HMRC shuts down £111M post-Brexit border digitization project

HMRC shuts down border project

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) effectively shuttered the UK’s £111.44 million Single Trade Window project and reassigned all delivery staff. Freedom of Information (FOI) responses confirm the government allocated zero funding to the program for the 2025/26 financial year. The Treasury now classifies the flagship border digitization scheme as having been brought to "early closure."

The Single Trade Window (STW) was the centerpiece of the government’s post-Brexit border strategy. It aimed to create a "one-stop shop" for traders to submit all necessary import and export documentation. By allowing businesses to enter data once into a single portal, the government hoped to reduce the administrative friction of moving goods across the UK border.

Internal documents obtained by the investigative group TaxWatch show that HMRC has no employees currently working on the operational delivery of the system. The department confirmed that it has incurred no expenditure for the project during the current period. While officials claim that "policy work" continues, the technical and operational arms of the project are dead.

A hundred million pound pause

The government spent a total of £111,441,101 on the STW before pulling the plug on its immediate delivery. This figure represents the cost of design, planning, and early-stage development since the project’s inception. Despite this massive investment, the portal remains unavailable to the thousands of British businesses that were told to expect a streamlined digital experience.

The "early closure" comes at a time when the UK is struggling to implement its Border Target Operating Model. This model relies on high-tech solutions to manage checks on food, plants, and animal products entering from the EU. Without the STW, traders must continue to navigate a fragmented landscape of legacy IT systems and multiple government gateways.

The FOI data highlights a stark disconnect between public ministerial statements and private departmental reality. Ministers frequently described the STW as a cornerstone of the "world's most effective border." The current lack of staff and funding suggests those ambitions have been shelved to save costs in the short term.

• Total project spend to date: £111.44 million
• Staff currently assigned to delivery: 0
• Budget for 2025/26 financial year: £0
• Revenue collected by HMRC last year: £823.8 billion
• Cost of HMRC operations last year: £5.7 billion

The Deloitte contract ends

HMRC also confirmed it has terminated the technical delivery contract previously held by Deloitte. The government awarded the contract to the consulting giant in 2023 to build the software architecture for the trade portal. The closure of this contract signals that no further code is being written or tested for the platform.

The National Audit Office (NAO) previously raised red flags about how HMRC manages its external contractors. In earlier reports, the spending watchdog warned that HMRC needed to be a "stronger intelligent client" when dealing with firms like Deloitte. The NAO expressed concerns that the government often lacks the internal technical expertise to hold massive IT suppliers accountable for delays.

This failure follows a familiar pattern in UK public sector IT procurement. Large-scale digital transformations often burn through nine-figure sums before being "paused" or "descoped" when technical hurdles become too expensive to clear. For the STW, the technical complexity of integrating data from multiple departments—including the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs—proved too much for the current budget.

Impact on British trade

The collapse of the STW leaves British importers and exporters stuck with a high-friction border. Businesses currently have to submit redundant data to different agencies, increasing the cost of every shipment. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) bear the brunt of this inefficiency, as they lack the resources to manage complex customs software.

Industry groups have long argued that a single digital gateway is essential for UK competitiveness. Without it, the "Brexit dividend" of a streamlined, independent trade policy remains a theoretical concept rather than a functional reality. The £111 million spent so far has yielded no tangible tools for the businesses actually moving goods.

TaxWatch director Mike Lewis notes that while HMRC is generally efficient at collecting tax, its track record on major IT overhauls is spotty. The group argues that the government’s attempt to "quietly" shelve the project prevents Parliament from learning why the money was wasted. Lewis suggests that without delivery staff or a budget, the project is effectively canceled, regardless of the "paused" label used by officials.

Accountability and government IT

The Treasury’s decision to move to "early closure" reflects a broader tightening of departmental belts. However, critics argue that abandoning the STW is a false economy that will cost the UK economy more in lost trade efficiency. The lack of transparency regarding the project’s failure is now a primary concern for transparency advocates.

HMRC maintains that the UK’s tax and customs administration offers "amazing value for money," citing its low cost-to-revenue ratio. Last year, the department collected nearly £1 trillion in revenue. Yet, the STW failure illustrates how easily £100 million can vanish into the "black hole" of government consulting contracts without producing a working product.

For now, the project exists only as a set of policy documents and discarded code. Traders will have to wait indefinitely for the digital border they were promised. The following factors contributed to the project's current state:

• Integration failures: Difficulty syncing data between HMRC, the Home Office, and Defra.
• Budget cuts: The Treasury’s move to slash "non-essential" digital spending.
• Contractor management: A reliance on Deloitte that ended in a closed contract and no finished portal.
• Policy shifts: Constant changes to border requirements since the 2016 referendum.

The government has not provided a date for when, or if, the Single Trade Window will resume. Until then, the £111 million spent stands as a sunk cost in the UK's attempt to digitize its post-Brexit borders. The "world's most effective border" remains a manual, fragmented process for the foreseeable future.