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Information for Business and Trade - Customs Warehousing
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Customs Warehousing

1. Introduction
2. Legal provisions
3. Definition
4. Categories and types of customs warehouses
5. Approval of a customs warehouse
6. Preconditions for granting an authorisation
7. Guarantees
8. Placing of goods under customs warehousing procedure
9. Stock records
10. Duration of stay
11. Usual forms of handling
12. Temporary removal
13. End of procedure
14. Transfer of a license
15. Revocation/Annulment of a licence
16. More Information

1. Introduction


Customs warehousing is a special procedure under the category of storage. Customs warehousing procedure facilitates external trade, allowing traders to receive and store non-Union goods in an approved place without being subject to import duty, taxes or commercial policy measures until the procedure is discharged ensuring at the same time that the goods remain under customs control.

The traders may store goods in an approved customs warehouse or they may apply for an authorisation to operate a customs warehouse for their premises.

2. Legal provisions

The basic legal provisions for the implementation of the customs warehousing procedure are the following:



Apart from the above provisions, all other provisions of the Union and national legislation related to customs warehousing procedure are taken into consideration.

3. Definition

Under customs warehousing procedure, non-Union goods may be stored in premises or any other location authorised for that procedure by the customs authorities and under customs supervision (ʹcustoms warehousesʹ).

4. Types of customs warehouses

In the Republic of Cyprus the following types of customs warehouses are in operation:



5. Responsibilities of the holder of the authorisation or procedure

The holder of the authorisation and the holder of the procedure shall be responsible for the following:
    a) ensuring that goods under the customs warehousing procedure are not removed from customs supervision,

    b) fulfilling the obligations arising from the storage of goods covered by the customs warehousing procedure

    c) complying with the particular conditions specified in the authorisation.

The holder of the procedure shall be responsible for fulfilling the obligations arising from the placing of the goods under the customs warehousing procedure.

6. Authorisation to operate a customs warehouse

For the operation of a customs warehouse, the authorisation of the Director of the Department of Customs and Excise must first be secured. For granting an authorisation, an
an application form is submitted through the Customs Office responsible for the control of the warehouse. The application must be submitted with the required documentation for granting the authorisation, in particular demonstrating that an economic need for warehousing exists.

It shall be noted that for the implementation of the Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market and the harmonised legislation (Law 76(I)/2010 concerning Freedom of Establishment of Service Providers and the Free Movement of Services- only in greek), the Department of Customs & Excise for the purpose of simplifying the procedures and administrative cooperation required for the evaluation of the above application, may, through the IMI system, request and obtain information concerning the applicant from the competent authority of another Member State, in which the applicant has declared that is a registered member.

It is noted that as from 02/10/2017 the electronic Customs Decisions System-CDS has been put into operation, through which the economic operators are obliged to submit all their applications for customs decisions and customs authorities of member states to manage these applications and to take the relevant decisions. Information for the Customs Decisions System can be found by clicking here.

Data subjects are entitled to exercise their right of access to data relating to them in IMI, and the right to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected and unlawfully processed data deleted in accordance with the national legislation on personal data protection.

For any further information concerning IMI system you may visit the website http://ec.europa.eu/imi-net or obtain access through the website of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism http://www.mcit.gov.cy.

7. Preconditions for granting an authorisation

For granting an authorisation to operate a customs warehouse the following preconditions must be met:


8. Guarantees

For the operation of a customs warehousing procedure, the person to whom the authorisation is granted must submit to the Customs office of guarantee a comprehensive guarantee, (
form C124) to cover the amount of import duties, taxes and other charges liable on warehoused /stored goods in a customs warehouse and in general to cover the liabilities of the holder of the authorisation. The guarantor must be an approved financial or insurance institution. The amount of the guarantee may be reviewed by the Director according, amongst other things, to changes in the kind of goods, the duty liability of the warehoused goods or when such goods are transferred under suspension of duties and/or other taxes and the dangers associated with the operations of the warehouse.

9. Placing of goods under customs warehousing procedure

The placing of the goods under the customs warehousing procedure shall be made by submitting the relevant declaration to Customs. For the submission, acceptance, verification, correction and cancellation of the declaration, as well as for the release of goods, the current provisions of the customs legislation shall apply.

10. Records

The effective supervision and control of the customs warehousing procedure is based upon the records that shall contain the following:
    (a) the reference to the authorisation required for placing the goods under a special procedure;
    (b) the MRN or, where it does not exist, any other number or code identifying the customs declarations by means of which the goods are placed under the special procedure and, where the procedure has been discharged in accordance with Article 215(1) of the Code, information about the manner in which the procedure was discharged;
    (c) data that unequivocally allows the identification of customs documents other than customs declarations, of any other documents relevant to the placing of goods under a special procedure and of any other documents relevant to the corresponding discharge of the procedure;
    (d) particulars of marks, identifying numbers, number and kind of packages, the quantity and usual commercial or technical description of the goods and, where relevant, the identification marks of the container necessary to identify the goods;
    (e) location of goods and information about any movement thereof;
    (f) customs status of goods;
    (g) particulars of usual forms of handling and, where applicable, the new tariff classification resulting from those usual forms of handling;
    (h) where Article 86(1) of the Code applies, the costs for storage or usual forms of handling;
    (i) details or information concerning temporary removals;
    (j) where accounting segregation is required, information about type of goods, customs status and, where appropriate, origin of the goods;
    (k) where appropriate, particulars of any transfer of rights and obligations in accordance with Article 218 of the Code;
    (l) where the records are not part of the main accounts for customs purposes, a reference to those main accounts for customs purposes;
    (m) additional information for special cases, at the request of the customs authorities for justified reasons.
    The stock records shall at all time show the actual quantity and state of goods and their impending movements under customs warehousing procedure.

The holder of the authorisation and the holder of the procedure shall enter in their records in each case, detailed and accurate information relating to the warehoused/stored goods, in accordance with the relevant provisions of customs legislation and to make available to Customs, the documents (declarations or other documents) evidencing the discharge of the procedure.

11. Duration of storage

There shall be no limit to the length of time goods may remain under a storage procedure. However in exceptional circumstances, the Director may set a time-limit by which a storage procedure must be discharged in particular where the type and nature of the goods may, in the case of long-term storage, pose a threat to human, animal or plant health or to the environment.

12. Usual forms of handling

Goods placed under customs warehousing may undergo usual forms of handling intended to preserve them, improve their appearance or marketable quality or prepare them for distribution or resale. The usual forms of handling shall be those set out in Annex 71-03 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (ΕU) 2015/2446. The permission to carry out usual forms of handling is granted by the supervising office, under conditions, by submitting an application, provided that any required supervising or overtime fees must be paid.

13. Temporary removal

Goods placed under the customs warehousing procedure may be temporarily removed from the customs warehouse. Such removal shall be authorised in advance by the supervising office under conditions, by submitting an application separately for every case.

While goods are outside the customs warehouse may undergo usual forms of handling refereed above on the conditions set out therein. In this case the goods still remain under the customs warehousing procedure.

14.Discharge of the procedure

The customs warehousing procedure is discharged when the goods placed under the procedure are placed under a subsequent customs procedure, have been taken out of the customs territory of the Union, or have been destroyed with no waste remaining, or are abandoned to the State.

15. Transfer of the authorisation

The authorisation to operate a customs warehouse shall not be transferred to another person unless the other person submits a new application to the Customs to obtain a new authorisation to operate a customs warehouse, provided that the relevant conditions are met and fulfilled.

16. Revocation/Annulment of a licence

An authorisation shall be annulled if the decision was taken on the basis of incorrect or incomplete information, if the holder of the decision knew or ought reasonably to have known that the information was incorrect or incomplete, or if the information had been correct and complete, the decision would have been different.

An authorisation shall be revoked where, one or more of the conditions for taking that decision were not or are no longer fulfilled or upon application by the holder of the decision.


17. Information
For more information, you may write to the following address.
E-mail:
headquarters@customs.mof.gov.cy




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