Declarations for arriving goods

The Union legislation obliges transport operators to submit data electronically regarding goods transported from outside the EU, before the goods arrive in the Union. Entry declarations are submitted to the Arrival and exit declaration service (AREX) for maritime, rail and road transports and to the Commission’s ICS2 system for air transports. This is to ensure that import of the goods into the territory of the Union is allowed. When the goods have been presented to Customs, Customs controls that the goods will be cleared within the given time limit.

The transport operator must notify the party responsible for customs clearance of the declaration MRN, the goods item number as well as of the reference number of the house level transport document, so that the goods item can be cleared.

For Union goods transported by a regular shipping service approved by Customs, no arrival notifications are submitted and non-Union goods shall be transported under the T1 transit procedure.

When a ship or a plane arriving from a port or airport outside the Union is intended to visit more than one port or airport within the Union, an entry summary declaration concerning all the transported goods must be submitted to the first customs office within the Union. A declaration must also be submitted for goods that will not be unloaded in the territory of the Union. A temporary storage declaration is only submitted to subsequent customs offices in the customs territory of the Union for goods that will be unloaded there.

Points to consider

The European Union has concluded bilateral agreements with Switzerland (including Liechtenstein) and Norway on the declaration of safety and security data and on data risk analysis. Based on these agreements, safety and security data is not required for goods arriving in or exiting these countries.

When the country of departure is either Norway or Switzerland, an entry summary declaration is not required for the goods, but a temporary storage declaration must be submitted for them.