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While our thoughts may drift to summer holidays, we should remind ourselves that Customs compliance doesn't take a break. Whether it's a subtle update to CDS validation rules or a quiet revision to the UK Trade Tariff, staying alert is essential, as it's often the small things that can trip us up in international trade. At Multimodal, we were reminded just how challenging it can be to stay ahead of ongoing regulatory changes. Many within the industry echoed our thoughts. So often, businesses believe they're fully compliant, only to discover that it's the small, overlooked details that can lead to issues. Unfortunately, it's usually HMRC who identifies these gaps in compliance, often when it's too late.
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Magnified Mistakes: How Minor Preference Errors Are Costing Importers
It’s a tale as old as Free Trade Agreements - you’re importing goods under preference, your supplier gives you an invoice statement, everyone’s happy – until HMRC comes knocking. Recently, an importer found itself facing a duty bill, despite having claimed preference. Why? Because the preference statement wasn’t exactly correct. Not wildly off, just... not replicated word for word in line with the FTA, which was mainly the UK-EU Trade Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
Trading with the US: Importing into the US – Some important things to look for
With the US's approach to its tariff measures shifting, here are some key pointers for a UK business looking for more clarity on how the US Tariff functions.
Since 28th June 2025, licence data on declarations for goods movements into or out of Northern Ireland will be verified by the EU system CERTEX. This replaces Northern Ireland's Automatic Licence Verification System (ALVS).
Getting it right at the border - Update June 2025
The latest Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) newsletter release has been published. It gives the latest operational updates on border controls for importing live animals, germinal products, products of animal origin and animal by-products into Great Britain.
Some Location of Goods codes for NI have been omitted from the most recent CDS update. This will affect the validation of a location code on a declaration where DE 5/23 is recognised as an NI location and the codes NIDOM and NIIMP are used.
Notice to Exporters 2025/16, published 17th June, advised that the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) has been updated to accept the use of special and diacritic characters when declaring UK import and export licences on CDS.
Delay to the implementation of CERTEX
HMRC advised earlier this month that the formatting of CHED referencing would be changing at the end of June due to the transition of the ALVS system to CERTEX, the EU verification system.
Barclays Maintenance scheduled for Saturday 5th July and Sunday 6th July
The Barclays file gateway will be undergoing maintenance on Saturday 5th July between 08:30 and 12:30 which will mean statements are delayed.
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