For some years now, a work of change has been underway within the EU, which aims for all information transfer between companies and custom authorities to be done electronically. This change consists of new legislation, new IT systems and standardised work processes. The aim is to simplify legislation and administration in order to make customs clearance easier, cheaper and faster. Fully digital information exchange also makes it easier for customs administrations in the Union to carry out their assignment control and risk analysis tasks efficiently.
The Swedish Customs' implementation of the changes within the framework of the Union Customs Code (UCC) will be gradual and all changes are expected to be implemented by 2025. The next major step to meet the requirements of EU legislation for digital customs management is an update of the Swedish Customs' New Computerised Transit System (NCTS), which has now reached phase 5.
What does the NCTS update mean for your business?
NCTS phase 5 goes into production in Sweden on November 12, 2023, which is also the date when all new transits must be started in NCTS phase 5. This means that you as operators must prepare yourselves so that you are able to go into production with the NCTS phase 5 system and handle new transits there from this date.
What will be the changes compared to the current management of transits? The updated NCTS phase 5 system is very similar to the current system, but there are a few areas that differ. The data submission will look different, the structure will have more levels, more data will have to be declared and some data will be split into several elements.
A major difference is the introduction of two new reporting structures. Firstly, a Shipment structure based on the information contained in an invoice, and secondly, a Consignment structure based on the information contained in the transport documents. As a consequence of the new structures, the levels of data transmission will change from the previous structure of main and goods item levels to three levels of data transmission (Shipment structure) or five levels (Consignment structure).
Read more about the different levels of reporting here:
Future customs management - Different levels of declaration - Swedish Customs
Another major difference is that the structure moves from referring to field and box numbers based on the transit sequence document to referring to data elements. Another difference from before is that commodity code will now be required in the transit declaration, 6-digit HS code should be indicated on each commodity item. The details of the new declaration can be found in the declaration guide published by Swedish Customs:
Future customs management - Declaration guide for transit, NCTS phase 5 - Swedish Customs
More information on the update of the NCTS phase 5 transit system can be found here:
Future customs management - Update of the transit system, NCTS phase 5 - Swedish Customs
