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Message exchange customers: get your import declarations processed more quickly by sending attachments in advance via message exchange

Publication date 15.10.2021 10.00 | Published in English on 27.10.2021 at 14.54
Press release

You can speed up Customs’ processing of your import declarations by sending any required attachments to Customs as soon as your declaration has been accepted. That way your import shipments will be dispatched more quickly. Message exchange customers should send the attachment with a separate message that contains the MRN of the import declaration.

Send the attachment even before Customs asks for it

You can send an attachment without Customs having requested it, if you know or assume that Customs will ask you to send an additional document in support of the declaration.

Message exchange customers send the declaration attachments with messages. You can send the attachments to a declaration as soon as Customs has accepted your declaration or notification, that is, when you have obtained an MRN for your declaration from Customs. You can send the attachments to a pre-lodged declaration when you have received a notification that Customs has registered the declaration.

When you send an attachment to Customs on your own initiative, it will be sent to Customs as a message called ‘Attachment Request’ in which should you provide the MRN of the customs declaration. In this message, you should also indicate if the message is sent on Customs’ request or not. Customs will give the attachment a reference number beginning with CD. Do not send the message ‘Free form contact’ to Customs unless Customs specifically instructs you to do so.  

If Customs specifically requests additional documents from you as a message exchange customer, you will receive a request for additional information after the declaration has been accepted. You should first send the requested attachments with a message and then reply to Customs’ request for additional information with the message ‘Additional information response’. With this response message, you should also provide the attachment reference, that is, the reference number beginning with CD.

Do not submit the attachment by email

Attachments to import or customs warehousing declarations that are submitted to Customs’ new customs clearance system can no longer be submitted by email. The attachments must be sent via message exchange or the online service.

There is no need to send attachments again by email just in case, as this does not speed up the processing of the declaration. Repeated sending of the same attachments and queries about the status of a particular declaration will only take up time and serve to congest the Electronic Service Centre of Customs, thus slowing down the processing of declarations.

Sending the attachment in the Customs Clearance Service

When you lodge import and customs warehousing declarations in the Customs Clearance Service, you can add attachments to the declarations in the same service. If Customs requests attachments with an additional information request, upload the requested attachments directly in your response to the request.

More information:

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