Logistics & transporten
Customs clearance
All customs formalities and procedures required to allow goods to enter or leave the customs territory, including declaration, inspection, and duty payment.
Definition
Customs clearance is the set of administrative and regulatory operations through which goods are declared to customs authorities and obtain authorisation to enter (import) or leave (export) the customs territory. It is the mandatory process for any goods crossing a customs border.
Import clearance steps in the EU
- Filing the customs declaration: via the national IT system, specifying the requested customs procedure
- Documentary verification: checking consistency and compliance of documents
- Physical inspection (where applicable): inspection of all or part of the goods
- Duty assessment: calculation and payment of customs duties, import VAT, and any additional duties
- Release: authorisation to remove the goods
Available customs procedures
The UCC provides several procedures:
- Release for free circulation: payment of duties and entry into the economic circuit
- Transit: transport under customs control without payment of duties
- Customs warehousing: storage with duties suspended
- Inward processing: processing imported goods for re-export
- Temporary admission: temporary use free of duties
Facilitations and simplifications
- Centralised clearance (UCC Article 179): declaration in one Member State, goods in another
- Simplified procedure: incomplete declaration with later regularisation
- Entry in the declarant's records (EiDR): clearance by simple accounting entry for AEOs
- Postponed VAT accounting: deferral of import VAT to periodic tax returns