Advance enquiry on sampling of foods and consumer goods

An advance inquiry can be made for all foodstuffs and consumer goods imported under Customs supervision.

1. Make an advance inquiry

When the goods have left the country of origin or country of departure, you can send the inquiry no earlier than 7 days and no later than 24 hours before the consignment arrives. For so-called direct runs, the inquiry can be sent even after the goods item has arrived in the country.

Advance inquiry on fruits, vegetable and berries under the scope of phytosanitary controls and conformity checks

• Use the form Advance inquiry on the import of fresh produce (import declaration) (696) (in Finnish).
• Fill in only the top part of the form. In the bottom part, a Customs official fills in the decisions made based on risk assessment.
• Attach the phytosanitary certificate, commercial invoice, bill of lading or a corresponding document, and other documents possibly pertaining to the consignment (including certificate of conformity of fruits and vegetables issued by the country of origin). 

Advance inquiry on other products

• Send the advance inquiry with a freeform notification.
• Attach the commercial invoice and other possible documents pertaining to the consignment. 

Enter also these details:

• name of the company
• name and contact information of person handling the matter
• arrival date or estimated arrival date of the consignment
• 10-digit commodity codes of all goods items (can be entered on the commercial invoice or on a separate appendix)

2. Customs responds – enter in the customs declaration the details you received

Customs will respond to your advance inquiry no later than the weekday before the arrival of the consignment. 

Customs sends you a response by email, which should be archived with the other customs clearance documents. The response is either of these alternatives:

1. No samples / no measures, date, reference number of the advance inquiry, invoice number, name of the consumer safety inspector.
2. Samples to be taken / phytosanitary control / conformity check, date, reference number of advance inquiry, invoice number, name of consumer safety inspector and detailed information on products under transfer prohibition.

When you make the customs declaration electronically, enter with code FIXXX in the additional information for the goods item to be declared, the response by Customs’ consumer safety inspector in the format presented above.

For example: “FIXXX”, “No samples, 1.7.2013, reference number 123456, name of consumer safety inspector.”

Advance inquiry by email concerning a single consignment

• Attach in the same email message all documents pertaining to the consignment.
• The email message can only contain documents relating to a single declaration.
• A single consignment can contain products entered in several commercial invoices.

If you have sufficient information for submitting a final customs declaration, choose option D for the declaration.

If you still do not have all the information required for your customs declaration, you should use the E/F declaration. If you need to submit simplified customs declarations regularly, remember to apply for an SDE authorisation.

Customs does not control any other information content in an advance customs declaration submitted based on an advance enquiry on sampling. Such declarations are used only for considering if samples should be taken of goods.

The declarant is responsible for ensuring that the details provided in the notification are correct.
 

Here is what you do to make an advance enquiry on sampling with a customs declaration submitted in advance (D, E and F):

• On the declaration header, enter the additional confirmation code “FIKUS” and the description “Advance enquiry on sampling, estimated arrival date dd/mm.”.
• Provide the previous document:
  • If the correct previous document is known, enter the information as instructed on the page “Providing the previous document”.
  • If the previous document is not known, provide the previous document code “1ZZZ – Other previous document” and the document reference “not yet known”. 
    Correct the information before presenting the goods. See the instructions on corrections in the section "How to correct information in the previous document and other information”.
  • Note that if the consignment is arriving by road from Norway without a transit procedure, you should not provide any previous document information.  
• Enter the reference number of the TRACES declaration on goods for which a TRACES declaration is required. An advance enquiry on sampling cannot be submitted before the required TRACES declarations are in place. 
• You can add the estimated time of arrival in the additional reference section so that Customs can consider the order of urgency in processing declarations, where possible. Customs processes declarations mainly in their order of arrival, but strives to consider the estimated times of arrivals of goods in the processing. 
• Attach the commercial invoice and other possible documents pertaining to the consignment, such as the bill of lading or a corresponding document. The supported attachment file types are pdf, jpg, png and tif. The maximum attachment size is 5 MB.
• If you have attached for example a phytosanitary certificate or a certificate of compliance from the country where fruits and vegetables originate to your TRACES declaration, you do not need to attach them to the advance enquiry on sampling. 
• Check the other instructions on pre-lodged declarations at Pre-lodged declarations.

Customs replies to your advance enquiry in the Customs Clearance Service or in message format. In reply, Customs will notify you whether or not the import goods are to be sampled. Customs will also provide any other possible further instructions.

If you must submit a new customs declaration in order to correct information in the previous document or for splitting a declaration, enter the reply from Customs in the new customs declaration as instructed under “How to correct information in the previous document and other information”. 

If the goods are not presented within 30 days and the declaration is invalidated automatically, you can provide the reply from Customs to your advance enquiry on sampling in the new customs declaration. You can do this if the information in your declaration remains the same.

If there are changes to the information in the declaration for example due to the goods being sold, you should submit a new advance enquiry on sampling with a pre-lodged declaration. You can also request for invalidation of the original declaration.

If you provided the code 1ZZZ for the previous document in your pre-lodged customs declaration relating to the advance enquiry, you should correct the information in the previous document. Enter the correct previous document information in your declaration before the goods are presented to Customs. Customs will not be able to continue processing your declaration until the information in the previous document are corrected, and the goods are presented to Customs.

If the transport operator has already presented the goods to Customs, you can no longer correct the pre-lodged declaration, and you need to submit a new declaration. Provide the following details in the declaration:

• Standard customs declaration (A). You can use a simplified declaration (B, C) if you do not yet have all the required information available for the customs declaration. 
• Additional information code and the MRN of the declaration with which the advance enquiry was made. Provide one of the following additional information codes: 
  • “FICON – Declarant requests the contact of the Customs Officer” and the description “Samples to be taken, 25FIU0000XXXXXXXRX”
  • “FIXXX – Other additional information” and the description “No samples, 25FIU0000XXXXXXXRX”.

Do not provide the additional information code “FIKUS” in your new declaration. 

Read more submitting a replacement declaration. 

Correcting other information

In addition to the previous document, be sure to correct all other incorrect or insufficient information in your customs declaration. For example, if you have provided details on a means of transport according to estimated information included in the advance enquiry, you should correct the details.

Note that the declarant is responsible for ensuring that the details provided in the declaration are correct.

Information you cannot correct after your declaration is submitted

• additional declaration type
• declarant
• representative
• status of representation
• requested procedure.

If samples are to be taken of some of the goods declared in the customs declaration, the declaration can be split before the sampling under certain conditions.

After splitting the declaration, the goods that are not sampled can be released for free circulation. If the declaration has not been split, none of the goods in the declaration will be released from customs supervision until the examination results are ready. That is why it pays to split the customs declaration in these situations.

Here is how you split your declaration:

• If the original declaration is in the registered status, you can correct the information in the declaration so that the goods selected for sampling remain in the declaration. You should also fill in a new customs declaration for goods that will not be sampled. 
  
  In this new declaration, the additional information codes “FIJAE – Split declaration” and “FIKUS” are not to be provided.
  
  If the previous document has already been presented, you cannot correct the information in your pre-lodged declaration. See instructions for customs declarations involving advance enquiries on sampling under “How to correct information regarding the previous document and other information”.
   
• If the original declaration is approved, you should fill in two new customs declarations, in both of which you should include the additional information code “FIJAE – Split declaration” and the MRN of the original import declaration as the code specifier in the description field. Do not provide the additional information code “FIKUS” in your new declarations. 
  
  Read more about splitting a customs declaration.