As announced as part of the Autumn Budget, and further detailed in Revenue & Customs Brief 14, there has been a change in how to account for VAT on the import of dental prostheses. Specifically, as a domestic sale of these goods is exempt from VAT when made by a registered dental professional, the VAT due on importing these goods has been changed to reflect this to ensure the movement of goods to Northern Ireland (defined as imports/exports as of 1st Jan 2021 under the Northern Ireland protocol) will be treated in the same manner as all other domestic supplies of these products.

This exemption entered law from 28th October 2021 and has been backdated to 1st January 2021. As a consequence of this retrospective application, any business that has imported qualifying goods (as defined by the commodity codes 9021 21 1000, 9021 21 9000 & 9021 29 0000) in 2021 will have overpaid import VAT that they should now seek to recover.

For further advice on the impact of this retrospective change and what it means for your business, in addition to the process for recouping incorrectly paid import VAT between 1st January 2021 and 27th October 2021, please contact our VAT team on our free helpline.