Bonded Warehouse

Description of bonded warehouse

Bonded warehouses are special because they are officially bonded - i.e. approved and also monitored by customs. In this way, the customs authority supports companies that purchase goods from non-EU countries. As soon as they cross the border of the European Union, they must be cleared through customs. This involves a considerable amount of bureaucracy for both the companies and the customs authority. The customs warehousing procedure allows goods to be brought into the EU without being considered as imported for customs purposes. For this purpose, goods are temporarily stored in the customs warehouses untaxed and duty unpaid.

For companies, the bonded warehouse brings various advantages:

• Credit function: customs duties, VAT and excise duty are suspended until the goods are released for free circulation
  
  
• Transit function: If the goods are re-exported, without being released for free circulation, no import duties have to be paid
  
  
• Commercial policy measures: Import permits, licensing schemes and other trade policy measures are suspended for the time being
  
  

Different types of bonded warehouses

Customs warehouses are governed by European Union law. According to Article 99 of the EU Customs Code in conjunction with Article 525 of the Customs Code Implementing Regulation, a distinction is made between public and private customs warehouses.

Public customs warehouses are usually set up by forwarding agents. There are the following differences:

• Warehouse type A: The warehouse operator is responsible for the goods, the depositor is responsible for the transfer
• Warehouse type B: Here the depositor is responsible for compliance with the regulations during storage as well as for the transfer to the warehousing procedure
• An alternative is warehouse type F. This is set up by the customs authority. This is set up by the customs authority, which is also the warehouse keeper.

In the case of private customs warehouses, the warehouse keeper is also the depositor. It is useful if the storage requirement is very large. It may only be set up after approval by the customs authority. Among other things, this is only granted if the storage period of the goods and products exceeds 30 days.

Types of private bonded warehouses

A distinction is made between the following types of private bonded warehouses:

Storage type C: the warehouse keeper only has access to the stored goods with the customs authority

Storage type D: the warehouse keeper also has access to the stored goods without the customs authority.

Customs warehouse type E (French: Entrepôt): storage does not necessarily have to take place at a location approved as a customs warehouse; only the customs warehousing procedure is approved

Advantages of a bonded warehouse:

• No levies such as customs duty or VAT (then 19 % more goods)
• Supervision by customs authorities
• Storage for an unlimited period
• Mostly highly modern alarm systems

For more information about the different types of warehouses, please have a look at our page Warehouse overview, where we offer you a lot more interesting information.