 · online · primary
6. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072, plant health, consolidated version of October 15, 2026, Annex XI · online · primary
7. Regulation (EU) 2017/625, official controls, Articles 44 and 47 (original version) · online · primary
8. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1793, increased import controls, consolidated version of June 30, 2026 (no occurrence of “coffee” or of “0901”) · online · primary
9. Regulation (EU) 2024/590 of February 7, 2024, substances that deplete the ozone layer, recitals and Article 10 · online · primary
10. Commission pesticides database (DG SANTE), API v3.0, product 0620000, queried on October 21, 2026: bromide ion (Regulation (EC) No 839/2008), phosphine (Regulation (EU) 2016/1785, read), sulfuryl fluoride (Regulation (EU) 2022/1321) · online · primary
11. ICO, Rules on Statistics, Certificates of Origin, ICC-102-9 Rev. 5, October 7, 2022, rules 3 and 4, Annex V (Resolution 420) · online · primary
12. RASFF Window, public search, subject “coffee,” queried on October 21, 2026 · online · primary