Robot waiters provoke a conflict between the importer and customs
13 May 2025 11:49
The robot supplier and the Kyiv customs office tried to classify the goods – waiter robots – in different ways, which meant different duty rates. The case had to be resolved in court. This was reported by Dev.ua, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
The parties argued over the customs clearance of several models of the waiter robot – Service Robot BellaBot and Robot PuduBot.
What were the positions of the parties?
The importer wanted to clear the robots under the heading “Electrical machinery and equipment with individual functions”. The duty rate in this case would be 0%.
The Kyiv customs insisted that the waiter robots should be classified under the product code “Motor vehicles for the carriage of goods: – other…”. In this case, the duty rate is 10%.
It is clear that this significantly affected the value of the goods, since the market price of such a robot is about UAH 1 million.
The parties settled the dispute in court
The Donetsk District Administrative Court had to carefully examine the goods.
“From the systematic analysis of the technical characteristics, it is clear that the goods “Intelligent robot delivery service Service Robot BellaBot model VL-101 Pgo” and “Autonomous vehicle – intelligent robot delivery service Service Robot PuduBot model PD9″ have mechanical features (the robots are mobile – they move on wheels driven by electric motors)… In addition, the robots move loads (up to 30/40 kg),” the court’s decision stated.
It also contains a conclusion: “Given that the main function of the Service Robot BellaBot and Service Robot PuduBot model PD9 is transportation (used in catering establishments and at home to deliver food, drinks and other household items), they should be considered as a ‘vehicle’.
Thus, robots have officially become a “motor vehicle for the transportation of goods”. Accordingly, the court recognized the actions of the Kyiv Customs regarding the classification of goods as lawful.
As a reminder, in January-April 2025, customs authorities submitted 1,921 cases of customs rules violations worth almost UAH 2.4 billion to the court.
In total, the customs authorities detected 3,288 violations of customs rules worth almost UAH 2.9 billion. In 1,222 cases of customs rules violations, the objects of offenses worth UAH 306.5 million were temporarily seized.
