Did you know you can submit customs declarations yourself? You do not need a Customs Agent. So why appoint one?
The Customs Agent
There are two type of customs agents:
· Direct representation – those that enter information on your behalf
· In-direct representation – those that make decisions for you and enter information.
The latter is far more expensive however, it comes with a far lower risk as the agent retains responsibility. The former, you are liable for the information entered into the declaration as it is entered exactly as it is provided.
For the purposes of this article, we will talk about Direct Representation.
As a customs agent, we are fully aware of the negatives of the service, we do our best to mitigate these and reduce the paperwork for our clients however, there are administrative tasks that exist for due diligence and compliance. As a customer of a customs agent, your clearance request must follow a set ridged process and enters a queue to be completed. Agents who process large volumes of entries may also not be familiar with your product or process. This is the case for larger agents or freight forwarders that have “transactional” like business models.
Appointing a customs agent will typically require:
· A contract – often permission to act on your behalf.
· A company credit check.
· A set format for instructing them – typically an import or export instruction file containing all the relevant information that you have compiled for the movement.
· Finally, instruction must come from you – instruction cannot be provided by a third party therefore you need to allocate resource from within your organization to manage this.
At this point, you may be thinking – “if I need to do all this paperwork anyway and allocate staffing resource, why wouldn’t I just do it myself?”. With time and upskilling DIY export is fairly straight forward. Imports on the other hand – this is not so simple.
The DIY Route
Exports can be submitted into the National Export System (NES) via the UK GOV website and are free to submit into. NES uses CHIEF which is the UK’s old customs system. It’s clunky, dated and unforgiving however, it works. An alternative to NES is to use a pay as you go service from places like SGS. This system costs around about £5-10 per export.
If you’re moving goods such as controlled goods or goods that require a license or certificate – it get’s a little more complex. It is possible to confidently populate Box 44 with the codes you need to however, it’s often much quicker to call in a customs agent to do this for you.
Imports are a different kettle of fish. Imports into GB require you to have a ‘port badge’ for each port you import into. For example, if you import into Grangemouth and Teeside then you need a badge for each to get the goods cleared. Port badges are expensive, require an annual fee to be paid and are difficult to justify if you’re only bringing in a few items.
To add to the difficulties in DIY’n for import clearance, you need to pay a premium for more advanced software. This can reach into the thousands per annum.
Lastly, import entries are vastly more complex than exports. For good reason, HMRC is concerned more by what is coming into the country that leaving it. There are additional checks to be done, tax, duty and fees to be paid and port procedures to be adhered to.
If you are a large business and import over 300+ shipments a year, it will make financial sense to do it yourself as the cost of an agent for 300 imports will come in at around about £14,000 pa at the low-mid price tier. If this is the case, get in touch with us and we’ll get you set up with import software and offer some assistance.
Whether you plan to DIY or appoint a customs agent – get in touch with us.
We can offer guidance, training and access to industry leading software as well as submit customs declarations and issue Transit Documentation.
ChamberCustoms offers a complete customs clearance service with port badges at every major port. We can also offer online eLearning training for you and your team
