Accessibility statement – Customs Clearance Service

Finnish Customs is committed to making its websites and online services accessible in accordance with the Act on the Provision of Digital Services (306/2019).

This accessibility statement concerns the Customs Clearance Service.

Other service alternatives

If you are not able to use the Customs Clearance Service, there are other alternatives for transactions with Customs. You can authorise someone else to declare the goods on your behalf via the service or you can buy the declaration as a service from a forwarding company.

You can also visit a customs office that provides customer service to give us your feedback. On our website, you will find the map locations of the customs offices with customer service and their opening hours.

Help regarding alternative transactions is available from the Customs Information Service, tel. 0295 5201.

See Customs’ instructions for other service alternatives.

The accessibility of the service

Current accessibility of the content of the service: partly meets the requirements laid down in the Finnish Act on the Provision of Digital Services.

The known problems with accessibility

The service still has some usability problems. The recognised problems with accessibility are described below. If you notice a problem in the service that is not included in the list, please contact us.  

The following content does not meet the requirements laid down in the Act on the Provision of Digital Services and will be fixed as soon as possible.

Tables

  • Tables have been used for formatting in some situations in the service. The tables disrupt the screen reader user’s user experience and, because of them, the service reports presence of incomplete table structures in places where there actually is no table. Some of the information is also read more than once and it may be difficult to visualise entities. (WCAG 1.3.1)
  • The service has some tables with columns without column headings. In some tables, the help button is placed inside the heading cell, which is why the name of the button is also read in each data cell of that column. Some tables may contain false indications of the numbers of columns and rows of the table. (WCAG 1.3.1)
  • Some table contain empty, invisible links that may, however, be found by the screen reader. Some tables have links that do nothing. (WCAG 1.3.1)

Form elements, such as buttons, check boxes, combo boxes and text fields

  • Some form elements are not labelled in such a way that they can be read by a screen reader in conjunction with the field. (WCAG 1.3.1)
  • Some form elements have been marked incorrectly as mandatory fields. In some cases, it has either been completely omitted from the mandatory fields or only visually marked with an asterisk or only programmatically. On the other hand, some form elements are marked as mandatory even if they are not mandatory for the operation to succeed. (WCAG 1.3.1, WCAG 3.3.2)
  • There are a few situations in the service where not all form elements can be reached again with the keyboard, if the user has already entered a value in them once. This may lead to a situation where the keyboard or screen reader user has entered an invalid value in the field that can no longer be corrected. (WCAG 2.1.1)
  • The service has some form elements without a visible label or instructions for filling in the field. (WCAG 3.3.2)
  • In all form elements, possible errors are not reported directly at the element, rather the error message has to be found elsewhere on the page. When filling in the declaration, the user will only find the list of errors at the last stage of the form and it can be difficult to locate the errors. The errors detected are not clearly described to the users, and the users are not always provided with suggestions for correction, even though it would be possible to provide them. The accuracy of some of the relevant information is not checked before the storage. (WCAG 3.3.1, WCAG 3.3.3, WCAG 3.3.4)
  • The service has some buttons with labels that are not descriptive. In some selection buttons, the screen reader reads the name of the button and its contents several times in succession, making the contents difficult to understand. (WCAG 2.4.6, WCAG 1.3.1, WCAG 4.1.2) 

Other remarks concerning structure

  • The contrasts of some of the side navigations are insufficient. In mobile size, the side navigation is condensed underneath the hamburger button, which is difficult to distinguish from the background due to its weak colour contrast. (WCAG 1.4.3 and 1.4.11)
  • Exclamation mark icons and colours have been used in the tables and menus in the service to indicate events that the user should take into account. These icons and colours do not have a text counterpart, and they are not communicated to screen reader users. (WCAG 1.1.1, WCAG 1.3.1)
  • There are some shortcomings in the service heading entries and the use of heading levels is sometimes illogical. (WCAG 1.3.1)
  • A calendar function where the date can be chosen is used for the search functions in the service. However, the calendar functionality is not available with the keyboard and screen reader. The desired date can also be entered manually with the keyboard, but then the user may enter the date in the wrong format. The user is not given instructions on the format in which dates are to be entered. (WCAG 1.3.1, 2.4.4, 4.1.2) 
  • The service contains link texts that are not descriptive, or which do not contain all the relevant information. The links in the error message do not lead to the incorrect fields, even though the instructions say so. (WCAG 2.4.4)
  • The service does not easily adapt to different screen sizes and text enlargements, rather some content may be limited, completely inaccessible or require two-way scrolling. (WCAG 1.4.4 and 1.4.10)
  • The structure of the service does not fully comply with the grammar of the HTML language, which can make the use of the service unstable, especially with assistive devices. (WCAG 4.1.1)

The operation of the service

  • The service has many empty steps in many views when scrolling through the views with the screen reader arrow keys (WCAG 1.3.1).
  • The order in which the content is read on the screen reader is not always logical, and in some situations, the user has to cancel with the keyboard to access the new content. In some situations, deleting input fields may move the keyboard focus right to the beginning of the page. Also during keyboard navigation, the movement of the focus is sometimes illogical. (WCAG 2.4.3) 
  • Some of the status messages from the service are not descriptive. Moreover, status messages will not appear in all situations, for example, when the data of the fields have been automatically filled in, or when some entry fields have been added or deleted. (WCAG 4.1.3)

Drafting of the statement

Customs has assessed the accessibility of this service as follows:

  • The assessment was conducted by an external operator.
  • The statement was drafted on 12 February 2021.
  • The statement was last reviewed on 18 December 2023.

Feedback

We are happy to receive feedback on the accessibility of this service. 

  • Give feedback on accessibility to Customs by email: asiakaspalautteet@tulli.fi.
  • The Customs Clearance Unit of Finnish Customs is responsible for the accessibility of the Customs Clearance Service and will also respond to feedback on accessibility.
  • We aim to respond to feedback within five working days.
  • If you aren’t satisfied with the response you have received from Customs, you can also give feedback on accessibility to the Regional State Administrative Agencies: saavutettavuus@avi.fi.