Important! German EORI registration is coming back now!

We received a notice from the German Customs at the beginning of year 2021: Starting from November 2020, the applications for German EORI numbers submitted by non-German companies all have been rejected.

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The official announcement from German Customs：

The German Customs authority is not responsible for registration regarding the Article 9(1) or (2) of (EU)Regulation 952/2013(CCC)

Combined with Article 5(6) of (EU) 2015/2446(CCC-DA).

Hereby the notice, German Customs will strictly follow the relevant EU laws and regulations. The importers or exporters outside the EU are not required to apply for EORI number. German customs will not accept the invalid EORI applications.

Finally here is a good news from German customs after almost a year:

Chinese seller can apply for German EORI now!

We have tried to apply as soon as we got the news, and we have successfully received EORI certificate!

We have the following interpretations for why the German customs has reopened the EOIR registration of non-domestic companies:

1. At the beginning of this year, the German customs stated that the backlog of German EORI number applications has reached more than 50,000, new EORI number applications can no longer be accepted due to the limited workforce. So far, almost 10 months have passed and The General Administration of Customs believes that the workload of application has returned to an acceptable level, so they reopened the application for German EORI number.

2. There are many changes since the Brexit, especially after first July 2021, Amazon started to collect VAT from seller’s each transaction. There is an increasing demand for deferred import VAT among the foreign importers. These importers may apply in other European countries. If they can not apply EORI in Germany, it will affect the VAT registration from foreign companies in Germany thus impact the revenue including investment and import tax from foreign market.

3. The economy in Germany were walloped due to Covid-19 impact. The government used a lot of fund to subsidize local people, which caused that public expenditure has increased but local tax duty decreased. In this situation, if the foreign companies can still clear customs in Germany and pay the duty, it may be a way to release economic pressures.

Here is the summarized Q&A regarding the German EORI and Customs clearance problem.

1. What is EORI number?

EORI, full name is Economic Operator Registration and Identification. It’s a Custom identifier for electric report.

It provides secure trade for both seller and buyer, and it is a unique number used to identify both parties.

A ‘legal person’ entity can register in only one member state, and it can be used in whole EU states

§ Website to check EORI ：

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/eos/eori_validation.jsp?Lang=en&EoriNumb

2. How EORI work?

The EORI number can be used for customs clearance/cargo transfer. 

The EU companies carrying out activities that involve import and export goods inside the EU, must obtain the EORI number issued by one of the EU member states or Custom of initial import country

The non-EU economic operator who carries out the import activities in the EU customs territory also need an EORI number, it required by the customs in importing EU country.

3. The documents required to register EORI and the timescale

Required documents: business license, German Tax number and VAT number

Timescale: Currently takes 3 weeks from submission to number issued

4. Is EORI required for non-EU economic operator ?

Any business headquarter established in the customs territory must register EORI number only in their local EU member state. Please notice! EU companies (except German companies) can not apply for German EORI number!

The economic operator which was not established in the customs territory requests the assignment of the EORI number to the customs authorities of the EU country responsible for the place where they first lodge a declaration or apply for a decision.

As the German customs has reopened the EOIR registration, we suggest seller to apply as soon as possible. We provide free EORI registration as long as you subscribed our German tax service! We will continue focus on the EORI policy change and update in time for every seller.