Entrepôt

An entrepôt is a trading post where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying a tariff. This is often at a profit. Sometimes it is more convenient to sell to an entrepôt than to travel long distances along a trade route. The entrepôt sells the goods at a higher price to others travelling the rest of the route. In modern times customs areas have largely made such entrepôts obsolete.

This type of port should not be confused with the modern French use of the word entrepôt meaning warehouse.

 History 

Entrepôts date back to the middle ages. The Vikings established trade routes with entrepôts at Dublin, Wexford and Waterford.A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages, ed. S. H. Rigby (Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), p. 144 An example of a Colonial American entrepôt was in Rhode Island between 1690 and 1765.William McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History (States and the Nation) (New York: W.W. Norton; Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1986), p. 50

 References 

Category:Trade