When we shipped a LUO luminaire system from Finland to a U.S. customer this spring, customs initially hit them with a bill of ca 50% of the product value.

At the time, tariff rules were unclear, and it took several rounds of requests for clarification before the charge was finally reassessed to 10% under the universal tariff — just days before the new 15% ceiling on EU goods was negotiated.

Why the customs send this astronomical bill is still unclear to us. Possibly the included copper conductors that originated from China were taxed as a base metal product that can be charged with very steep tariffs up to 50% depending on the country of origin.

In general, for our U.S. customers, import tariffs often come as a surprise: Luckily, we’ve built our order and distribution process to be lean and resilient, which means we can absorb custom charges without passing them on to our customers. That means our clients can focus fully on their projects without worrying about such border costs.

The LUO-lighting system is now installed to the satisfaction of the customer.