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Every week a Polish buyer asks us the same thing on WhatsApp. What’s your price per m²?
Fair enough. But the FOB price on a Morbi quote is maybe 60% of what that tile costs you standing in your warehouse near Warsaw. The rest hides in freight, duty, VAT handling and delivery. If you don’t know those lines before ordering, you can’t honestly compare a direct import against your local distributor. You’re guessing.
So here’s every line, in order. By the end you can build the landed cost per m² for any quote you get, ours or anyone’s. And if you’d rather skip the maths, request a free sample and cost sheet and we’ll send current Poland numbers for your exact spec. The same method works if you’re buying into Czechia, Slovakia or the Baltics by the way, only the VAT mechanics and inland leg change.
Every container arriving in Poland carries five layers:
Add them up, divide by the m² in the box. That’s your landed price. We’ve run this same breakdown for Canadian buyers and the structure never changes. Only the numbers do.
FOB means the price covers manufacturing, packing, and the loaded container going onto the vessel at Mundra After that, the costs are yours.
Three things move the FOB number.
Size – A 600×600mm tile and a 1200×1800mm slab are different products. Different pressing, firing, handling. Large formats cost more per m². They’re also what Polish commercial projects keep specifying.
Finish – Glazed matt, polished, textured, marble-look. Each sits at its own point on the price ladder. If you’re weighing India against other origins on this, our comparison of India vs China vs Turkey as tile sources covers where each one wins.
Technical grade – The one buyers skip and shouldn’t. Tiles going anywhere near a Polish terrace, balcony, facade or entrance need frost-grade porcelain, water absorption at or below 0.5%. Costs a bit more at the factory. Saves you a failed installation two winters later. We’ve written a full guide on why frost-resistant porcelain matters for Polish winters.
Mundra to Gdańsk (Baltic Hub) or Gdynia runs about 45 to 55 days on the water. Freight rates move constantly. A number older than a few weeks has expired, so ask for a fresh CIF quote every time.
The maths that matters: freight is fixed per container, so more m² loaded means less per m². An $1,800 freight bill over 1,520 m² is about $1.18 per m². Half-load the container and that doubles. Full containers of mixed sizes beat small trial orders on landed price, almost every time.
Marine insurance is small, around 0.3 to 0.5% of cargo value. Don’t skip it to save $30.
We’ll be straight here because a lot of content on this topic isn’t.
Two duties currently apply to Indian porcelain tiles entering Poland:
Both are calculated on CIF value. So yes, Indian tiles carry a duty cost that Spanish or Italian tiles don’t. Polish buyers keep importing from Morbi anyway, because even with duty in, the landed price for comparable quality leaves a margin. The worked example below shows how. German buyers run the same calculation, our Germany cost breakdown walks through their version.
Now the FTA. India and the EU concluded a free trade agreement in January 2026. Politically done, not yet in force. The realistic timeline for it to become operational is early 2027. When it does, preferential duty treatment kicks in and landed costs drop further. Here’s our full breakdown of the India-EU FTA duty savings and what changes.
Practically, that means supplier relationships built now get more valuable in 2027, not less. Buyers who wait for the FTA before sourcing will start from zero while their competitors already have tested quality and running orders.
Poland charges 23% import VAT on CIF plus duty. On paper it’s the biggest line here. For a VAT-registered Polish business it usually isn’t a cost at all. It’s cash flow.
Two routes: Standard route – Pay the VAT at clearance, reclaim it through your VAT return. You get it back, you just wait.
Article 33a – If you qualify, import VAT settles through your VAT return instead of at the border. Nothing leaves your account at clearance. Anyone importing regularly should set this up with their customs agent. It frees serious working capital.
Clearance itself, the agent’s fee plus terminal handling plus documentation, typically runs a few hundred euro per container. Your agent needs the commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin, and the CE marking and Declaration of Performance documents. Any serious manufacturer supplies those as standard.
Illustrative numbers for one 20ft container of 600×600mm glazed porcelain, about 1,520 m². Your real quote will differ by spec. This is the method.
| Cost line | Per container | Per m² |
| FOB Morbi | $6,384 | $4.20 |
| Sea freight to Gdańsk | $1,800 | $1.18 |
| Insurance | $65 | $0.04 |
| CIF value | $8,249 | $5.42 |
| Duty + anti-dumping (~13% combined, example) | $1,072 | $0.71 |
| Clearance + delivery to central Poland | $700 | $0.46 |
| Landed cost (ex VAT) | $10,021 | ~$6.59 |
Import VAT sits on top at 23% but comes back to you, so it stays off the real cost line.
Call it $6.50 to $7.00 per m² landed for this spec in mid-2026 conditions, somewhere around 24 to 26 zł at current exchange rates. Now put that next to what comparable-quality glazed porcelain costs you through local distribution. You know your market, run the numbers. For most buyers the gap justifies the longer lead time several times over. And that’s the point. This was never about the lowest-grade tile at the lowest price. It’s comparable quality at a landed cost that gives you margin your locally-supplied competitors don’t have.
If you’re buying through distribution now and weighing a first direct order, our guide on factory-price tiles from Morbi for Polish projects covers the sourcing side. Want this exact table with live numbers for your sizes and quantities? Request a free sample and cost sheet. Three samples, one Poland landed-cost sheet, no obligation.
As a working range, standard 600×600mm glazed porcelain lands around $7 to $8.50 per m² excluding VAT, counting FOB, freight, duty, anti-dumping and delivery. Large formats and premium finishes land higher. Exact numbers depend on spec and current freight.
Divide your total landed cost (FOB + freight + insurance + duty + clearance + delivery) by the m² in the container. For a full 20ft of standard porcelain that's typically $7 to $8.50 per m2 ex VAT in 2026.
The standard EU duty on ceramic tiles plus an EU anti-dumping duty of roughly 6.7% to 8.7% depending on the manufacturer, both on CIF value. The India-EU FTA will reduce this once it enters into force, expected in 2027.
Not necessarily. Qualifying Polish importers use Article 33a to settle import VAT through their VAT return instead of paying at clearance. Otherwise you pay at the border and reclaim it.
Roughly 1520 m² in a 20ft for standard-thick porcelain. Weight is the constraint, not space.
Yes, a lot. Size, finish and technical grade all move the FOB price. For Polish outdoor use, frost-grade low-absorption porcelain is the spec that matters most, and it's worth every gross.
The cheapest line to get wrong is the spec. A container that cracks after its first Polish winter is the most expensive tile you’ll ever buy, whatever the landed price says. Before finalising any order with outdoor or entrance areas, read our buyer’s guide on why frost-resistant porcelain matters for Polish winters
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