In short
No accounts, no tracking of your searches, no data sold. Searches go directly from your browser to the official GOV.UK Trade Tariff API, or are answered from data bundled with the page. A small amount of information is stored in your own browser so the site remembers your recent lookups — and you can clear it at any time.
1. What we collect
We do not operate user accounts, and we do not store your search queries on our servers. When you search, your request goes directly to the official tariff services (the GOV.UK Trade Tariff API) or is served from reference data bundled with the site itself.
Like virtually every website, our hosting and content-delivery infrastructure automatically records standard technical logs — IP address, browser type, requested page, timestamp — for security and performance. These logs are short-lived and are not used to build advertising or behavioural profiles.
2. Cookies and browser storage
HSCODE.UK does not set advertising cookies of its own. Two small browser-storage keys are used to make the tools more convenient:
| Key | Storage | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
hscode.recent.v1 |
localStorage | Remembers your last few commodity codes so you can return to them quickly. | Until you clear it |
hscode.srindex.v1 |
sessionStorage | Caches the tariff keyword index so repeat searches are faster and use less data. | 24 hours, or when the tab closes |
Both keys contain only commodity codes and public reference data. They never leave your device. You can clear them at any time through your browser's "clear site data" or "clear browsing data" controls, or by using private browsing — nothing on the site will break.
3. Third-party services
When you click through to an official service — GOV.UK, the European Commission, the WCO, UN Comtrade — you leave HSCODE.UK and that service's own privacy policy applies. We do not control those services and receive no data back from them.
Our pages may be served through a content-delivery network (Cloudflare) which provides security filtering. That provider may process requests to detect and block malicious traffic.
4. Your rights under the UK GDPR
You have the right to be informed, of access, to rectification, to erasure, to restrict processing, to data portability, and to object. Because we hold no personal data about you beyond transient technical logs, these rights are in practice exercised with the relevant infrastructure provider. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.
For any privacy question, use the contact page.
5. Children
This site is a professional reference tool aimed at importers, freight forwarders, accountants and students. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from children.
6. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time — for example if we add a new third-party service. The current version always appears on this page, and the review date below is updated when it changes.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.