Definitions
Article 5
For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply: (1) ‘customs authorities’ means the customs administrations of the Member States responsible for applying the customs legislation and any other authorities empowered under national law to apply certain customs legislation; (2) ‘customs legislation’ means all of the following: (a) this Regulation and the provisions amending, supplementing or implementing it adopted at Union or national level; (b) the Common Customs Tariff; (c) the legal acts establishing a Union system of reliefs from customs duty; (d) customs provisions contained in international agreements, if those provisions are applicable in the Union; and (e) Regulation (EU) 2022/2399 and the provisions amending, supplementing or implementing it; (3) ‘other legislation applied by the customs authorities’ means legislation other than customs legislation applicable to goods entering, exiting or passing through the customs territory of the Union, or to goods to be placed on the Union market, in the implementation of which the customs authorities are involved; (4) ‘commercial policy measures’ means, as part of other legislation applied by the customs authorities, measures adopted pursuant to Article 207 TFEU other than provisional or definitive anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties or safeguard measures in the form of increased tariffs on specific goods and including, in particular, special surveillance measures and safeguard measures in the form of import or export authorisations; (5) ‘person’ means a natural person, a legal person or an association of persons which is not a legal person but which is recognised under Union or national law as having the capacity to perform legal acts; (6) ‘economic operator’ means a person who, in the course of that person’s business, is involved in activities covered by the customs legislation; (7) ‘established in the customs territory of the Union’ means: (a) in the case of a natural person, having his or her habitual residence in the customs territory of the Union; (b) in the case of a legal person or an association of persons, having its registered office, its central headquarters or a permanent business establishment in the customs territory of the Union; (8) ‘permanent business establishment’ means a fixed place of business where both the necessary human resources and the necessary technical resources are permanently present and through which a person’s customs-related operations are wholly or partly carried out; (9) ‘Member State of establishment’ means: (a) the Member State in which a person is established in accordance with point (7); or (b) where a legal person or an association of persons has its registered office, central headquarters or permanent business establishment in different Member States, the Member State in which the main accounts for customs purposes of that person or association of persons are held or accessible, and in which at least part of the customs activities are carried out or are to be carried out; (10) ‘customs decision’ means any act by the customs authorities that relates to the customs legislation, gives a ruling on a particular case and has legal effects for the person or persons concerned; (11) ‘customs procedure’ means any of the following procedures under which goods can be placed in accordance with this Regulation: (a) release for free circulation; (b) special procedures; (c) export; (12) ‘customs formalities’ means all the operations which must be carried out by a person and by the customs authorities in order to comply with the customs legislation; (13) ‘importer’ means: (a) in the case of distance sales, the importer for distance sales; (b) in other cases, the person determined by applying points (i) to (v) in order: (i) a person who has the power to decide and has decided that goods from a third country are to be brought into the customs territory of the Union; (ii) a person who has taken over the power from the person as referred to in point (i); (iii) a succeeding person who has the power to decide and has decided to have the goods placed under a customs procedure; (iv) the carrier who brings the goods into the customs territory of the Union; or (v) the holder of the goods; (14) ‘importer for distance sales’ means either the person supplying goods in distance sales or the person facilitating distance sales; (15) ‘distance sales’ means distance sales of goods imported from third countries or third territories as defined in Article 14(4), point (2), of Directive 2006/112/EC; (16) ‘IOSS scheme’ means the special scheme laid down in Title XII, Chapter 6, Section 4, of Directive 2006/112/EC; (17) ‘exporter’ means: (a) a private individual carrying goods to be taken out of the customs territory of the Union where those goods are contained in the private individual’s personal baggage; (b) in cases not covered by point (a): (i) a person established in the customs territory of the Union who has the power to decide and who has decided that goods are to be taken out of that customs territory; or (ii) if there is no person as referred to in point (i), any person established in the customs territory of the Union who is a party to a contract under which goods are to be taken out of that customs territory; (18) ‘re-export’ means the act whereby an exporter takes non-Union goods out of the customs territory of the Union; (19) ‘pre-departure information’ means the set of data to be provided, or made available, to the customs authorities and relating to goods that are to be taken out of the customs territory of the Union; (20) ‘customs representative’ means any person appointed by another person to carry out the acts and formalities required under the customs legislation in that other person’s dealings with the customs authorities; (21) ‘data’ means any digital or non-digital representation of acts, facts or information and any compilation of such acts, facts or information, including in the form of document, sound, visual or audio-visual recording; (22) ‘customs surveillance’ means collecting and analysing information in relation to goods entering, exiting or passing through the customs territory of the Union in order to monitor those movements at Union level, to ensure the uniform application of customs controls and compliance with the customs legislation and other legislation applied by the customs authorities, and to contribute to risk analysis and management; (23) ‘risk’ means the likelihood and the impact of an event occurring, with regard to goods moved between the customs territory of the Union and countries outside that territory and to the presence within the customs territory of the Union of non-Union goods, which would pose a threat to: (a) the financial or economic interests of the Union and its Member States; (b) the safety and security of the Union and its residents, to human, animal or plant health, to the environment or to any other public interest; (c) the correct application of Union or national measures; (24) ‘economic analysis’ means the evaluation or quantification of a policy or an economic phenomenon in order to understand how economic factors affect the functioning of a policy, a geographical area or any group of persons, with a view to making better decisions in the future; (25) ‘risk management’ means the systematic identification of risk, including identifying profiles of economic operators presenting a risk and suspicious transactions, and the implementation of all measures necessary for limiting exposure to risk and minimising its potential impact; (26) ‘customs supervision’ means actions taken in general by the customs authorities with a view to ensuring that customs legislation and, where appropriate, other legislation applied by the customs authorities is complied with, or with a view to otherwise contributing to the management of risks related to goods and their supply chains; (27) ‘customs controls’ means specific acts performed by the customs authorities with a view to ensuring compliance with the customs legislation and, where appropriate, other legislation applied by the customs authorities, or with a view to otherwise contributing to the management of risks related to goods and their supply chains; (28) ‘audit’ means a type of customs control in the form of specific acts performed by the customs authorities in order to collect and evaluate evidence on the compliance of an economic operator’s management, organisation, internal procedures or internal systems with the relevant rules and requirements; (29) ‘place of release’ means: (a) the competent customs office; (b) the place designated or approved by the customs authority, including the place indicated by the Trust and Check trader; or (c) a free zone; (30) ‘notification of availability of the goods’ means the act whereby a person informs the customs authority that goods are physically located at the place of release and that data necessary to place those goods under the customs procedure concerned or in temporary storage, or to end the Union transit procedure, were provided or made available; (31) ‘random controls’ means customs controls based on principles of random sampling with regard to a population of interest; (32) ‘holder of the goods’ means the person who has physical control of the goods; (33) ‘carrier’ means: (a) in the context of entry, the person who brings the goods, or who assumes responsibility for the carriage of the goods, into the customs territory of the Union; however: (i) in the case of combined transportation, ‘carrier’ means the person who operates the means of transport which, once brought into the customs territory of the Union, moves by itself as an active means of transport; (ii) in the case of maritime or air traffic under a vessel-sharing or contracting arrangement, ‘carrier’ means the person who concludes a contract, and issues a bill of lading or air waybill, for the actual carriage of the goods into the customs territory of the Union; (b) in the context of exit, the person who takes the goods, or who assumes responsibility for the carriage of the goods, out of the customs territory of the Union; however: (i) in the case of combined transportation, where the active means of transport leaving the customs territory of the Union is only transporting another means of transport which, after the arrival of the active means of transport at its destination, will move by itself as an active means of transport, ‘carrier’ means the person who will operate the means of transport which will move by itself once the means of transport leaving the customs territory of the Union has arrived at its destination; (ii) in the case of maritime or air traffic under a vessel-sharing or contracting arrangement, ‘carrier’ means the person who concludes a contract, and issues a bill of lading or air waybill, for the actual carriage of the goods out of the customs territory of the Union; (34) ‘risk analysis’ means the processing of data, including personal data, with a view to the identification or quantification of possible risks, using where relevant analytical methods and artificial intelligence (AI) systems as defined in Article 3, point (1), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 30 ) ; (35) ‘risk signal’ means the indication of a possible risk, based on automated processing operations implementing risk analysis, in respect of data, information or documents; (36) ‘risk analysis result’ means, in the case of a risk signal, the determination that a risk is or is not present, based on an automatic process or on further human assessment of the risk signal; (37) ‘risk mitigation measures’ means the measures to prevent, reduce or manage a risk or to limit its impact, including: (a) instructing the carrier or exporter that the goods are not to be loaded or transported; (b) requesting relevant additional information or action; (c) identifying situations where action by another customs authority or other competent authority might be appropriate; (d) recommending the most appropriate place to carry out controls and the most appropriate measures for those controls; (e) carrying out a customs control; (f) determining the route to be used and the time limit to be respected when goods are to be taken out of the customs territory of the Union; (38) ‘control recommendation’ means the risk analysis-based conclusion of a customs authority or of the EU Customs Authority as regards whether a risk mitigation measure should be carried out and, where relevant, when and where it should be carried out; (39) ‘control decision’ means the individual act by which customs authorities decide whether a control is to take place; (40) ‘control result’ means the preliminary and final outcomes of a control, including any further action indicated and the competent authorities concerned with the outcomes; (41) ‘common priority control area’ means a selection of particular customs procedures, types of goods, traffic routes, modes of transport or economic operators with a view to subjecting them to increased levels of risk analysis and risk mitigation measures during a certain period, without prejudice to other controls usually carried out by the customs authorities; (42) ‘common risk criteria and standards’ means parameters for risk analysis of a risk area and accompanying standards regarding the practical application of those parameters; (43) ‘supervision strategy’ means an approach to handling a risk which aims to balance operational customs supervision efforts and risk mitigation measures throughout the supply chain in a proportionate and effective manner; (44) ‘consignment’ means goods conveyed under the same transport contract by one consignor to one consignee by the same means of transport, including multimodal, coming from the same territory or third country, and being of the same type, class or description or being packed together; (45) ‘customs status’ means the status of goods as Union or non-Union goods; (46) ‘Union goods’ means goods which fall into any of the following categories: (a) goods wholly obtained in the customs territory of the Union and not incorporating goods imported from third countries; (b) goods brought into the customs territory of the Union from third countries and released for free circulation; (c) goods obtained or produced in the customs territory of the Union, either solely from goods referred to in point (b) or from goods referred to in points (a) and (b); (47) ‘non-Union goods’ means goods other than Union goods or goods which have lost their customs status as Union goods; (48) ‘release of goods’ means the act whereby the customs authorities, or other persons on their behalf, make goods available for the purposes specified for the customs procedure under which the goods are intended to be placed; (49) ‘entry summary declaration’ means the act whereby a person informs the customs authorities, in the prescribed form and manner and within a specific time limit, that goods are to be brought into the customs territory of the Union; (50) ‘exit summary declaration’ means the act whereby a person informs the customs authorities, in the prescribed form and manner and within a specific time limit, that goods are to be taken out of the customs territory of the Union; (51) ‘temporary storage declaration’ means the act whereby a person indicates, in the prescribed form and manner, that goods are in temporary storage; (52) ‘customs declaration’ means the act whereby a person indicates, in the prescribed form and manner, a wish to place goods under a given customs procedure, with an indication, where appropriate, of any specific arrangements to be applied; (53) ‘presentation of goods to customs’ means the notification to the customs authorities of the arrival of goods at the customs office designated by the customs authorities or at any other place designated or approved by the customs authorities, and the availability of those goods for customs controls; (54) ‘declarant’ means the person lodging a customs declaration, a temporary storage declaration, an entry summary declaration, an exit summary declaration, a re-export declaration or a re-export notification in that person’s own name, or the person in whose name such a declaration or notification is lodged; (55) ‘re-export declaration’ means the act whereby a person indicates, in the prescribed form and manner, a wish to take non-Union goods out of the customs territory of the Union, with the exception of non-Union goods under the free zone procedure or in temporary storage; (56) ‘re-export notification’ means the act whereby a person indicates, in the prescribed form and manner, a wish to take non-Union goods which are under the free zone procedure or in temporary storage out of the customs territory of the Union; (57) ‘manufacturer’ means: (a) the manufacturer of the product pursuant to the other legislation applied by the customs authorities that is applicable to that product; (b) in the case of agricultural products as defined in Article 38(1) TFEU or raw materials, the producer; or (c) if there is no manufacturer or producer as referred to in points (a) and (b), the natural or legal person or association of persons that manufactured the product or had the product manufactured, and that markets that product under that person’s or association’s name or trademark; (58) ‘product supplier’ means any natural or legal person or association of persons in the supply chain that manufactures a product in whole or in part, whether as manufacturer or in any other circumstance; (59) ‘temporary storage’ means the situation of non-Union goods temporarily stored under customs supervision in the period between the moment in which the carrier notifies the arrival of the goods in the customs territory of the Union and their placement under a customs procedure or their re-export; (60) ‘expected customs office of first entry’ means the customs office which is competent for customs supervision at the place where the means of transport carrying the goods is destined to arrive in the customs territory of the Union from outside that territory; (61) ‘advance cargo information’ means the set of data provided or made available to customs authorities in relation to goods that are to be brought into the customs territory of the Union; (62) ‘processed products’ means goods placed under a processing procedure which have undergone processing operations; (63) ‘processing operations’ means any of the following: (a) the working of goods, including erecting, assembling or fitting those goods to other goods; (b) the processing of goods; (c) the destruction of goods; (d) the repair of goods, including restoring and putting those goods in order; (e) the use of goods which are not to be found in the processed products but which allow or facilitate the production of those products, even if such goods are entirely or partially used up in the process (production accessories); (64) ‘holder of the transit procedure’ means the person that lodges the transit declaration or provides the information required for placing goods under that procedure, or on whose behalf that declaration is lodged or that information provided; (65) ‘rate of yield’ means the quantity or percentage of processed products obtained from the processing of a given quantity of goods placed under a processing procedure; (66) ‘third country’ means a country or a territory outside the customs territory of the Union; (67) ‘customs debt’ means the obligation on a person to pay the amount of import or export duty which applies to specific goods under the customs legislation; (68) ‘debtor’ means any person liable for a customs debt; (69) ‘import duty’ means the customs duty payable on the import of goods; (70) ‘export duty’ means the customs duty payable on the export of goods; (71) ‘repayment’ means the refunding of an amount of import or export duty that has been paid; (72) ‘remission’ means the waiving of the obligation to pay an amount of import or export duty which has not been paid; (73) ‘buying commission’ means a fee paid by an importer to an agent for representing the importer in the purchase of goods being valued; (74) ‘crisis’ means an event, whether natural or man-made, of an exceptional nature and scale, taking place inside or outside of the Union, that endangers the safety, security, health and life of residents, economic operators, or personnel of customs authorities and that requires urgent measures as regards the entry, exit or transit of goods; (75) ‘crisis response cell’ means a service within the EU Customs Authority that coordinates the Union’s crisis response efforts within the customs union; (76) ‘micro, small and medium-sized enterprises’ or ‘SMEs’ means micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as defined in Article 2 of Recommendation 2003/361/EC; (77) ‘Economic Operator Registration and Identification number’ or ‘EORI number’ means an identification number, unique in the customs territory of the Union, assigned by a customs authority to an economic operator or to another person in order to register that economic operator or person for customs purposes; (78) ‘item’ means one or more goods in a consignment sharing the same tariff classification, description and, where provided for as part of the data requirements applicable to the relevant customs declaration or to the data to be provided or made available to the customs authorities, origin; (79) ‘shared border-crossing point’ means any customs border-crossing point, situated either in the territory of a Member State or in the territory of a neighbouring third country, at which the customs authorities of that Member State and of that neighbouring third country apply their respective customs legislation pursuant to a bilateral agreement.