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.
History[change | change source]
Entrepôts date back to the middle ages. The Vikings established trade routes with entrepôts at Dublin, Wexford and Waterford. An example of a Colonial American entrepôt was in Rhode Island between 1690 and 1765.
References[change | change source]
- A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages, ed. S. H. Rigby (Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), p. 144
- 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