Sanctions Evasion Reference

Certificate of origin

A document certifying the country in which goods were produced, used to determine tariff treatment and whether origin-based restrictions apply.

reviewed

2026-08-20

Origin is a legal construct, not a physical property. Rules of origin determine when processing in a country is sufficient to confer that country’s origin, and the thresholds differ between trade agreements.

Where a restriction attaches to origin rather than to a party, the certificate becomes the control. Cargo blending, minimal processing in a third country, and simple falsification of the certificate all attack the same point, and detection relies on whether the claimed processing country has the production capacity the volumes imply.

Where this term is used

  • What is cargo origin blending? — Mixing, decanting or re-documenting a commodity in transit so that restricted cargo is no longer traceable to its origin and arrives certified as coming from somewhere else.
  • What is a ship-to-ship transfer? — Transferring cargo directly between two vessels at sea, rather than through a port, so that the cargo changes hands where there is no port authority, no customs entry and no independent record.
  • What is third-country transshipment? — Routing restricted goods through an intermediate country so that the shipment reaching the restricted destination appears to originate somewhere the exporter would have supplied without question.
  • What is trade misinvoicing? — Trade misinvoicing is misstating the price, quantity or description of goods on trade documents, so that value moves across a border in a direction and an amount the paperwork does not admit.

Related terms

  • Free trade zone — A designated area where goods may be landed, stored, handled and re-exported without the customs formalities that would apply in the domestic territory.
  • Transshipment — Unloading goods from one conveyance and reloading them onto another en route, so that the shipment reaches its destination through an intermediate country.
  • HS code — A six-digit commodity code from the World Customs Organization Harmonised System, extended nationally, that determines the tariff and the controls applied to goods.

Sources

  1. Trade-Based Money Laundering: Risk Indicators. Financial Action Task Force and Egmont Group, 2021.

All glossary terms