The Union Customs Code

What you need to know

All businesses involved in an international supply chain were affected by the introduction of the Union Customs Code (UCC), which was rolled out on 1st May 2016. With this comes a number of changes to how goods are transported across EU borders, and some of these transitional arrangements will operate until 2020.

As with many pieces of legislation, the law behind the UCC is complicated, and may be difficult to decipher if you do not have much knowledge in this area. At The Customs People, our qualified team has a great deal of experience in this area, and we are happy to help with any questions you have about your business.

To speak to the team, contact us by calling 0161 82 68 926.

About UCC

The legislation was passed into law on 29th December 2015, and places all imports and exports to and from the EU under the UCC rules. This means that any business involved in importing and exporting needs to be aware of the changes to see if they are affected.

Key changes outlined as part of the UCC include:

• Mandatory guarantees for most special procedures and temporary storage - this applies to both new authorisations and reauthorisations when current authorisations expire.
• The ability to make some movements under temporary storage, rather than national transit or Electronic Transit Systems
• The removal of the earlier sales provisions relating to valuation - but there are some transitional arrangements
• All communications between customs and authorities, and economic operators must be electronic

Procedures affected by the UCC include inward processing, Outward Processing, end-use, Temporary Admission, SIVA and customs warehousing.

Important information

• End-use businesses are required to submit Bills of Discharge after 1st May 2016
• Low Value Bulked Imports, Processing Under Customs Control (PCC) and IPR Drawback will cease after 30th April 2016
• CFSP Local Clearance Procedure becomes Entry in Declarants' Records (EIDR) with limitations on use
• Extent of duty on Royalties is to be extended
• Use of ‘earlier sale’ rule for valuation of imports for Customs Duty is scrapped
• Changes to Temporary Storage & Transit

AEO status

While it is not mandatory to become an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO), it is important for all businesses involved in a supply chain to be aware of this status, and how it could help them to carry out operations more smoothly.

For many authorisation and simplifications within the UCC, it is necessary to meet some or all of the customs simplifications AEO certificate criteria. Therefore, in many cases, the AEO accreditation is certainly beneficial.