Is DDP cheaper than FOB for furniture imports?

Almost never on a container. A DDP price looks like one number, but it embeds freight marked up 10–25%, a duty estimate with a safety margin, and the supplier's financing cost. It also usually makes the supplier the importer of record, which means the VAT is not recoverable in your name and you have no visibility of the import declaration or the EUDR file. DDP is convenient for samples and small parcels, not for full containers.

Who is the importer of record under FOB?

You are. Under FOB the supplier delivers to the port and clears export; from the moment the goods are on board, freight, insurance, import clearance and duty are yours. That is the point: as importer of record you recover the import VAT, you hold the customs declaration, and you are the one who can produce the EUDR due diligence statement if the product contains wood.

What does CIF actually cost extra compared to FOB?

Typically 10–20% on the freight component, because the supplier buys freight at their own rate and bills it inside the CIF price. On a 40HQ from Ningbo to Hamburg with a market rate around USD 2,400, that markup is USD 240–480 per container — small in absolute terms, but it hides the real freight rate from you, so you cannot benchmark it or switch forwarders.

Does the Incoterm change the duty rate?

No. Duty is set by the HS code and the customs value, not by the Incoterm. What changes is who pays it and whether you can see it. Note that the customs value is normally the transaction value at the point of entry; under CIF terms freight and insurance are already inside that value, under FOB they are added at import — the total is similar, but the visibility is not.

FOB vs DDP for Furniture: Which Protects Your Margin?

Suppliers push DDP because it is easier to sell: one number, no questions. Importers accept it because it looks simple. Then the VAT cannot be recovered, the freight rate is invisible, and when EUDR arrives nobody can produce the file. Here is what each term really trades away.

The four terms, stripped down

Term	Supplier handles	You handle	Real cost of the term
EXW	Nothing past the factory gate	Export clearance, inland haulage, freight, insurance, import	Cheapest on paper, most work; only sensible with a China-based forwarder
FOB	Export clearance, inland haulage, loading on board	Ocean freight, insurance, duty, VAT, inland delivery	You see the true freight rate and recover the VAT. The default for containers
CIF	Freight and insurance to your port	Import clearance, duty, VAT, inland delivery	10–20% freight markup hidden in the price; you stop benchmarking freight
DDP	Everything, duty and delivery included	Nothing — but you are often not the importer of record	VAT usually not recoverable in your name, no declaration visibility, no EUDR file, no freight transparency

Where DDP quietly loses you money

Take a 40HQ of metal-frame dining chairs, FOB USD 28 per piece, 1,000 pieces. A DDP quote might come back at USD 34.50 landed to your warehouse — which looks like a clean USD 6,500 of logistics on a USD 28,000 order, about 23%.

Now build it up yourself: ocean freight USD 2,400, insurance 0.3% (USD 84), port and clearance about USD 530, inland delivery about USD 410. Total USD 3,424 — 12% of the order, not 23%. The difference, roughly USD 3,000 on one container, is freight markup, a duty estimate with a safety buffer, and the supplier's financing cost for paying the duty up front.

And the part nobody puts in the spreadsheet: under DDP the supplier is normally the importer of record. That means the import VAT — 19% in Germany, roughly USD 6,300 on this container — is recovered by them, not you. If your business is VAT-registered, you have just handed over a recoverable 6,300 to save yourself an hour of customs paperwork.

Where DDP is genuinely fine

Samples. Small parcels. Spare parts. Anything where the freight cost is smaller than the administrative cost of doing it yourself. Below roughly EUR 2,000 of goods value, DDP is usually the rational choice — the express carrier clears it and you move on with your day.

The line is containers. Above one pallet, the arithmetic and the compliance exposure both point to FOB.

What FOB actually requires from you

Four things, none of them difficult, all of them one-off:

1. An EORI number. Free, issued by the German Generalzolldirektion within a few working days. Without it you cannot be the importer at all.

2. VAT registration. Needed to recover import VAT. If you are not VAT-registered, DDP stops being a scam and starts being a rational choice — because you could not recover the VAT anyway.

3. A customs agent or filing setup. Most small importers use an agent for the first shipments: EUR 60–150 per declaration, and it removes a whole category of error. Switch to self-filing later if volume justifies it.

4. A forwarder relationship. Two quotes minimum, every booking. Freight rates move weekly; a supplier's "included" freight never moves down.

The compliance argument, which matters more from 2027

From 30 December 2026, wood-containing products placed on the EU market need an EUDR due diligence statement filed by the importer. If your supplier is the importer of record under DDP, that statement is theirs — and you have no legal standing to obtain or verify it. When your customer, your auditor or a customs follow-up asks for the file, you have nothing.

The same logic applies to product safety: under the EU General Product Safety Regulation the responsible economic operator must be established in the EU and able to produce technical documentation on request. Under DDP you may not be that operator and may not have the file.

Under FOB, none of this is ambiguous. You are the importer, the file is yours, and the supplier's job is to give you the documents that go into it. The EUDR document list →

The three questions that settle it

Is your business VAT-registered in the EU? If no, DDP is defensible. If yes, FOB is almost always cheaper by the VAT float plus the freight markup.

Does the product contain wood? If yes, you want to be the importer of record, because you are the one who has to hold the due diligence file.

Is the order above one pallet? If yes, the freight markup alone pays for the customs agent several times over.

What we quote: FOB, always, from both China and Vietnam, with the freight rate shown as a separate line so you can benchmark it against your own forwarder. We will quote CIF if you ask, and we will tell you what the markup is. We do not offer DDP on containers — it would make your compliance file our property, and that is not a service, it is a trap.

See both origins, both numbers, on one sheet

Send a SKU and a quantity. You get FOB China, FOB Vietnam, the freight line separately, and the landed cost per unit at your port — within 72 hours.

Request a quote → Compare landed cost →

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FOB vs DDP for furniture: which one actually protects your margin