On 1 October 2022, USA imported goods started to be customs cleared via the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS). The customs clearances of exports will move over to Customs Declaration Service (CDS) after 31 March 2023. HM Revenue and Customs state that Customs Declaration Service (CDS) will provide easily access real-time import and export data, check tariffs and financial statements online, using dedicated digital dashboards.
One of the many changes post-Brexit is that every movement of products in or out of Great Britain involves a customs declaration, as EU countries are now considered ‘Third Countries’ from the point of customs. HM Revenue and Customs have made it very clear that the accuracy of customs declarations via CDS is the responsibility of the importer or exporter and not that of their customs clearance agent, who would normally be acting in the role of a 'direct representative'.
All USA importing businesses should have registered for Customs Declaration Service (CDS) prior to 1 October 2022 to either make customs declarations themselves or use customs agents that can make import customs declarations for them.
Many importing companies may find they were automatically registered for CDS as part of the process of using the new Postponed VAT Accounting (PVA) for Import VAT, which was introduced post-Brexit. Companies using PVA will already be downloading their postponed VAT statements from the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) financial dashboard on the websi
