The common transit procedure is used for the movement of goods between the 27 EU Member States of the European Union, EFTA countries (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia – and (for the time being) the UK.
The legal basis is embedded in the Convention of 20 May 1987 on a common transit procedure - which was aligned with the UCC in April 2016. The rules are in fact the same as the Union transit procedure.
Union transit deals with transit movements between the 27 EU Member States (including San Marino and Andorra).
When defining the transit procedures, 2 main types exist depending on the status of the goods:
- Internal Union transit, for Union goods moving between 2 different EU Member States when passing through the territory of a third country during transport, and
- External Union transit, for non-Union goods on which no duties or applicable taxes have been paid
While internal Union transit focuses on Union goods and the proof of this status in certain cases, external Union transit is a procedure to transport non-Union goods.