What are Special Customs Procedures?

The transit procedures allows the movement of Union or non-Union goods under customs supervision between two points within or through the EU.

The customs warehousing and free zone procedures allow storage of non-Union goods under suspension of import duty, import VAT and excise duty as well as suspending the application of certain commercial policy measures.

The temporary admission procedure allows the importation of non-Union goods duty-free or with a reduced import duty rate, on condition that they are subsequently exported in the same state (i.e. unaltered) in which they entered the EU.

The end-use procedure allows the release of non-Union goods for free circulation duty-free or with a reduced import duty rate under the condition that they are assigned to the prescribed end-use. The goods remain under customs supervision until they have been used for the stipulated purpose or been brought out of the EU, destroyed, abandoned to the State or if the difference to the normal import duty has been paid.

The inward processing procedure allow the importation of non-Union goods under suspension of import duty, import VAT and excise duty as well as the application of certain commercial policy measures (e.g. import licences), and allow the processing or use of these goods in the EU.

The outward processing procedure allows temporary exportation of Union goods so that they can undergo processing operations outside the EU. On re-importation the processed goods are in certain cases duty-free (e.g. a repair free of charge due to a guarantee of the foreign supplier) or import duty needs to be paid only on the basis of the cost of the processing operations.