CN code
Also known as: combined nomenclature, eight-digit code
The CN code is the European eight-digit goods code: the six digits of the HS code plus two EU digits. You use it on export declarations and on Intrastat declarations.
Why does the CN code exist?
The EU within the HS needs finer subdivisions for its own tariff and its own statistics. Those two extra digits form the combined nomenclature. The CN is updated yearly on 1 January and published in the Official Journal of the EU. Codes can lapse or split in that. The eight digits are the language of export and of Intrastat. On import you need ten, because TARIC hangs the measures on the last two. An export declaration with ten digits is not wrong, but the last two rarely do anything on export. An import declaration with eight digits is wrong in DMS: too short. The nomenclature is the whole of descriptions and codes. The HS is the worldwide layer, the CN the European extension, TARIC the layer with measures. Anyone who says nomenclature and means eight digits means the CN. Anyone who means ten digits means TARIC.
When do you use eight and when ten digits?
On export the eight-digit CN code suffices, because measures on export are rare. On import you need the ten-digit TARIC code, because the EU measures hang on that. Intrastat, the statistical declaration for trade inside the EU, also works with eight digits. That means the same article can stand in three lengths in your master data: six for DECO, eight for export and Intrastat, ten for IMA. In practice you store the ten digits and cut off what the channel asks. A file with only eight digits forces you into an extra look-up on every IMA, and that look-up goes wrong. On export there can still be measures: a permit, a certificate, a prohibition. Those hang on the CN, not on TARIC. Check the CN before the export declaration, not only the TARIC before the IMA. An export without that check misses a permit requirement that only becomes visible at the office of exit.
What happens at the annual change?
Lapsed codes are refused from 1 January. A declaration with an old code then comes back with an error message, even if the product has not changed. The correlation tables of the EU show which old code goes to which new one. Running article master data along those tables yearly prevents a peak of refused declarations in January. The new version appears in the autumn in the Official Journal. November is the moment to run the file, not 2 January. Anyone who waits until the first refusal has a week in which every export declaration and every Intrastat line with a lapsed code comes back. Splits are more treacherous than lapsed codes. One old code becomes two new ones, and you have to choose per article. The correlation table says which candidates there are, not which belongs with your product. That is classifying again, not copying.
How do you manage CN codes in your article file?
Record per article the code with the date on which it was last checked. Without that date it is not visible which articles have to be reviewed after the turn of the year. Also record what the classification rests on: the heading text, a note, a BTI or a classification regulation. At an audit the question is not which code you use but why. A reference to the support then saves days of searching. Run the file every year in November along the correlation tables of the EU. Lapsed codes are refused from 1 January, and the peak of refused declarations in the first week of January is almost always down to that. Keep the eight and the ten digits together. A CN change that does not touch the last two TARIC digits is still a new number in the file. Anyone who only updates TARIC and leaves the CN standing gets in Intrastat a code that no longer exists on import, or the other way around.
What is the link with Intrastat?
Intrastat is the statistical declaration for goods traffic between EU member states. Above a threshold amount per year a company is obliged to declare monthly what it has dispatched and received inside the EU. That declaration works with the eight-digit CN code, the same number you use on export. That means an error in the article file feeds through into both the customs declaration and the statistics. The reverse also holds: a company that keeps Intrastat in order already has a checked code file lying there. Bringing those two processes together saves double work and prevents the same articles getting different codes in two systems. Intrastat is not a customs declaration. No duties hang on it, but penalties do if you declare too late, too incompletely or with lapsed codes. The CBS deadline is monthly. A CN file that has only been updated for DMS and not for Intrastat produces the same error every month.
Where do you look up the CN code?
In the combined nomenclature in the Official Journal, in the Dutch customs Gebruikstarief, or in TARIC where you read the first eight digits. The text of the heading and the notes decide the classification, not the search bar. A BTI that names ten digits also fixes the eight digits: the CN is the stem of that. On export you check whether a measure rests on those eight digits. A permit, a certificate, a prohibition. That check is the reason you classify the CN before the export declaration, not after. A code you only choose when DMS or the export system asks for it is a code without that check. Keep the source with the article. A code from an old catalogue of the supplier is no source. A code from this year's CN, with the note with it, is. At the turn of the year the new CN replaces the old as source, and the code must again be set against that text.
What if you use the wrong eight digits?
On export a wrong CN can miss a permit requirement or disturb a statistic. DMS or the export system refuses a code that does not exist; a code that exists and describes the wrong product gets through. On Intrastat the same is true: the error falls at a CBS audit or at a later comparison with the customs declarations. On import eight digits are too few, so the wrong CN becomes a wrong TARIC as soon as you add two digits. The damage then sits in the tariff and the measures, not in the statistics. Correct therefore the stem, not the channel. One article, one classification, cut per channel. A BTI covers the discussion. Without a BTI the classification is the declarant's, even if the supplier put eight other digits on the invoice. The invoice code is a hint from another country, often on another nomenclature. Translate it via the six HS digits, and then classify again according to the CN.