Adapt your company to Brexit

The Community of Madrid, in collaboration with the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services of Madrid, offers through this portal useful information so that Madrid companies can learn about the impact of Brexit and the measures they can adopt to face it with greater guarantees and less risk Withdrawal Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Although said Agreement and the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU took place in January 2020, as of January 1, 2021, the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union is based on the "Trade and Cooperation Agreement", that despite being an ambitious agreement, it represents an important change for citizens, companies and administrations of the EU and the United Kingdom.

In 2022, the United Kingdom still represents the fourth destination market for Madrid exports, behind Belgium, Portugal and France. During the year 2021, the accumulated sales to the United Kingdom from the Community amounted to 3.257,1 million euros, equaling the exports of the year 2019, which reached a value of 3.200 million euros. Among the sectors that stand out in 2021, the importance of precious metals and jewelery items (which reached 47%), followed at a distance by machines and mechanical devices (8%) and pharmaceutical products (7%), and the traditional of vehicles and automotive components (7%).

In 2021, the region received 2.121 million euros from the British country, which represents 85,5% of the total investment of this country in Spain. Despite the slowdown that has occurred in 2021, as in the entire country, the Community of Madrid will foreseeably recover the figures for 2022 in 2019 (the last year before Brexit and the pandemic). Despite a slight decrease in 2021, according to the statistics of the Secretary of State for Commerce, during 2020 the United Kingdom became the first destination for investment from Madrid abroad, with almost €2.500 million, which means that more than 20% of investment from Madrid ends up in the United Kingdom.

There are currently some 1.150 exporting companies from the Community of Madrid to the United Kingdom, of which some 600 are considered regular exporters. Therefore, the companies in the aforementioned sectors are the ones that have been most affected, especially in terms of the administrative procedures involved in exporting as customs formalities, the imposition of tariffs, and possible controls sanitary and phytosanitary. Some SMEs have also been affected by liquidity problems caused by the delay in export procedures and therefore in the collection of invoices. We also have important implications such as the need to request prior authorization for certain investments, the request for prior authorization for regulated activities, obtaining UK markings, or the application of safeguard measures in the transfer of personal data from the European Union to the United Kingdom, among others…

The Community of Madrid, aware of the importance of supporting the internationalization process of the region's economy, makes available to all interested companies the Internationalization Single Window (VUI), an office of personalized attention that works to offer information and comprehensive advice on the existing public support instruments with the aim of coping with the impacts of Brexit and reinforcing the internationalization capacity of the Madrid business sector.

Among other actions, and in addition to the personalized advisory service for all companies that have commercial or investment relations with the United Kingdom, the Internationalization Single Window offers timely information on the different institutional supports state, regional or municipal, offers specific seminars at a sectoral or thematic level (for example, to obtain the British Retail Consortium certificate, of great interest to the commercial, agri-food and consumer sectors), and organizes international missions with the aim of supporting the opening of alternative destination markets.