Quick answer: This is about buying Japanese stock for resale (stationery, adult apparel, and kitchen and dining goods), not about importing a car. On a wholesale order from Japan you are the importer, so import duty and import VAT are yours to pay at import, and the rate comes from the commodity code you look up in the UK Trade Tariff. The practical blocker sits earlier than the rate. To place an order from Japan to the UK on orosy you must supply either a GB EORI number or a UK VAT number, and an order without one is stopped. You do not need that number to sign up. You need it at the point of ordering.
Key takeaways
- Not every destination asks for a tax number before the order goes through. For a UK delivery address the orosy order form does, and it accepts either a GB EORI number or a UK VAT number.
- The number is needed at order time, not at sign-up. Signing up and getting through review happen first, with no number and no card.
- You are the importer of record. Import duty, import VAT and customs clearance are yours, and they are not part of the cost billed by orosy.
- Rates come from the commodity code, not from a flat figure. Look each product line up in the UK Trade Tariff before you work out a selling price.
- Measured on 9 October 2026, over 90,000 products were available for delivery to the United Kingdom: stationery, adult apparel, and kitchen and dining goods. Liquids, sprays and children's clothing do not ship.
The step that stops a first UK order: a tax number at order time
Search for import duty on goods from Japan and you get rate explainers. The government pages set out the rates and the EORI rules. What they cannot tell you is what the order form itself asks for: for a delivery address in the United Kingdom, the order asks for a tax number before it will go through.
On orosy, a cross-border order carries a tax number for the destination country. For a UK delivery address that number is required, and the order form accepts either of two:
- a GB EORI number, or
- a UK VAT number.
Supply one and the order proceeds. Supply neither and the order stops with an error.
This requirement is not the same in every country. Measured against the production cross-border eligibility check on 9 October 2026, the eight destinations we checked looked like this. It is not a complete list of where orosy ships.
| Where you receive the goods | Tax number required to place the order | Numbers accepted |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Yes | GB EORI number or UK VAT number |
| EU countries (measured with Germany) | Yes | EU EORI number or EU VAT number |
| South Korea | Yes | Business registration number or personal customs clearance code |
| United States | No | EIN accepted if you hold one |
| Canada | No | Business Number accepted if you hold one |
| Australia | No | ABN accepted if you hold one |
| Taiwan | No | Unified business number accepted if you hold one |
| New Zealand | No | No number type accepted |
A UK buyer and a US buyer ordering the same stationery are not doing the same paperwork: for a US address the order goes through without a number, and for a UK address it does not.
What an EORI number is, in one sentence
An EORI number is an Economic Operators Registration and Identification number, the reference identifying a business that moves goods across a customs border. GOV.UK publishes who needs one and how to apply on its EORI number page, which lists the movements of goods that may require one.
We will not reproduce the eligibility rules here, because they turn on your own movements of goods and GOV.UK states them properly. Nor will we tell you whether your business should register for VAT: that is a question for HMRC guidance or your accountant, not for a sourcing guide.
The sequence is the part that trips people up. You can sign up, get through business review, browse the catalog and build a cart with no number at all. The number is asked for when you place the order. If you are starting from scratch, apply for the number while your account is in review.
Duty and VAT: who pays, and where the rate comes from
orosy sells on DAP terms (delivered at place: orosy arranges delivery to your address, and import duty and clearance stay with you), and the buyer is the importer of record. Import duty, import VAT and customs fees are payable by you at import and are not part of the product price or the shipping charge. Customs clearance in your country, import duties, and taxes at import are your responsibility. They are not part of the cost billed by orosy.
For the rate, there is one place to look. The UK government's Trade Tariff service exists to find a commodity code for goods you are importing to or exporting from the UK, and it also tells you whether duty or VAT applies to that code. We do not publish rates in this article. A mixed basket of notebooks, aprons and ceramic mugs is three classification questions rather than one, and a figure attached to the wrong code is worse than none.
If you want the arithmetic of a landed-cost model worked through line by line, our guide to importing Japanese products does that for a US importer. The structure of the model carries over to a UK order; its tariff mechanics do not, because they describe the US schedule.
UK–Japan CEPA: preference depends on origin evidence
The United Kingdom and Japan have a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and preferential tariff treatment can apply to goods that meet the agreement's origin requirements. Claiming it depends on having the origin evidence the agreement calls for, which is a question about each product and its documentation rather than a blanket discount on anything shipped from Japan. GOV.UK collects the business guidance, explainers and treaty information on its UK–Japan CEPA page.
Where a listing shows country-of-origin detail, it can differ part by part within one product, which is why origin is a per-line question. We do not state a rate and we do not tell you that a given product qualifies. orosy does not make an origin claim on your behalf. If preference matters to the margin on a line, raise it with your customs agent before the first order rather than after.
Product compliance for the UK market sits with you
As the importer placing goods on the UK market, product compliance is yours: labelling, safety requirements and, for anything that touches food, food-contact material rules. Our Japanese kitchenware guide for UK and EU retailers goes through those checks against the government sources.
None of this is legal, tax or customs advice. Where your own circumstances decide the answer, the guidance linked above and your own adviser are the authorities.
What a UK shop can actually order
Three product groups ship from Japan to the United Kingdom: stationery, adult apparel, and kitchen and dining goods. Measured on 9 October 2026, that came to over 90,000 products available for delivery to the United Kingdom.
The counts below are what the catalog returned for a UK delivery address on 9 October 2026. Each is tied to the search term used. Each figure is a minimum, and it moves as suppliers add products.
| Search term | What it means | Products for UK delivery |
|---|---|---|
| 文房具 | stationery | Over 52,000 |
| 皿 | plates | Over 6,100 |
| ノート | notebooks | Over 4,100 |
| エプロン | aprons | Over 2,900 |
| マグ | mugs | Over 1,700 |
| ボールペン | ballpoint pens | Over 1,500 |
| 箸 | chopsticks | Over 600 |
| 急須 | teapots | Over 300 |
| タオル | towels | Over 240 |
Australia and New Zealand return the same totals as the UK. The United States returns a much smaller catalog, over 50,000 products, because only stationery ships there. If you receive goods at a point inside Japan instead, the catalog is about 200,000 products.
What does not ship. Liquids and sprays, including detergents, alcohol and oils, are held back regardless of destination. Children's and baby clothing does not ship, which is why the clothing on offer is adult apparel only. Products whose export classification is not yet settled stay out of the international catalog until it is settled.
For the depth of each range, two companion guides go subcategory by subcategory: Japanese kitchenware wholesale for UK and EU retailers and Japanese adult apparel wholesale for the UK, EU and Australia.
Searching when you do not read Japanese
You can search in English. An English search term is mapped to Japanese search terms, so "towel" finds Japanese towel listings. Two limits come with that. Only the search term is translated: product names and descriptions come back in Japanese. And the mapping does not hit for every word, so some things are easier to find with the Japanese term, which is why the table above lists them. For the vocabulary a Japanese supplier uses on a price list, see Japanese wholesale terms explained.
How ordering works, start to finish
Many Japanese suppliers sell through channels built for Japanese retailers, each with its own account process and minimums. orosy negotiates with each supplier and opens the accounts, so a basket drawn from several of them is one account, one cart and one invoice. orosy arranges international shipping to your country. You do not need a forwarder or a receiving point in Japan. Delivery to a receiving point inside Japan also remains available. The Japanese marketplace behind it has 5,000+ brands, which join this catalog over time.
Signing up: the eight fields on the form
The sign-up form asks for eight things:
- Your email address
- A password
- Your company name
- Your business website URL
- A description of what your business does
- The country your business is in
- Your main delivery destination country
- Agreement to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
The business website URL is required, because the review is based on it. If you have no site of your own, a shop page on a platform or a business account on social media is acceptable.
The main delivery destination country is worth a moment. It becomes the default destination for the catalog afterwards, so a UK buyer has the United Kingdom already selected and switches it at the top of the screen rather than configuring it later. After the form you confirm your email with a code, then log in.
Registration and use are free: no set-up fee, no monthly fee, and no credit card to sign up. A card does have to be registered before you can place a real order. Those are two separate moments.
Review, then real prices
Before your first order, orosy verifies your business. Most accounts are approved within about 10 minutes if the sign-up email domain matches the business website or the email is listed on it; otherwise, verification is normally completed within 12 hours.
While the review is pending you can search and place test orders in test mode. Real products and wholesale prices open once you are approved. One account in Germany went from sign-up to a confirmed production order in four days, which we wrote up in from sign-up to first order in four days.
Delivery groups, minimums and the shipping figure
A delivery group is orosy's unit for products that ship together from the same source. Shipping fees, any free-shipping threshold and the minimum order amount are set per delivery group. A UK order that mixes pens from a stationery supplier with mugs from a tableware supplier is two delivery groups, and each has to clear its own minimum before the order can go through.
Before you order, the cart shows a reference figure for international shipping, for your information only. The actual shipping cost is calculated later and billed to you, and it can differ from that figure.
Payment and delivery
Payment is by credit card only, charged when stock is confirmed. You are not billed for items that turn out to be unavailable.
Delivery goes to a business address: a shop, warehouse or office. orosy does not deliver to consumers. You can list products in your own shop before you buy them. The goods are delivered to your business address, and you pack and ship them to your customer yourself.
For damaged, mis-shipped or short-quantity items, contact orosy within 5 days of receipt for a replacement or refund, as the Terms of Use provide in Article 10.
Ordering through an AI client
Connect from an MCP-capable AI client that lets you set an Authorization header, Claude Code for example. The agent searches, compares and builds the cart. It stops and shows you the order total, and you place the order.
Who is ordering this way today
As of 28 September 2026, over 476 businesses had signed up, over 307 had passed review, and over 48 had issued an API key. Production orders have come in through all three ways of ordering: the portal screen, an AI assistant over MCP, and a direct API integration (as of 29 September 2026).
The sequence for a first UK order
A first UK order runs in this sequence. The number sits at step four, not step one.
- Sign up. Eight fields, no card, no tax number. Set your main delivery destination country to the United Kingdom.
- Get through review. About 10 minutes if your sign-up email matches your website, otherwise normally within 12 hours. Real prices open at this point.
- Build the basket and classify it. Look up the commodity code for each product line in the UK Trade Tariff, and check each delivery group's minimum order amount. Listings carry material and country-of-origin detail for some products, in Japanese; where it is missing, your customs agent will ask the supplier or you. Read the shipping reference figure in the cart for scale.
- Have your GB EORI number or UK VAT number ready. Either one is accepted. Apply for the EORI number while your account is in review if you do not already hold one.
- Register a card and place the order. You are charged when stock is confirmed, and only for what ships.
Then the import side begins, and it is yours: clearance, duty and import VAT at the border, and compliance for anything you put on a shelf. Planning for it before the first order is cheaper than meeting it at the border.
FAQ
Do I need an EORI number to import Japanese products into the UK for resale?
To place a wholesale order from Japan to the UK through orosy, yes: you need one of two numbers. The order form asks for either a GB EORI number or a UK VAT number, and an order submitted without one is stopped. You do not need the number to sign up or to browse the catalog, only at the point of ordering. GOV.UK sets out who needs an EORI number and how to apply at gov.uk/eori. Whether your own business is required to hold one is a question for that guidance or your accountant.
Can I give a UK VAT number instead of a GB EORI number when I order?
On the orosy order form, yes: it accepts either one, so if you are VAT registered you can supply that. Only one of the two is needed. This is what the order form requires, not a statement about what HMRC requires of your business at the border, which depends on your own circumstances.
Who pays the import duty and the import VAT on a wholesale order from Japan?
You do. Sales are on DAP terms and the buyer is the importer of record. Import duty, import VAT and customs fees are payable by you at import and are not part of the product price or the shipping charge. Customs clearance in your country, import duties, and taxes at import are your responsibility. They are not part of the cost billed by orosy. The rate itself depends on the commodity code for each product line, which you look up in the UK Trade Tariff.
What can a UK shop actually order from Japan today?
Three groups ship to the UK: stationery, adult apparel, and kitchen and dining goods. Measured on 9 October 2026, that was over 90,000 products available for delivery to the United Kingdom. Liquids and sprays such as detergents, alcohol and oils do not ship, nor do children's and baby clothing, nor products whose export classification is not yet settled. The catalog for delivery inside Japan is larger, at about 200,000 products.
Is the shipping figure shown before I order the final cost?
No. Before you order, the cart shows a reference figure for international shipping, for your information only. The actual shipping cost is calculated later and billed to you, and it can differ from that figure. Import duty, import VAT and customs fees sit outside both numbers and are paid by you at import.
Sources
- Get an EORI number, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/eori
- Trade Tariff: look up commodity codes, duty and VAT rates, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff
- UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-japan-comprehensive-economic-partnership-agreement