DDP – Delivered Duty Paid (Incoterm)

The Incoterm DDP stands for ‘Delivered Duty Paid’. It applies to all types of transport and is one of the so-called arrival clauses.

Here, the seller bears all costs and risks up to the agreed destination.  The seller only fulfils their delivery obligation when they make the goods available for unloading on the arriving means of transport. The seller must clear the goods for export. They are also obligated to clear the goods for import, obtain all necessary permits and pay all customs duties, taxes and other import charges.

The unloading costs and the risk of unloading are usually borne by the buyer. In supply contracts where the transfer of risk is only to take place after unloading (e.g. in the case of air freight), this should be expressly agreed upon.

• With DDP, the seller, who is both the exporter in the country of dispatch and the importer in the country of destination, bears all political risks (moratoriums, punitive tariffs, etc.).
• The buyer must be aware that they may not be able to effectively reclaim the import VAT paid by the seller.
• Please note that when calculating the statistical value, all transport costs incurred after leaving the EU external border must be deducted from the value of the goods.

This clause should therefore only be used in justified exceptional cases.