Dear Customer,

This communication is relevant to all our customs clearance customers and is being sent as a result of a recent HMRC announcement.

Are your import declarations marked as ‘arrived’?

HMRC Custom Intermediaries have reported an increase in the number of ‘unarrived’ import declarations when goods are moved from the EU into the UK.

We are asking all of our customers to check that your import declarations are marked as ‘arrived’ and if they are not, you will need to take action and manually arrive your import declarations in CHIEF and CDS.

The published guidance tells you what actions you should take when goods have arrived in the UK, but the declaration status on CHIEF and CDS indicates that the declaration has not been ‘arrived’.

The process will be required in circumstances where there is HMRC system downtime, or where declarations have not been auto ‘arrived’ by GVMS due to other disruptions in the process.

It may also be required if part of the GVMS process has not been completed correctly. Hauliers must include the reference for all relevant declarations within the Goods Movement Reference (GMR) as any missing declarations cannot be auto ‘arrived’ by GVMS.  It is also essential that carriers validate and include every GMR in the embarkation notification sent to HMRC. If goods have arrived in the UK with an ‘unarrived’ declaration and there is no planned or unplanned downtime indicated by HMRC, you should check that these steps have been completed correctly to identify the root cause of the issue,  as well as manually arriving the declaration to rectify the situation.

You can access the guidance on how to manually ‘arrive’ declarations on GOV.UK.

Customs declarations must be ‘arrived’ once the goods have arrived in the UK so that HMRC is aware that goods are in the country. This allows businesses to pay the tariffs or taxes where due and to ensure their goods are legally released from customs control so that they can be sold or used. If it is not possible for declarations to be ‘arrived’ automatically by CHIEF or CDS via GVMS, then the person who submitted the import declaration will need to ‘arrive’ the declaration manually. The manual retrospective activity applies to EU goods arriving at UK locations using GVMS.

Customs are aware that this process can sometimes cause frustration, and they will continue to work with customers to reduce the number of instances where this course of action is required.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact our Client Services team at ukpclientservices@ukpworldwide.com.