ATA carnet
Also known as: carnet ATA, ATA-carnet
An ATA carnet is an international customs document that lets you take goods temporarily into another country without paying import duty. It replaces a separate temporary admission declaration in each country.
When do you use an ATA carnet instead of a T1?
You use an ATA carnet when goods temporarily enter and leave a customs territory and then return, without being sold or processed there. Think of a stand at a fair in Basel, measuring equipment that sits in Norway for a week, or samples a salesperson takes to a customer in the United Kingdom. The carnet replaces the national temporary admission declaration in the participating countries. You travel on one document across several borders, instead of opening a T1 or a local temporary admission declaration per country. The guarantee sits in the carnet itself, through the national guaranteeing association, and not in a separate GRN in NCTS. A T1 is still needed if the goods travel onward under suspension to a place where the carnet does not apply, or if the shipment is meant to stay. The carnet is not a transit declaration and not an import declaration for free circulation. Use it as a substitute for an IMA and the goods are not released for the market.
Which goods is an ATA carnet meant for?
The carnet covers three groups: professional equipment, commercial samples and goods for exhibitions, fairs or similar events. A camera kit for a film crew, a case of fabric samples, a machine running on a trade-fair floor: that is the ground it covers. The goods have to stay identifiable, so that customs at exit can see they are the same pieces as at entry. Sale is excluded. If a sample is sold, or a machine is left with the buyer, temporary admission ends and a customs debt arises in the country of import. You then have to clear that piece after the fact, with import duty and VAT over the value on the carnet. That costs more than an ordinary import declaration in advance, because the guaranteeing association settles the debt first and recovers it from you. Consumables, fresh produce and goods that disappear in use fall outside the carnet. Goods that are processed or assembled belong in another procedure, such as inward processing. The carnet keeps the goods in the state in which they entered the country.
How is an ATA carnet built and how do you fill it in?
A paper carnet consists of a green cover with the general data and, underneath, vouchers per country and per movement. Yellow vouchers are for export and re-importation in the country of issue. White vouchers are for temporary admission and re-exportation in the country visited. Blue vouchers are for transit on the way, if a country requires that between two points. The goods list carries, per line, the description, the quantity, the weight and the value. That list is leading. What is not on it does not travel under the carnet. An extra case the driver adds later, or a serial number that differs from the list, is a finding at a check. Fill the list in fully before departure, including serial numbers of equipment. At each border crossing you have the competent customs office stamp a voucher and endorse the counterfoil. Without that endorsement the movement is not closed administratively. A missed stamp on exit from the country visited is the most common reason the guaranteeing association later opens a claim.
Who issues the carnet and how does the guarantee work?
In the Netherlands you apply for the carnet at the Chamber of Commerce, which acts as the national guaranteeing association under the ATA Convention. Other participating countries have their own issuing body, usually the national chamber of commerce. The carnet is valid in the countries that have signed the convention, including the EU, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and a large number of countries beyond. The guarantee runs through that guaranteeing association. You deposit or guarantee an amount, the association stands surety with foreign customs. If a voucher is not discharged, the customs of the country visited claims against the association, and the association claims against you. That can still happen months after return, when an office only later discovers a missing endorsement. Standard validity is twelve months from the date of issue. Extension is in principle not possible. If the goods are still abroad after twelve months, you have to clear them locally or have a new carnet take over, insofar as the country visited allows that. Plan the return within the period of validity, not up against it.
What goes wrong in practice with an ATA carnet?
Most claims start from a missing stamp, not from goods that disappeared. A driver crosses an unmanned border at night, or a fair closes before the customs office opens, and the re-exportation voucher stays blank. On return to the Netherlands everything looks in order until the guaranteeing association asks for proof months later. A second fault is a goods list that does not match. Serial numbers on the case but not on the carnet, or a value later judged too low, produce a delay at a check. Customs in the country visited may hold the goods until the list is repaired, and you do not repair that in passing on a fair floor. A third is using the carnet for goods that are meant to stay. A sample the customer keeps, or a machine taken over after the demonstration, does not belong on a carnet. Arrange that in advance with an import declaration, otherwise you pick up the duty, the VAT and the cost of the claim.
How does the ATA carnet relate to NCTS and temporary admission?
The carnet is a track of its own beside NCTS. You do not open a T1, you do not get an MRN, and discharge does not run through IE045. Discharge happens on the paper, or in the digital variant through the network of the chambers of commerce. If you are used to transit declarations, watch the stamps and the validity as tightly as open T1 movements. Temporary admission through a national declaration (the temporary admission procedure under the Union Customs Code) still exists for cases where the carnet does not fit: goods that do not fall in the three groups, or a country that has not signed the ATA Convention. That declaration does run through DMS or the local system, with a guarantee of its own. Digital carnets (eATA) are being introduced in stages. Until that chain works everywhere, the paper document travels with the goods. A scan in your file is not a substitute for the original at the border. Keep the carnet with the shipment, not in the bag of the salesperson who flies later.