European Union single window environment for customs

SUMMARY OF:

Regulation (EU) 2022/2399 establishing the European Union single window environment for customs

WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE REGULATION?

It establishes a European Union (EU) single window environment for customs* (EU SWE-C) to enhance cooperation and enable interoperability between the customs and non-customs areas in streamlining the electronic exchange of documents and information required for the goods clearance process.
It sets out rules to improve digital administrative cooperation and information-sharing between customs administrations and other government authorities (known as ‘partner competent authorities’*) in charge of enforcing EU non-customs formalities* at the EU border in different areas of EU responsibility under the treaties, such as health and safety, environment protection, fisheries, agriculture and market surveillance.
It establishes a centralised system, known as the EU customs single window certificates exchange system (EU CSW-CERTEX) to improve the sharing and processing of data submitted to customs and partner competent authorities by economic operators, ensuring that those authorities receive the original data in real time.
It requires EU Member States to establish and operate a set of services and systems known as the ‘national single window environments for customs’ to enable information to be exchanged between the electronic systems of their customs authority, partner competent authorities and economic operators.

KEY POINTS

Components of the EU SWE-C

The regulation provides a framework for digital cooperation between customs and non-customs authorities through three main components:

EU non-customs systems*
national single window environments for customs; and
EU CSW-CERTEX.

This framework enables information to be exchanged between national customs systems and EU non-customs systems through EU CSW-CERTEX, to facilitate administrative checks electronically at the moment of customs clearance.

Interoperability between the components of the EU SWE-C

Interoperability between the EU SWE-C components is enabled through two layers of government-to-government (G2G) and business-to-government (B2G) digital and administrative cooperation, to allow information to be exchanged between customs, partner competent authorities and economic operators. The aims of the regulation are the following.

Implement a G2G scheme by 2025 to enhance and streamline information-sharing between customs and partner competent authorities to automatically exchange and verify the information that is required for the customs clearance process. This verification will further ensure that the quantities of goods imported or exported at the EU level are properly monitored and controlled, thus reducing risks of fraud and gaps in the enforcement of non-customs requirements.
Implement a B2G scheme nine years after the application of the regulation to streamline clearance processes for economic operators when moving goods in and out of the EU. This scheme will allow economic operators to use a single portal in an individual Member State to submit all data required for goods clearance, instead of submitting the data separately to national customs systems and EU non-customs systems.
Ensure that the economic operator registration and identification number is used as the main identifier for economic operators for the information exchanged through the G2G and B2G schemes, including for the controls carried out by partner competent authorities.

Data protection

The EU SWE-C is designed with privacy and data protection at its core.
Data is kept in the source systems (customs or non-customs) and used only for the purposes already established by customs legislation and sectorial legislation.
EU CSW-CERTEX does not store any data when performing data-processing operations. In fact, all the exchanges and transformations take place in real time, triggering the contextual erasure of any data as soon as the processing operations are completed.
The only data kept in the system is a log file indicating that a transmission has taken place, along with the reference numbers of the documents concerned.

Non-customs formalities covered by the EU SWE-C

The annex to the regulation contains non-customs formalities hosted in EU non-customs systems that are used on a mandatory or voluntary basis, depending on the requirements of EU sectoral legislation for each applicable policy domain.
The regulation ensures that EU CSW-CERTEX is used by all Member States to cover digital exchanges for a multitude of EU non-customs formalities from diverse policy areas. Each of these formalities will need to meet specific legal and technical requirements to be phased in under the EU SWE-C.
As of 2025, EU CSW-CERTEX will cover sanitary and phytosanitary requirements, rules regulating the import of organic products, some environmental requirements, and formalities related to the import of cultural goods.

Monitoring and reporting

The European Commission will prepare annual progress reports to assess the state of digitalisation of all non-customs formalities at the EU border, including expected future developments and prospective interactions with customs.
Every third year, the annual reports will also cover monitoring and evaluation of the functioning of the EU SWE-C, focusing particularly on its impact on economic operators.

FROM WHEN DOES THE REGULATION APPLY?

It has applied since 12 December 2022, with the exception of some rules which will apply from 13 December 2031:

Single communication channel for economic operators (Article 8(3), point (a))
Non-customs formalities (Article 11)
Data harmonisation and rationalisation (Article 13(1), (2) and (3)
Submission of customs and non-customs data by economic operators (Article 14) and
Additional information and data exchange processed through EU CSW-CERTEX (Article 15(1) and (2)).

BACKGROUND

The legislation is the first deliverable of the 17 actions of the customs action plan.

For further information, see:

Union customs code (European Commission)
Decision No 70/2008/EC (European Commission)
The EU single window environment for customs (European Commission)
Customs action plan (European Commission).

KEY TERMS

Single window environment for customs. A set of electronic services to enable information to be exchanged between the electronic systems of customs authorities, the partner competent authorities and economic operators.

Partner competent authority. Any Member State authority, or the Commission, given the powers to perform a designated function in relation to the fulfilment of the relevant EU non-customs formalities.

EU non-customs formality. All the operations that must be carried out by an economic operator or by a partner competent authority for the international movement of goods, as laid down in EU legislation other than customs legislation.

EU non-customs system. An EU electronic system established by, used in order to achieve the objectives of, or referred to in EU legislation to store information on the fulfilment of the respective EU non-customs formality.

MAIN DOCUMENT

Regulation (EU) 2022/2399 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 November 2022 establishing the European Union Single Window Environment for Customs and amending Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 (OJ L 317, 9.12.2022, pp. 1–23).

last update 07.12.2022