Uudised
Economic benefits of customs warehousing
We have been asked what is a customs warehouse. In the following article, we will try to answer this question and explain the economic benefits of customs warehousing.
According to the Customs Law (Tolliseadus), a customs warehouse is a territory, building, room, stationary container or bunkering vessel in the possession of its keeper, where the inviolability of goods under customs supervision is guaranteed (§ 37 of the Customs Law). The technical requirements and conditions that the customs warehousekeeper must comply with have been established by the customs authorities for the customs warehouse and the work arrangements valid therein.
If the goods are under customs supervision, this means that no import duties have yet been paid on the goods and the goods are not in free circulation to use. Ensuring the inviolability of goods under customs supervision is important because:
- no one could use the goods until they have been taxed and released for free circulation;
- the goods could be used only for operations accepted by the customs authorities;
- nothing would happen to the goods until they are released (or banned) by customs.
The economic benefits of the customs warehousing regime exist for both importers and exporters. Its main significance for foreign economic operators is, in particular, that goods under the customs warehousing regime are fully subject to the general principles of customs and tax regulation. With the help of special customs procedures (which also include customs warehousing), economic operators have the opportunity to pay customs duties only when performing a specific foreign trade operation.
In foreign trade practice, there are often situations where the buyer is not clear at the time of the import operation how he can use the goods imported into his country. Placing it under the customs warehousing regime can greatly facilitate its economic situation and the temporary release of working capital, as the importer is free to choose further operations during the customs warehousing period, including taking into account the expected change in the commodity market. By the way, in terms of time, the storage time of goods in a customs warehouse is not limited.
When importing large consignments, the customs warehousing regime saves not only a significant amount of simultaneous payment of customs duties and VAT, but also transport and storage costs. This is particularly useful in a situation where the importer does not have a clear guarantee that the products required for the prompt disposal of the products will be “frozen” or not recovered from previous transactions.
The customs warehousing procedure shall be used if it is wanted to:
- defer payment of taxes on the importation of goods (customs duties, VAT, excise duties);
- postpone the following customs-approved procedure (customs warehousing of goods is not limited in time);
- change ownership;
- re-export non-EU Community goods (eg acting as an intermediate warehouse);
- additional time to meet import requirements (licenses, etc.);
- end the temporary storage of goods or a previous customs procedure (eg inward processing);
- carry out normal handling operations on the goods before re-exportation or release for free circulation.
A customs warehouse can be either a public customs warehouse or a private customs warehouse. Public customs warehouses are in turn classified as type I and type II customs warehouses, according to who ensures that the goods remain under customs supervision. The type I customs warehouse is guaranteed by the holder of the permit, ie the warehousekeeper, in the type II customs warehouse it is guaranteed by the warehousekeeper of the goods, ie the holder of the customs procedure. Logistika Pluss is a public type I customs warehouse. The total area of our customs warehouse and customs terminal is 20810.80 m2. The Tax and Customs Board has also issued us with an AEOF (Authorized Economic Operator Full) certificate, which confirms our reliability as a service provider.
