The advance filing requirement that ruffled so many feathers is part of the EU’s Import Control System (ICS). ICS
allows customs authorities to electronically review and conduct risk analyses of Entry Summary Declarations (ENS)
before goods arrive in EU member countries by air, sea, or
land. The ENS does not reflect the goods’ monetary value
and does not replace import declarations that are used for
assessing duties.
Europe’s system has two “striking differences” from the
similar Importer Security Filing program (known informally as “ 10+ 2”) in the United States, says Caroline Gubbi,
business development and compliance executive for the
international logistics company BDP International. “First
and most important, the filing under the European security rules must be done by the carrier, which has sole responsibility for it,” says the Antwerp, Belgium-based compliance
expert. (Another party may do the filing, but only with the
carrier’s knowledge and consent.) In the United States, the
importer and the carrier file. Another difference is that the
ENS requires 22 data elements—considerably more than
the 12 required for the ISF. (See sidebar for a list of the
required ENS data and filing deadlines by mode.)
Many of the 22 elements are familiar to U.S. shippers.
“These pieces of data are, for the most part, the same data
elements required for the mandatory Electronic Export
Information (EEI) filed with the Census Bureau,” says John
Little, BDP International’s director of compliance. The time
frames for the EEI filing are the same as those required
under the EU regulation, he adds.
But some information is new or somewhat different than
before. For instance, the validated Economic Operators
Registration and Identification (EORI), a unique number
assigned to importers and exporters in the EU that must be
shown on the entry summary, is “information that had not
been provided in the past by any party,” Little says.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?
Implementing ICS, which applies to all modes of trans-
portation, has largely been smooth sailing. Schenker’s King
says his company had to make some IT investments to
enable it to feed the 22 elements to the carrier and to ensure
timely submission, and the airlines themselves had to make
similar investments in order to feed the data to European
customs, he says. For the most part, though, “this is data
that we were already collecting and entering [into opera-
tional systems] on the day a shipment was received.”
Yet there have been some bumps in the road. For one
thing, Gubbi says, the ENS legislation does not specify
which party must pay the filing fee to the carrier. Nor is it
clear under which international sales term the ENS filing
fee falls, Gubbi says. “So, for example, [the fee] cannot be
referred to as an FOB (Free on Board) charge,” she says.
To avoid confusion, she suggests that the shipper and its
European customer agree in advance who will pay the ENS
And you thought 10+ 2 was a lot …
The European Union’s Import Control System requires carriers to file an Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) containing 22
data elements prior to a shipment’s arrival at the point of entry. They include:
1. Seller/consignor (Economic Operators Registration
and Identification [EORI] number)
2. Buyer/consignee (EORI number)
3. House bill of lading number
4. Master bill of lading number
5. Carrier
6. Person entering the filing
7. Notification party
8. Country of origin
9. At least the first four digits of the EU Commodity
Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) number
10. Loading location
11. First EU port of entry
12. Description of goods
13. Packaging type code
14. Number of packages
15. Shipment marks and numbers
16. Container number
17. Container seal number
18. Gross weight in kilos
19. U.N. Dangerous Goods code
20. Transportation method of payment code
21. Arrival date at first EU port
22. Declaration date
