White paper Brexit part 4
Since our last letter to you, much has happened around Brexit: the date has been pushed back to October 31st, a whole eight alternative options were turned down by the House of Commons (Chamber of Commerce) and PM Theresa May has resigned. Yet strangely very little has changed as in reality we are all still in an uncertain situation.
Will it be a no-deal Brexit, one with a deal or another delay?
This uncertainty causes many businesses not to thoroughly prepare for any eventuality. What we do know that – irrespective of the definitive outcome – is that the Huisman Group and her clients will have to deal with several customs regulations as soon as Brexit happens. And that we can most certainly prepare for that.
No Deal (Brexit)
If there is a no deal Brexit on Thursday 31st October 2019, alongside an export declaration for transit from the Netherlands (an EU country) a commercial invoice also needs to be made.
A simplified procedure, whereby the goods do not need to be declared immediately, is only possible if the receiver has been approved for the Transitional Simplified Procedure (TSP), has a VAT number and a GB-EORI number. www.gov.uk/hmrc/eu-simple-importing
TSP will be the UK’s temporary measure for the first 6 months (with a possible extension of a year) to deal with the transition. In this case nothing would need to be declared at the border.
If the receiver of the goods has not applied for TSP, then a physical customs clearance will have to be made in the UK.
In order to ship your goods on time, to declare them and to comply with the necessary customs formalities, per shipment we need the following information:
– At the latest at 3pm Dutch time all precise data and documents including;
• The exact number of pallets and boxes;
• Gross and net weight of the shipment;
• HS code(s) (commodity code) with a description and weight;
• Commercial invoice with the value of the goods per HS code;
• TSP Authorisation number and EORI number of the receiver;
• Country of origin;
• Delivery term DAP (standard);
• HS code(s) (commodity code) with a description and weight;
• Export document of this shipment.
– Export document of this shipment.
This does not apply for shipments from the UK to the EU, these will have to be cleared at customs.
Please give the driver the following documents to accompany the shipment:
• CMR bill of lading and packing list;
• Original commercial invoices (in triplicate);
• Export document.
We will assume that by default you will take care of these export documents.
Please let us know already now if, as the exporting party, you will take responsibility of creating these export documents yourselves or not, so we can record this on our systems. Should you not be in the position to make export declarations yourself, then Huisman can facilitate this for the exporting party and simply invoice you for it.
One time information needed;
In order to make any customs formalities run as smoothly as possible we need you, as the exporting part, to provide us with the following information (just once) to secure in our systems and share with customs if need be:
A. A declaration from your company stating how you determined the HS code(s) of the goods you export and what procedure you use to establish that the correct HS code(s) are mentioned on the export document and the commercial invoice when exporting goods.
B. authorisation “direct representative” with a valid ID of the signatory and a copy of your Companies House registration so that we can prepare your export documents in future.
Huisman will, apart from the export document, also have to make a transit document for the unit (for example a whole lorry) that transports the goods to the UK and will have to lodge this transit document at least one hour before the boat or trains arrives. This will be checked by the Dutch or French border control and UK customs. If the data is incorrect or not every shipment has been provided with documents, then the entire unit will be refused entry and cannot depart for the UK.
We would like to clarify that if the necessary documents for the shipment are not delivered to Huisman on time and with all the required information on it, unfortunately we will not be able to load your shipment that day.
Brexit with a deal:
If there is a deal between the UK and he EU, there will be a transition period. At the end of this transition period you will have to comply with customs formalities and regulations. From that moment onwards an export declaration will need to be done in Holland of any shipments going to the UK and we will need to declare these to UK customs. The Huisman Group has a partner to facilitate such declarations.
All of this might seem a long way off, but in order to organise this well we are already preparing. This means that we need to change some of our procedures and gather information and declarations to meet customs requirements in the future.
We do not know how or when Brexit will take place, but we are thoroughly preparing ourselves for any eventuality. The correct information and documents of you, our client, is of the upmost importance in that respect. We are therefore assuming that you will also be notifying your customers in the UK of the guidance outlined by HMRC/the British government.
Brexit will certainly have an impact on transit times. We at Huisman will do our very best, but next day delivery and fixed delivery times cannot be guaranteed as the situation in the UK is too uncertain.
With this joint effort we will ensure that we are prepared for both a DEAL or NO DEAL situation.
We hope that this letter has clarified the situation surrounding Brexit and what it means for your shipments.