Customs clearance

What it means

Customs clearance releases goods into a chosen regime: free circulation, transit, a customs warehouse, temporary admission. It runs on a declaration filed electronically.

The declarant files it: the importer or a representative holding an EORI number. Customs decides on release and assesses duty and import VAT.

Customs clearance does not have to happen at the EU external border. Goods from overseas often travel under customs transit to an office near the importer and are released into free circulation only there, so import VAT arises in Slovakia even though the ship docked in another country.

How it works in practice

The customs decision is an accounting document: without it there is nothing to support the import VAT deduction. It must name the company, not the carrier, or no deduction arises even though the tax was paid.

Most companies use a customs agent. Liability still rests with the importer for the data, the classification and origin, and the documents are kept under the usual retention rules.

With courier shipments the courier usually files the declaration and then recharges the costs. In the books we separate duty and VAT from its handling fee, because each goes somewhere else: duty into the acquisition cost, VAT to deduction, and the fee as a service carrying its own VAT.

What to watch out for

On exports the proof of exit from the EU decides. Without it there is no exemption, and the tax office assesses VAT on the entire exported value.

A mistake in a declaration can be corrected after release, but only through a separate application with evidence. If customs finds it first in an audit, a fine comes on top of the back payment, and wrongly deducted tax has to be corrected in the VAT return for the original period.