EU Enlargement

Created on 10 August 2006   Last Modified on the 19th of August 2010

The process of enlarging the European Union has assumed greater significance for the travel retail trade following the abolition of intra-EU duty and tax paid sales in July 1999. As new Member States join the EU, all travel retail sales after the date of accession have to be on a duty and tax paid basis, rather than duty and tax-free. The most significant date in this process was 1st May 2004, when ten new countries joined the EU, taking the total number of Member States to 25 at that time. Since then, Bulgaria and Romania have also joined the EU, on 1st January 2007, thus giving a current total of 27 Member States.

The EU has also commenced accession negotiations with both Turkey and Croatia, but these are unlikely to be completed for some years yet. Other candidate countries for Membership are Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Iceland, but these have not yet commenced formal negotiations. The full list of current EU Member States is provided in the FAQ section of this site, under the heading 'Why are some goods duty-free and others duty-paid?'

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