Goods entering or leaving the EU

For goods entering the customs territory of the European Union, pre-arrival declarations must be lodged electronically by the person, and within the timelines (see the guidelines on the import of goods(163 Kb)   into the customs territory and import scenarios(278 Kb)  ) set out by customs legislation, in one of the following formats:

• Entry summary declaration (ENS) - see the FAQs(768 Kb)   data to be sent electronically to the national system of the Member State concerned (see the acceptable goods description(21 Kb)   to be used in summary declarations) or
• Import customs declaration, including safety and security data, to be sent to the import customs declaration systems of the Member State concerned; or
• Transit customs declaration, including safety and security data, to be sent to the national transit system of the Member State concerned.

This means that for goods entering the customs territory of the EU under a transit procedure, the responsible person (carrier) has two options:

• Lodge a transit declaration containing the safety and security data; or
• Lodge a transit declaration not containing the safety and security data for the purpose of the transit procedure and lodge an entry summary declaration separately for the purposes of safety and security.

Some Member States offer economic operators the possibility to lodge an entry summary declaration at another customs office than the customs office of entry, provided the ENS is electronically communicated or made available to the customs office of entry. This other customs office is the so-called "customs office of lodgment",

Where the customs office of entry is in another Member State than the customs office of lodgment, this is only possible in cases where the Member State in which the customs office of entry is situated is equipped, and has agreed, to receive ENS data in this way. The table "ICS - Support of the Office of Lodgment(19 Kb)  " indicates which Member States provide the above possibility.

For goods leaving the customs territory of the European Union, pre-departure declarations must be lodged electronically by the person (see the guidelines for export procedures and exit formalities) determined by customs legislation, in one of the following formats:

• Export customs declaration, including safety and security data, to be sent to the export customs declaration systems of the Member State concerned; or
• Exit summary declaration (EXS) - see the FAQs(341 Kb)   data (only for those cases where no export customs declaration is needed for the customs procedure) to be sent to the national system of the Member State concerned; or
• Transit(13 Kb)   (new version) customs declaration, including safety and security data(21 Kb)  , to be sent to the national transit system of the Member State concerned.

This means that for goods leaving the customs territory of the EU, to which no export declaration or exit summary declaration was presented before goods were placed under the transit procedure, the responsible person (carrier) has two options:

• Lodge a transit declaration containing the safety and security data; or
• Lodge a transit declaration not containing the safety and security for the purpose of the transit procedure and lodge an exit summary declaration separately for the purposes of safety and security.

Fall back procedure or “Business Continuity Plan”

The Commission services have developed a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for allowing the continuity of activities in case of failure of the IT systems. Due to the fact that the alternative systems to be created should be proportional to the risk of such failure, and that lodgement of paper entry summary declarations should only be used as a last resort, the BCP stresses that preference should be given to other fallback instruments. Consequently, it is of prime importance to traders and customs – beforehand – to agree and respect quality criteria that will limit the business impact due to the unavailability of the IT systems concerned.
See the details of the procedures and scenarios(512 Kb)  .

Lists of contacts in national administrations are available for ECS(127 Kb)  , ICS(129 Kb)   and NCTS(163 Kb)  . The lists include contacts for all EU Member States as well as Croatia, FYROM and Turkey. In addition, the ICS list includes contact details for Serbia and the NCTS list includes contact details for Andorra, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, San Marino, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Russia and Ukraine.