Customs news

Due to service interruptions, the customs systems DMS, AGS and NCTS recently have not been consistently available. We realise that these service interruptions have a large impact on your production and logistics processes. We put a lot of time and energy into providing proper support for logistics, with as little service interruptions as possible. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to live up to this recently, for which we apologize.

Starting 1 July 2024, there will be changes to how you declare pharmaceutical products (medicines) and active substances for import. From this date, you must always include a (fictitious) document code in your declaration. This new requirement also applies to veterinary pharmaceuticals as defined in Article 4, Section 1, of Regulation (EU) 2019/6.

From 9 June 2024, if you file import declarations using the Customs Declaration Management System (DMS), you have to include the levy data for tax items in data group 1403000000 ‘Rechten en belastingen’ (Duties and taxes). This is necessary when your customs declaration and the tariff don’t contain sufficient data to automatically calculate the customs debt.

Your company will be able to access DVA for the transit process in the 4th quarter of 2024. Not on 1 July 2024, as we communicated before. The deadline for the transition from phase 4 to phase 5 of replacing New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) with DVA remains 1 December 2024.

From 15 January 2024, the way in which companies inform Customs about transshipments will change. This change has consequences for exporters, forwarders, carriers, shipping agents, stevedores and software developers in the maritime sector.

From 1 March 2024, you will be required to apply for T2L and T2LF union status certificates in the new EU Proof of Union Status system. You do this in the EU Customs Trader Portal.

As of October 30, 2023, Customs will shorten the deadline for submitting presentation notifications for goods leaving the EU. This change is due to the ‘AES Exit’ regulations and will impact exporters, forwarders, carriers, ship agents, stevedores, handlers, airlines, and software developers.

Companies have an important role in preventing the circumvention of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. To help them do so, the European Commission (EC) has published a guidance note. It sets out how companies can recognise risks of circumventing the sanctions and how they should then deal with them.

If you import goods by air from outside the EU to the European Customs Union, starting from 1 July 2023 at 12:00 PM Central European Summer Time (CEST), you can submit your entry declaration using the Import Control System 2 (ICS2), release 2. However, a prerequisite for this is that you have successfully completed a Self-Conformance Test.

Imported goods from outside the EU will fall under new European regulations starting from 1 October 2023: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). From that date importers will need to report on these goods, and from 1 January 2026, there will be a registration and payment obligation.