Update, 6 March: HMRC offered an update to its previous announcement specific to goods moving into Northern Ireland from Britain or goods moving into Northern Ireland from a country outside of the UK and the EU (including goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain where they were not in free circulation).

From 24 March, traders will need to have a valid UK Internal Market Scheme authorisation in order to use the ‘NIREM’ code to declare goods their goods are ‘not at risk’. Those moving goods while using NIREM, but without a valid authorisation, will be subject to EU duties, which will be charged to them via the Customs Declaration Service (CDS).

Original post, 4 March: HMRC has said that that businesses can move all their export declarations to CDS from today (4 March) onwards.

This move is the latest move in a multi-step transition to CDS from the old Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF), which is slowly being phased out.

The government says that 100m declarations have been successfully made via CDS so far and that it is recommending traders to move to CDS as soon as they are able to do so.

Anna Doherty, senior trade and customs specialist at the Institute of Export & International Trade (IOE&IT), said:

“CDS for export declarations will be available for all routes from today, including all inventory exports.

“While the official deadline for CDS Exports is still 30 March 2024, declarants will have until 4 June 2024 to migrate fully after which CHIEF will no longer be open for export entries – it is already closed for imports.

“Declarants should aim to move to CDS as soon as possible and they can utilise the Trader Dress Rehearsal environment first to test out their shipping scenarios before moving fully to the live system.”

June deadline

HMRC has also said that traders had until 4 June to fully move to CDS.

In a letter to stakeholders, HMRC said that businesses had been asking for more time to make the transition from CHIEF.

In the letter, the agency said:

“For this reason, we have agreed that you will have until Tuesday 4 June 2024 to move to the CDS.

“After this date you will no longer be able to submit customs declarations through CHIEF.”

There will be exceptions for those who are unable to move to CDS by the June deadline, but HMRC says these are limited and will have strict restrictions. Further details on these exemptions are expected to be published in April.

New online service

As part of today’s announcement, HMRC has made an available an online service for making export declarations directly into CDS.

This replaces the National Export System Web (NESweb) system, which was used for declarations in CHIEF.

Any trader wanting to use the new system will require an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number, a Government Gateway ID and will need to be registered to use CDS.

The service is free but is aimed at occasional users rather than high-volume declarants, and the normal requirements on export declarations remain.

You can access the new service here.

Actions

The CDS-to-CHIEF transition has been taking place since 2018, with CHIEF closed for import declarations since autumn 2022.

HMRC is advising traders to subscribe to CDS, contact the appropriate software providers to find out whether they can start using IT programmes to submit declarations and practice using the Trader Dress Rehearsal Service.

Government advice on software providers can be found here.

HMRC will also host a webinar on Thursday at 9.45am covering topics on the transition to CDS. You can sign up here.