Exit confirmation

The exit confirmation is not produced in the warehouse or by the forwarder but by the office of exit. That office supervises the physical departure of the goods and passes the result to the office of export (Article 333 UCC IA). The exporter then receives the confirmation in the system used for the declaration.

The confirmation serves two purposes at once. In customs terms it proves that the export actually took place, which makes it the basis for the tax exemption of the export supply. In excise terms it carries the export report that discharges the movement under duty suspension (section 33 AlkStV).

It rarely arrives on the day of departure. Short routes are settled within days, sea freight takes weeks. For as long as it is missing, the movement stays open and belongs on a follow-up list. Anyone exporting regularly keeps open exports on the same list as open reference codes from EMCS.

The most common error is not following up on the exit confirmation. Without it the goods count as not exported, and alcohol duty can arise although the pallets reached the third country long ago.

Two further points come up regularly. If the goods presented differ from the declaration, the office of exit refuses the departure, and until somebody looks, nobody finds out. And confirmations land in the forwarder's mailbox instead of the exporter's file, although it is the exporter who has to keep them.