Traders are therefore requested not to use special or diacritic characters in their Department for Business and Trade (DBT) ICMS 2, SPIRE and LITE licence applications until the CDS issue has been resolved in a CDS release due in the spring of 2025. 

The Special characters include, but are not limited to: 

• % 
• _ 
• { } 
• [ ] 
• # 

The Diacritic characters include, but are not limited to: 

• é – accent acute 
• è – accent grave 
• ê – circumflex 
• ë – umlaut or diaeresis 
• ç – cedilla 
• ñ – tilde 
• ø – streg 
• ð – eth (capital form Ð) 
• å – Bolle 
• æ – ligature 
• œ – ligature 
• ē – macron 
• č – háček 
• ŭ – crescent 

Actions: 

What you need to do for licences already granted 

Where a licence is already approved and contains these characters and cannot be accepted by CDS for export, contact LITE support at LITE.support@businessandtrade.gov.uk  

The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) may reissue the licence. 

For imports, contact enquiries.ilb@businessandtrade.gov.uk  

The Imports Licencing Branch (ILB) may re-issue the licence. 

What you need to do for pending licence applications 

Where the ECJU is currently processing an application which contains special and/or diacritic characters, contact the ECJU at Exportcontrol.help@businessandtrade.gov.uk to check whether it is possible for the application to be amended to remove or replace the affected characters.   

Where the ILB is currently processing an affected application, contact the ILB at enquiries.ilb@businessandtrade.gov.uk to check whether the application can be amended. 

What you need to do for new licence applications 

For new applications to ICMS 2, SPIRE, and LITE, please do not use special and/or diacritic characters until the CDS issue has been confirmed as resolved. 

Help and support 

For further help and support, please use GOV.UK to report a problem when using the CDS. 

If your problem is considered urgent, you should receive a response within two hours. The projected response time is within 24 hours for all other non-urgent issues reported.