Help
Sideboard: setting up your query
Finding the right product code
Custom codes are series of digits corresponding to product ranges. Shorter codes (2–4 digits) give you broad product categories. Longer codes (6–8 digits) give you more specific products.
The search box on the landing page proposes custom codes based on their official definition in the Combined Nomenclature. Everyday terms do not always line up with the exact wording used by customs. The full nomenclature applicable in the current year can also be browsed directly from the landing page.
This nomenclature does not include some of the more detailed codes used by customs officers and businesses at the border. No publically available data exists for those. Thus, the website will return an error if you try a code outside of the permissible range.
If nothing relevant comes up, you can use a search engine to find a code. There are various free websites which allow you to browse custom nomenclatures from the EU or other countries. Look for "Combined nomenclature + product_name".You can also browse the official EU website for the Combined nomenclature.
Here is what to know:
- Up to the sixth digit, EU custom codes are based onto the international Harmonized System (HS) developed by the World Customs Organisation.
- Up to the eighth digit, custom codes are based on an EU's specific system called Combined Nomenclature (CN) system.
- Custom codes up to the fourteenth digit are defined by the TARIC system. TARIC stands for TARif Intégré Communautaire. It was created shortly after the CN in order to streamline the various national custom codes systems across EEC Member States.
Two concrete examples. A Ferrari is a “motor vehicle principally designed for the transport of under 10 persons” (code 8703) with a petrol engine over 3,000 cm³ (sub-code 8703 24). Likewise, “Unleaded 95” is found under “motor spirit, with a lead content <= 0,013 g/l, with a research octane number (RON) of >= 95 but < 98 (excl. containing biodiesel)” (code 2710 12 45).
Custom country groups
Both the Reporter and Partner set dropdowns have a Custom… option at the bottom. They also have a search box at the top to quickly filter by name.
- Custom reporter group: select Custom… in the Reporter dropdown. A checklist of all potential reporters appears. Tick the ones you want. The dashboard will aggregate their trade as a single group. Available reporters are all EU member states as well as, depending on the exact customs codes, some of the EU's neighbouring countries.
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Custom partner selection: select
Custom… in the Partner set dropdown. A
searchable checklist of all available countries appears.
This includes both EU and non-EU countries. Thus, you
can visualise exports from Germany to France just as
well as those from Germany to China.
If you select more than eight countries, the dashboard will rank the partners by trade volume and display only the top ones among your selection. This is for legibility purposes, as stacked bar charts with more than 8 categories are visually not appealing.
Price outlier removal
When 'Remove' is selected (the default), a period's unit price (€/t) is discarded only when it exceeds 20 times the median unit price of its own product–reporter–partner–flow series, before the weighted averages are computed. This catches the isolated, misreported or abnormally small shipment whose extreme unit value would otherwise make a chart's scale unreadable, while leaving genuine price trends and volatility untouched.
Toggle to Keep if you want to see the raw unfiltered prices.
Saving query parameters
Every time you click Apply, the full query (product code, reporter, partners, period, frequency, outlier setting, exact tab and colour palette) is saved in the page URL. You can copy the URL from your browser's address bar and share it. Anyone opening that link will see the same dashboard configuration and results.
Charts: explore and export
The 100 and % toggles
Line charts have a small 100 button in their top-right corner. Clicking it rebases all series so that the first data point equals 100. This makes it easy to compare relative changes over time between series that have very different absolute levels (e.g. import vs. export prices). Click the button again to switch back to absolute values.
Stacked bar charts have a % button that switches to percentage-share view, showing each entity's proportion of the total rather than absolute values.
Both toggles reset automatically when you run a new query.
Downloading data
Charts with entity breakdowns (partners, reporters, trade
balance) have a Table button that flips the
chart to reveal a full ranking of up to 50 entities.
From that table view you can click Excel to
download an .xlsx file with two sheets:
Metadata (product code, description, reporter, partner set,
period, frequency, source, and export timestamp) and Data
(the data from the graph). Click ✕ to flip
back to the chart view.
Every chart also has a PNG button that downloads an image containing basic metadata. You can also take screenshots. Otherwise feel free to contact me if you want purpose-built graphs for your reports or presentations.
Automate the download of data and indicators from this website
The backend of this website is independent from its frontend. It is possible to use the backend independently, by programmatically requesting data from the server directly.
API endpoints are documented in this file (machine-readable format) and this file (human-readable format). There is also an MCP server available at mcp.tradedashboard.eu. Authorised MCP clients are whitelisted to prevent abuse.
Usage limits
Without an account, you can freely explore the demonstration products featured on the front page — fully, on every view of the dashboard, the API and the MCP tools.
Every other customs code requires you to register with your email address. Registration is free and currently grants unlimited access, including a personal API key for scripts and MCP tools, and queries spanning several codes at once. A per-minute rate limit also applies to prevent abuse.