Using a 3PL in another country

Last updated October 21, 2026

Hiring a third-party logistics provider at home is mostly an operational decision. In a country where you have no entity, no staff and no customs history, it’s a legal and tax decision as well, and a good warehouse can still leave you with goods stuck at the border or a contract you can’t get out of. The same questions come up for a US brand opening a European stock point, a European brand moving into Turkey or the Gulf, or any other pairing. The examples cite US, EU and UK rules because those are well documented. None of this is legal or tax advice; confirm the specifics with a licensed customs broker in the destination country.

Who imports the goods

Settle this before anything else. Every commercial import needs a party that declares the goods and is liable for the duty. In the US that’s the importer of record. In the EU and UK it’s the declarant, sometimes acting through a representative. Whoever it is answers to customs for classification, valuation and origin.

A foreign brand usually has three routes. The first is importing in your own name, which many countries allow with conditions. In the US, a corporation incorporated outside the customs territory can only enter goods for consumption if it has a resident agent authorized to accept service of process and files a bond with a resident surety.

The second is a representative. In the EU, a business with no EU establishment normally clears through an indirect customs representative, which lodges the declaration in its own name on your behalf and shares liability for the duty. Expect it to price that risk and ask for a guarantee or deposit. The third is letting the 3PL or a related service act for you. Some providers offer importer-of-record or “fiscal representation” services, and you should read exactly what liability they accept. A provider that files in its own name will want control over classification decisions and documentation.

Registration numbers come next. An EU EORI number is mandatory for customs operations in the EU, and a non-EU business that lodges declarations applies in the member state where it plans its first customs operation. The UK runs its own EORI scheme. If you’ll hold stock and sell locally, you’ll usually need a VAT or sales-tax registration too, which is a separate process on its own timeline.

Then ask how inbound containers actually get cleared. Some providers have licensed brokers on staff, others use a regular partner, and some expect you to appoint your own. Any of these can work if the hand-offs are clear. Find out who prepares and checks the commercial invoice, packing list and origin documents, and how far in advance. Find out who maintains your customs master data (tariff codes, origin, descriptions and values), because a mistake there repeats on every shipment. Ask whether the warehouse can receive goods still under customs control; if duty suspension could help, see bonded warehouses and FTZs. And ask who pays demurrage and storage when a container is held for examination. A site’s transport links deserve as much scrutiny as the building.

Duties, VAT and returns

Import taxes decide whether a cross-border model makes money, and the rules for small e-commerce parcels have changed repeatedly. Check the current position for your lane before you build a forecast.

B2B sales work differently. Business buyers typically account for VAT themselves, and duty follows normal tariff rates. If you run both flows, make sure the 3PL’s systems can tell them apart.

Returns are where cross-border operations quietly lose money. Before signing, find out whether returns come back to the in-country warehouse or to your home market, since sending them home means a second export and import. Agree what happens to returned stock, whether that’s restocking, refurbishing, liquidating locally or destroying it, and have a written grading standard for each. Ask how you’ll recover duty or VAT paid on goods that are later re-exported or refunded. Most systems allow it, but only with records linking the return to the original import. Ask, too, how fast returns get processed. A backlog delays customer refunds.

Systems, contacts and currency

Orders have to reach the warehouse without anyone re-keying them. Ask which warehouse management system (WMS) the provider runs and how you connect to it. Most providers expose an API, and large retail customers may require EDI; either way, ask for documentation and a test environment before you sign. Check whether the 3PL has working connectors for your local marketplaces or relies on middleware you’d pay for separately. You need stock by SKU, lot and status (available, damaged, quarantined, in customs) in near real time. Order, customer and inventory data should belong to you and be exportable in a usable format when you leave. The guide to warehouse KPIs lists metrics worth putting in the reporting pack.

Language, time zones and currency sound like soft issues until something breaks on a Friday afternoon in one country and Saturday morning in the other. Agree a working language for contracts, SOPs and incident reports, and meet your day-to-day contact. Check how much your working hours overlap, and define how urgent issues get escalated outside that window. Decide the invoice currency as well. Billing in the provider’s currency puts the exchange-rate risk on you; billing in yours puts it on them, and they’ll price it in. Ask how surcharges and annual increases are set.

Liability and the contract

Most warehouse contracts cap the provider’s liability well below the value of the goods. Under US law, for example, a warehouse is liable for losses caused by its failure to take reasonable care, but damages can be limited by a term in the storage agreement, with higher limits available on request at a higher rate. Other countries have different defaults. Find out what the cap is, buy your own stock insurance for the gap, and check that the policy covers goods held by a third party abroad.

Give the exit terms as much attention as the pricing. Look at the notice period and any minimum-volume or minimum-term commitments. Look at the provider’s lien over your goods for unpaid charges, and at how invoice disputes are handled without freezing inventory. You’ll want handover support when you go: a final stock count, a data export and cooperation with the next provider. Check the governing law and the forum for disputes. If you’re still deciding between shared and dedicated setups, public vs contract warehousing compares the two.

Site visit and pilot

A video call isn’t a site visit. Walk the building at short notice with a structured facility checklist. Look at housekeeping, racking condition, how damaged and quarantined stock is segregated, and security, and watch whether floor staff follow the processes the sales team described. For temperature-controlled goods, ask for temperature mapping and alarm records; cold storage temperatures covers both.

Then run a pilot on a limited range of SKUs or one sales channel. It should cover receiving, a normal week of orders, at least one returns cycle and one full invoice. Agree beforehand what success looks like.

Questions to ask

The table below pulls the questions together for provider calls. To build a shortlist, the directory lists providers by country and city from public information, and the glossary explains the trade terms used here.

If something here is wrong or out of date, please let us know.