Valuation of E-Сommerce Goods Imported Into the Customs Territory of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)

The increases in cross-border electronic commerce (e-commerce) over the past decade have generated enormous opportunities for the global economy by providing new cross-border transactions, prompting development of new business models, driving new consumption trends, and creating new jobs. E-commerce has become a game changer for international trade while also giving rise to a wide range of challenges for customs regulation and methodology all over the world. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is no exception, and its members have been working on amendments to the union’s Customs Code since 2021. One of the greatest challenges is arriving at valuations. It may seem that e-commerce is merely another form of trade, but the authors maintain that we need to acknowledge the changes it brings to the trade environment and provide solutions that deal with them. Suitable valuation of e-commerce goods is a crucial element in those solutions. The authors propose separate e-commerce valuation approaches for the different business models in e-commerce: business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-warehouse-to-consumer (BWC). In order to respond to existing and emerging challenges in revenue collection, particularly for the large number of relatively low-value and small-scale cross-border e-commerce transactions, the authors recommend using sales value for the B2C model and customs value for the BWC model, and they offer their views on how to assign the sales value and the customs value of e-commerce goods. Although the authors’ proposals are largely reflected in Article 309 entitled “Value of e-commerce goods purchased by natural persons” of the protocol adopted in December 2023, it should be noted that this approach constitutes a fundamentally new kind of customs regulation. In it such constructions as “information on the final value” may be interpreted as establishing the price of goods solely according to the value set in the marketplace. However, such an interpretation will inevitably run the risk of conflicts between buyers of goods and e-commerce operators, on the one hand, and customs authorities, on the other.

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