Change issuing Preferential long-term supplier declarations

• Preferential Long Term Suppliers declaration are declarations that state the preferential origin of a product.
• These declarations are needed in order to request (preferential) origin documents at the Chamber of Commerce or as underlying the proof of preferential origin, towards the Customs Department.

Renewal of Preferential Long Term Suppliers declarations

For most companies, January first of a calendar year is the time for renewal of the suppliers declarations needed to request Certificates of Origin or EUR1/EURMED documents.

As of the start of 2017 many companies were confronted with deviated validity regulations since the introduction of the UCC.

May 2016, implementation UCC (Union Customs Code)

With the introduction of the UCC a change regarding Preferential Suppliers declarations was implemented, which led to an undesirable situation.

For example, a suppliers declaration signed on 10-01-2017, dated and applicable during the time-frame of 01-01-2017 – 31-12-2018, was only applicable for the time frame 01-01-2017 until 10-01-2017. See below the explanation of the use of the declaration.

The change has been corrected and published in the following regulation:

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/989 of 8 June 2017 correcting and amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447 laying down detailed rules for implementing certain provisions of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the Union Customs Code.

For the change regarding the validity of the Preferential suppliers declaration the following text is applicable:

Decisive for the beginning of the longest possible period of validity is the date of the applicable version.

Within the maximum period of validity, the specific validity period of a Preferential suppliers declaration under "This declaration applies to all consignments of these goods in the period from ... to ...".

The initial date may not be longer than 12 months before or 6 months after the date of the copy, but can be freely selected within this time window.
The expiration date can then be a maximum of 24 months after the start date, but can also be selected freely within this time window.

Within the framework described above, the production of a single Preferential long-term supplier declaration is permissible again for both existing and future deliveries.

Example

A Preferential long- term suppliers declaration will be issued on 20.12.2017 for deliveries (already made and / or future). The starting date could be from 20.12.2016 to 20.06.2018.

• 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2018
• 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019
• 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018

The supplier must notify the recipient of the goods immediately if the information given in a Preferential long-terms suppliers declaration is no longer correct.