Europe’s anti-dumping duty on Chinese titanium dioxide did what it was designed to do in 2025 — imports of the pigment from China fell 42.7% — and then stopped working. In the twelve months to August 2026, EU imports from China ran 30.5% above the previous twelve months while the average declared value of those shipments fell 10.0% to EUR 1,891 per tonne — a level at which the fixed EUR 0.74/kg duty equals 39.1% of the declared value, against 33.8% when the measure was imposed. That is the fact pattern the European Commission opened an absorption reinvestigation to test on 25 August 2026. For buyers, the rate that matters is the individual one attached to the shipper, not the headline rate.
Data updated: 2026-10-22
Latest 12 months: volumes recover, declared values fall
The table below covers EU27 imports of titanium dioxide pigment under CN 3206 11 00 from outside the EU, monthly, from September 2025 to August 2026 — the latest twelve months published by Eurostat (dataset released 16 October 2026). The Chinese column is the same series filtered to imports declared as originating in China.
| Month | Total volume (t) | Total value (EUR m) | Total unit value (EUR/t) | From China (t) | China unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09 | 46,731 | 109.7 | 2,348 | 11,683 | 1,961 |
| 2025-10 | 37,784 | 88.8 | 2,351 | 8,091 | 1,923 |
| 2025-11 | 34,927 | 79.7 | 2,281 | 7,676 | 1,864 |
| 2025-12 | 30,502 | 67.3 | 2,206 | 12,832 | 1,849 |
| 2026-01 | 41,237 | 92.4 | 2,240 | 11,421 | 1,804 |
| 2026-02 | 43,654 | 97.7 | 2,238 | 13,605 | 1,821 |
| 2026-03 | 47,675 | 108.0 | 2,266 | 12,168 | 1,770 |
| 2026-04 | 51,873 | 116.7 | 2,250 | 20,686 | 1,808 |
| 2026-05 | 49,245 | 111.0 | 2,254 | 18,159 | 1,828 |
| 2026-06 | 52,981 | 121.7 | 2,296 | 16,925 | 1,946 |
| 2026-07 | 47,042 | 112.0 | 2,380 | 14,072 | 2,069 |
| 2026-08 | 33,575 | 83.0 | 2,473 | 9,114 | 2,173 |
Three things stand out. First, the recovery is concentrated in the second quarter: Chinese volumes ran 51.0% above April 2025 in April 2026, 60.1% above May 2025 in May 2026 and 41.6% above June 2025 in June 2026. Second, the price direction reversed in the summer: Chinese declared values bottomed at EUR 1,770/t in March 2026 and climbed back to EUR 2,173/t in August. Third, August is seasonally weak in both series, so the 33,575 t total should not be read as a demand collapse — the same month was 34,502 t in 2025.
Annual comparison: the duty year versus the recovery year
| Origin | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | 2025 share | Latest 12 months (t) | Latest share | Latest unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 213,379 | 122,217 | 25.1% | 156,433 | 30.2% | 1,891 |
| Mexico | 82,780 | 101,801 | 20.9% | 115,504 | 22.3% | 2,142 |
| United Kingdom | 117,354 | 117,468 | 24.1% | 84,793 | 16.4% | 2,785 |
| United States | 69,467 | 60,900 | 12.5% | 45,172 | 8.7% | 2,457 |
| Saudi Arabia | 25,110 | 32,924 | 6.8% | 41,004 | 7.9% | 2,489 |
| Australia | 17,738 | 22,009 | 4.5% | 37,289 | 7.2% | 2,584 |
| Norway | 20,924 | 23,436 | 4.8% | 22,769 | 4.4% | 2,611 |
| Extra-EU total | 551,922 | 486,991 | 100% | 517,227 | 100% | 2,297 |
The arithmetic of substitution is visible in one line. Between the twelve months to August 2025 and the twelve months to August 2026, total extra-EU imports rose 6.2%, from 486,861 t to 517,227 t. China added 36,545 t, Mexico 19,622 t, Australia 19,181 t and Saudi Arabia 9,710 t; the United Kingdom lost 39,830 t and the United States 23,767 t, with the remaining origins making up the difference. The duty did not shrink the EU import market — it re-ordered it.
The single largest re-ordering is the UK, which fell from 25.6% of extra-EU volumes in the previous twelve months to 16.4%. That matters because the UK is the one significant TiO2-producing jurisdiction inside Europe’s customs neighbourhood that carries no EU duty — and, since April 2026, it is also partly Chinese-owned.
The measure itself: one fixed rate, two tariff lines, company-specific rates
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/4, published on 9 January 2025, imposed a definitive anti-dumping duty on titanium dioxide originating in China with effect from 10 January 2025. The product definition covers TiO2 in all forms — as titanium oxides or in pigments and preparations based on titanium dioxide — containing at least 80% TiO2 by weight on the dry matter, across all particle sizes, under CN codes ex 2823 00 00 and ex 3206 11 00 (TARIC 2823 00 00 10, 2823 00 00 30, 3206 11 00 10 and 3206 11 00 30). The duty is a fixed amount per kilogram of the net, free-at-Union-frontier price before duty: EUR 0.74/kg in the general case, with individual rates for named companies running from EUR 0.25/kg to EUR 0.64/kg.
That structure explains the behaviour in the data. A fixed EUR 740 per tonne is a percentage that moves with the market: 33.8% of the 2024 average declared value of EUR 2,188/t, and 39.1% of the latest twelve-month average of EUR 1,891/t. A shipper qualifying for the EUR 0.25/kg rate faces EUR 250/t — 13.2% on the same parcel — landing Chinese pigment at about EUR 2,141/t, within a euro of Mexico’s EUR 2,142/t average and well under the UK’s EUR 2,785/t. The general rate lands the same parcel at EUR 2,631/t. Two buyers of the same product in the same month therefore faced landed costs roughly EUR 490/t apart, depending on which exporter’s rate applied.
The second tariff line, CN 2823 00 00, is smaller but moved further. EU extra-EU imports of the unprepared oxides fell from 29,792 t in 2024 to 16,073 t in 2025 and 17,675 t in the latest twelve months, with China supplying 10,533 t of that — 59.6% of the line, at EUR 2,125/t, against 20,948 t at EUR 2,217/t in 2024. Buyers sourcing uncoated rutile should note that this line sits inside the same measure, and that its Chinese share is nearly double the pigment line’s.
Why the Commission reopened the file on 25 August 2026
Commission notice C/2026/4533 of 25 August 2026 initiated an absorption reinvestigation of the measures. The notice states that the reinvestigation will determine whether, after the original investigation period and prior to or following the imposition of measures, export prices have decreased, or whether there has been no movement, or insufficient movement, in the resale prices or subsequent selling prices of the imported product in the EU. Chinese producers were asked to provide sampling information within seven days, and interested parties have 37 days to submit evidence.
Analysis. The data above is the case in numbers: Chinese declared unit values fell from EUR 2,188/t in 2024 to EUR 2,010/t in 2025 and EUR 1,891/t in the latest twelve months, a 13.6% decline across the period in which a fixed duty was in force. An absorption review exists to ask whether that decline reflects cost pass-through or a deliberate offsetting of the duty. The public record does not yet answer that, and the review does not change rates while it runs.
The UK question: TARIC codes, surveillance and a proposed British duty
On 27 April 2026 LB Group completed its acquisition of Venator’s Greatham TiO2 plant and associated assets in the United Kingdom, operating the business through Tioxide Materials Ltd under the Tioxide brand. LB Group is itself a Chinese exporting producer whose China-origin TiO2 is subject to the measures. Because no anti-dumping duty applies to TiO2 originating in the UK, the Commission added origin-level visibility instead. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2064 of 17 September 2026 created three additional TARIC codes — 88ET for Tioxide Materials Ltd, 88EU for Tronox Pigments UK Limited and 8999 for all other UK exporters — and made imports under those codes subject to surveillance under Article 56(5) of the Union Customs Code. The regulation says explicitly that if UK-based companies significantly increase exports to the Union while their imports into the UK under the Chinese TARIC codes rise in parallel, the Commission may examine whether that increase is linked to circumvention and open an investigation under Article 13(3) of the basic regulation.
The UK is simultaneously building its own wall. On 7 October 2026 the UK Trade Remedies Authority published an initial recommendation to impose a mixed anti-dumping duty on rutile titanium dioxide from China: 48.29% ad valorem with a minimum of GBP 0.665/kg for cooperating exporters, and 63.66% with a minimum of GBP 0.876/kg for all others, for five years. The TRA found that imports in May 2026 exceeded 299% of the May 2025 volume and attributed the surge largely to Chinese capacity growth and to measures already in force in the EU, Brazil, India and Saudi Arabia. The recommendation is not final; comments closed on 26 October 2026 and the decision rests with the Secretary of State. Registration of Chinese rutile TiO2 imports has been in force since 27 March 2026, which preserves the possibility of collecting duty retroactively.
Outlook. If a UK duty lands at anything like the proposed level, Chinese-origin material will be pushed out of the British market as well, and the 84,793 t the UK supplied to the EU in the latest twelve months becomes the most scrutinised volume in Europe: outside the EU duty, inside EU surveillance, and sitting behind a producer owned by a Chinese exporting producer. The two routes the Commission named — UK material diverted into the EU, and Chinese oxide fed into Greatham and re-exported as UK-origin pigment — are exactly what the new TARIC codes are there to measure. Buyers should expect origin documentation on UK pigment to be tested, not assumed.
Global benchmark: the export price floor is Chinese
| Reporter | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 1,215 | 1,313 | 1,407 | 1,643 | 1,908 | 1,820 |
| United States | 378 | 478 | 362 | 277 | 342 | 291 |
| Germany | 316 | 322 | 245 | 213 | 243 | 213 |
| EU27 (extra-EU) | 320 | 329 | 240 | 203 | 214 | 172 |
| Belgium | 157 | 101 | 96 | 77 | 85 | 94 |
| Canada | 125 | 119 | 107 | 108 | 110 | 93 |
| Saudi Arabia | 56 | 82 | 65 | 51 | 79 | 83 |
| Japan | 40 | 57 | 44 | 48 | 49 | 49 |
| Like-for-like total | 2,812 | 3,013 | 2,779 | 2,861 | 3,273 | 3,023 |
| Like-for-like unit value (USD/t) | 2,376 | 2,901 | 3,091 | 2,623 | 2,561 | 2,410 |
China’s export volumes grew 49.8% between 2020 and 2025, from 1.215 Mt to 1.820 Mt, while its average export unit value fell 10.4% between 2024 and 2025, from USD 2,198/t to USD 1,969/t. Over the same two years the like-for-like unit value of the whole 27-reporter panel fell from USD 2,561/t to USD 2,410/t, and panel export value dropped 13.0% to USD 7.28 billion. China accounted for 49.2% of that panel’s export value in 2025. 2025 figures are first-reported and subject to revision, and China’s 2025 volume was 4.6% below 2024 — a smaller decline than the 42.7% fall in its shipments to the EU, which is the signature of diversion rather than of a supply cut.
The non-EU benchmarks agree on direction. India imported 310,607 t of the pigment in January-July 2026 at an average USD 2,277/t, against 333,523 t at USD 2,703/t for the whole of 2025 — a 15.8% fall in unit value. The United States imported 98,459 t at USD 2,907/t over the same seven months, against 167,626 t at USD 3,041/t in 2025. Europe’s own import book tells the same story at a different level: EUR 2,297/t across all origins in the latest twelve months, down from EUR 2,471/t a year earlier, with the EU’s export unit value at EUR 2,718/t.
What this means for buyers
Analysis / outlook. Three consequences follow. First, price discovery has shifted from the duty schedule to the exporter list: with individual rates spanning EUR 0.25-0.64/kg against a EUR 0.74/kg general rate, the spread between two compliant offers on the same parcel is wider than most annual negotiation ranges, so rate verification belongs in the sourcing file, not the legal file. Second, substitution has run into non-duty origins — Mexico, Australia, Saudi Arabia — whose latest unit values of EUR 2,142/t, EUR 2,584/t and EUR 2,489/t sit above China’s but below the UK’s. Third, the absorption review and the UK proposal are the two events that can reprice the market in the next two quarters; both are procedural and public, and neither is priced into a contract signed today.
Downstream, the pigment sits in coatings, plastics, paper and inks, which is why its trade policy surfaces in procurement budgets far from the chemical sector. Buyers mapping second sources will find the adjacent value chains in our coverage of chlorine, the chloride-route feedstock, in acrylic acid and phthalic anhydride, the binder and alkyd chemistries that consume the pigment, and in the trade-flow method we apply across the PetroApex product library.
Data limitations
Two caveats belong with these tables. Partner shares use the origin declared on EU import declarations, a customs concept rather than a production measure: EU declarations record 82,780 t of 2024 imports originating in Mexico, while Mexico’s own customs returns to Comtrade report 19,485 t of HS 3206 11 exports worldwide that year. Treat the country split as reported, not as capacity. Separately, the two CN lines do not divide the scope evenly — coated pigment travels mainly on 3206 11 00 — so read them together and do not sum them without noting the overlap.
Data sources
- Eurostat Comext, dataset DS-045409 (EU trade since 2000 by CN code), reporter EU27_2020, partner EXT_EU27_2020, products 320611 and 28230000, indicators VALUE_IN_EUROS and QUANTITY_IN_100KG, monthly from 2024-01 to 2026-08; series extracted 22 October 2026 from the Comext dissemination API, dataset updated 16 October 2026. The EU totals in this article’s annual comparison reconcile with UN Comtrade’s EU27 reporter for HS 320611 (2024 mirror).
- UN Comtrade, annual exports of HS 3206 11 by reporter, 2020-2025: annual query example; monthly imports for India and the United States to July 2026: monthly query.
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/4 of 17 December 2024, definitive anti-dumping duty on titanium dioxide from China, OJ L 2025/4, 9 January 2025: EUR-Lex text; duty rates, product scope and effective date as summarised in Hong Kong Trade and Industry Department circular 49/2025: circular.
- Commission notice C/2026/4533 of 25 August 2026, initiation of an absorption reinvestigation, as summarised in Hong Kong Trade and Industry Department circular 742/2026: circular.
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2064 of 17 September 2026, amending Regulation 2025/4 with additional TARIC codes and surveillance for UK imports: EUR-Lex text.
- Venator, sale of the Greatham site and associated TiO2 assets to LB Group, 27 April 2026: company announcement; the acquisition, the Tioxide trading name and the restart intention are also recorded in recitals 2-6 of Regulation (EU) 2026/2064.
- UK Trade Remedies Authority, “New duty proposed on imports of Chinese rutile titanium dioxide”, 7 October 2026: press release; registration of imports from 27 March 2026, Trade Remedies Notice 2026/14: notice.
PetroApex maintains these series for every product in its library, with the duty status, the trade window and the origin mix on the same page. If you need the underlying monthly workbook, a country-level split beyond the seven origins shown here, or a custom cut for a specific CN code, request a sample report or a tailored dataset and we will send the specification and the source list.