Movement of goods in temporary storage or under the customs warehousing procedure

Goods under temporary storage can be moved for 90 days from their entry into Finland and their first presentation to Customs. Goods can be moved several times within the time limit.

Regardless of the movement(s), the time limit for temporary storage is 90 days. If the goods have arrived at the storage facility under the transit procedure and the transit declaration has been used as a temporary storage declaration, the time of movement starts to run when Customs has issued an unloading permit for the transit.

Who should apply for a permit?

A movement permit is always applied for by the dispatching temporary storage facility. In the application, you should provide the authorisation holders’ storage facilities to which the goods are going to be moved.

You can also apply for a permit for moving goods between your own storage facilities at different addresses. If there is no such permit, the goods must be transited.

How to apply for a permit

Apply for the movement permit in the Authorisations and Decisions Service. You can apply for the permit when applying for a new warehouse authorisation or you can apply for amendment of your current warehousing authorisation.

If the goods to be moved under temporary storage arrived at the storage facility under the transit procedure, guidelines on how the movements will be carried out must be attached to the application.

Obligations of the authorisation holder

Records must be kept of the goods, so that Customs can supervise e.g. the identification of the goods and their movements.

An entry of the movement must be made in the records of both temporary storage facilities. All details of the goods required by law must be entered in the records of the dispatching and the receiving storage facility. The storage facilities must agree on the exchange of information, so that the receiving storage facility gets sufficient details for its records.

You should pay special attention to ensuring that the audit trail of the goods remains intact despite the movement. The audit trail of the goods includes e.g. the goods description and the quantity of the goods.

Read more about the required details in temporary storage records

Attach guidelines to your application, when the goods arrive at the storage facility under transit

When you are applying for a permit for movement of goods in temporary storage that have been declared for storage with a transit declaration, you must provide guidelines in your application.

The guidelines describe how the movements are going to be carried out. They must contain at least the following details:

• details of the authorisation holder responsible for the movements (dispatching storage facility)
• where the details for the notification come from
• how it is ensured that the goods have been presented to Customs
• who at the company completes the notification and submits it to Customs
• how the notification is sent to the other party for information
• how the physical movement of the goods is carried out
• how the acknowledgement of receipt taken is carried out between the storage facilities
• how the exchange of information between the storage facilities takes place in exceptional circumstances.

 

When an electronic TSD or ENS has been submitted for goods arriving in Finland, the notifications of movement must also be submitted electronically. They are submitted either via Customs’ e-service or via message exchange.

The movement requires three notifications/declarations

The movement of goods under temporary storage requires three notifications/declarations:

• notification of the intended movement (submitted by the dispatching storage facility)
• temporary storage declaration after movement (submitted by the receiving storage facility)
• notification of finalization of the movement (submitted by the dispatching storage facility).

Two of these are submitted by the dispatching storage facility and one by the receiving storage facility. Submitting them requires that the dispatching and the receiving storage facility exchange information.

The data requirements of the declarations are described in message implementing guidelines (MIGs) and in the instructions for the Customs Clearance Service.

How much goods can be moved at the same time?

Only the goods items in one house level transport document can be moved at the same time. A house level transport document can be, for example, a bill of lading or a house airway bill (HAWB).

If you want to move goods indicated in three different house level transport documents, you should submit a separate notification for each house level transport document.

The movement begins with a notification of the intended movement

The movement begins when the dispatching storage facility submits a notification of the intended movement indicating from which temporary storage declaration the goods are to be moved and where. The notification cannot be submitted until the goods have been presented to Customs.

If Customs registers the notification, it will serve as a permit to commence the movement of the goods. If Customs rejects the notification, the movement cannot be commenced.

The receiving storage facility submits a new temporary storage declaration

When the goods have been moved, the receiving storage facility submits a temporary storage declaration after movement containing details of the parties, the previous temporary storage declaration, the goods and the transport. The details provided in the declaration should match details in the first temporary storage declaration submitted for the goods.

The declaration receives its own MRN, which should be used as identifier for the previous document, for example, when the goods are placed under a customs procedure.

The notification of finalization of the movement ends the responsibility of the dispatching storage facility

Finally, the operator of the dispatching storage facility submits a notification of finalization of the movement containing the result of the movement. This notification ends the responsibility of the dispatching storage facility for the goods.

The notification of finalization of the movement contains the following details:

• details of the parties
• details of the previous document
• MRN of the temporary storage declaration submitted by the receiving storage facility for the completed movement.
• result of the movement with the code 0, 1 or 2:
  • “0 – Movement cancelled”
    • Explain why the movement was cancelled. Customs concludes that the goods are still in the dispatching storage facility, and the notification of the intended movement does not have to be invalidated separately.
  • “1 – Movement done”
    • If goods are missing, explain what has happened. The responsibility of the dispatching warehouse only ends for the goods that have arrived.
  • “2 – Not arrived”
    • The dispatching warehouse is responsible for any goods that went missing during the movement.

If the movement is cancelled or if some of the goods do not arrive

If the movement of the goods under temporary storage is completely cancelled, the notification of the intended movement still does not have to be invalidated. Notify Customs of the cancellation of the movement by submitting a notification of finalization of the movement.

If only some of the goods arrive, the dispatching storage facility notifies this in the notification of finalization of the movement. If all the goods go missing during the movement, the dispatching storage facility is responsible for the customs clearance of those goods.

When the movement is preceded by a transit declaration, you should notify Customs of the movement by sending a table (such as an Excel spreadsheet) by email to spake.varastointi@tulli.fi.

The temporary storage MRN and goods item number provided in the table remain the same until the goods are cleared through customs, that is, placed under a customs procedure or re-exported. The movement notification is entered as verification in the records of both temporary storage facilities.

How much goods can be moved at the same time?

The smallest quantity to be moved is the goods declared as one goods item.

A goods item can only be split for movement if several containers are declared as one goods item and they are full when moved.

What details to include in the movement notification

If the goods arrived at the storage facility under the transit procedure, the movement notification is submitted using an Excel spreadsheet or similar. It must contain at least the following details:

Details of the dispatching storage facility

• EORI number of the authorisation holder (e.g. FI1234567-8)
• name of the authorisation holder
• number of the warehouse authorisation
• warehouse ID (e.g. FI1234567-8R0001) 

Details of the receiving storage facility

• EORI number of the authorisation holder (e.g. FI8765432-1)
• name of the authorisation holder
• warehouse ID (e.g. FI8765432-1R0001) 

Details of the goods

• gross mass
• goods description
• kind and number of packages
• container number, when necessary

Details of the previous function

• MRN and goods item number
  • A goods item can only be split for movement if several containers are declared as one goods item and they are full when moved.
• The date when the goods were presented for unloading into the dispatching company’s storage facility
  • If the movement notification was submitted in advance, this field may be left blank.

Acknowledgement by the receiving storage facility

• date
• signature
• printed name.

If discrepancies are detected during unloading

If the receiving storage facility notices discrepancies during unloading between the goods and the details provided in the table, it must report the discrepancies to the customs office supervising the operational activity of the storage facility.

When an import declaration has been submitted for goods in temporary storage, Customs may decide that the goods are to be inspected. The submitter of the import declaration may wish to move the goods e.g. to their own storage facility if it is more suitable for inspection.

The proposed control location must be indicated in advance in the customs declaration. If the location is suitable for inspection and Customs decides that the goods are to be inspected, the goods can be moved from the storage facility to the control location. Customs will give you a movement permit.

• In the customs declaration, the importer indicates the proposed control location, which also serves as a request for a movement permit.
• The temporary storage operator needs a storage movement permit from Customs, so that it can release the goods from the storage facility.
  • If you are a message declarant, Customs will send you the storage movement permit via message exchange.
  • If you use the Customs Clearance Service, you should retrieve the storage movement permit from the service.
• When the inspections and any laboratory examinations have been carried out, Customs completes the customs clearance process. The importer is responsible for any further measures and transactions with Customs.
• The storage operator attaches the storage movement permit to their records.

Read more about providing the control location in the import declaration

 

The goods can be placed under the customs warehousing procedure in some other location (e.g. at a port) from which they can be moved to a customs warehouse by submitting a customs warehousing declaration.

When the customs warehousing procedure is discharged with another customs procedure, the goods can be moved to the customs office of discharge where they are placed under a subsequent customs procedure. The customs office of discharge is indicated in the customs warehousing authorisation.

The customs warehousing procedure can usually be discharged using an electronic customs declaration without a visit to a customs office.

However, if you discharge the customs warehousing procedure with the transit procedure and use the standard transit declaration, the transit procedure must be started at a customs office. The goods are moved to the customs office under the customs warehousing procedure under the responsibility of the holder of the customs warehousing authorisation. Customs seals the cargo before release for the transit procedure if the principal does not have an authorisation for sealing.

The goods can be moved under the customs warehousing procedure to the customs warehouse of another authorisation holder, who will place the goods under the customs warehousing procedure again by submitting a customs warehousing declaration (procedure code 7171).

The dispatching warehouse must still submit a discharge notification when all the goods that arrived with the same customs warehousing declaration have been removed from the warehouse.

Read more about discharging the warehousing procedure.

Goods can be moved between warehouses (warehouse IDs) indicated in the same customs warehousing authorisation.

If the warehouses indicated in the same customs warehousing authorisation have joint warehouse records, no customs declarations are required for movements between the warehouses. Entering the location of the goods in the company’s warehouse records is sufficient.

If the warehouses indicated in the same authorisation have separate warehouse records, the movements must be carried out either through transit or by placing the goods under the customs warehousing procedure again.

If the goods are going to be exported from the customs territory of the EU, a re-export declaration must be submitted for them. When you have received a decision on release for re-export from Customs, the goods can be moved to the customs office of exit so that they remain under the customs warehousing procedure during the movement. The goods remain under the customs warehousing procedure until they have exited the customs territory of the EU.

The customs office can be the office of exit from the EU or some other customs office indicated in the customs warehousing authorisation that is competent to release the goods for a subsequent customs procedure. The customs office can located in Finland or in another EU country.

The goods are under the responsibility of the warehouse keeper until their exit has been certified.

Time limit

The movement must end within 30 days of the removal of the goods from the customs warehouse. An entry of the final exit of the goods from the EU must be made in the records within 100 days of the exit.

Two entries of the exit in the records

The movement must be entered in the warehouse records. The authorisation holder must be able to prove that the goods have been removed from the customs warehouse and that they have exited the EU. This means that the records must contain two separate entries: one of the removal from the warehouse and another of the exit from the EU.

The decision on release with certification of exit must be attached to the warehouse records.

If the goods are going to be exported from the customs territory of the EU, a re-export declaration must be submitted for them. If the goods are not going to be moved to the customs office of exit under the customs warehousing procedure, they be placed under the transit procedure (T1 or TIR Carnet) after the re-export declaration has been submitted. The can be moved to the customs office where the transit is started so that they remain under the customs warehousing procedure.

The customs warehousing procedure ends when the goods have been placed under the transit procedure. Then the responsibility for the goods is transferred to the principal.

The MRN of the re-export declaration is entered in the warehouse records when the goods are removed from the warehouse facilities.

Temporary storage

• Union Customs Code (UCC) (Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council), Articles 144, 145(1), 148(5)(a)
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447, Article 193(4)

Customs warehousing

• Movement of goods: UCC (Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council), Article 219
• Movement of goods between different locations within the customs territory of the EU: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 (UCC DA), Article 179