What Your Customs Broker Needs From You Before the Truck Moves – Daily Business

Most customs delays start before anyone files anything. A broker is ready, the driver is loaded, and then somebody realises the invoice has no value on it, or nobody checked whose EORI the declaration should go under. The filing takes minutes. Finding the missing piece takes the afternoon.

Here is what a broker needs from you, and why.

The three documents that start it

For a standard import or export, customs clearance usually starts with a commercial invoice, a packing list and the transport details. Email is fine. What matters is that the three agree with each other. If the invoice says 40 cartons and the packing list says 38, expect a question before anything is filed.

Depending on the goods you may also need licences, origin or preference statements, or evidence that supports the customs value. Zelir’s approach is to tell you what’s missing before it files, not after HMRC rejects the declaration. That’s worth asking any broker about, because a rejection costs you the time you were trying to save.

EORI: whose name goes on it?

Every importer or exporter of record needs a GB EORI number, which you can apply for on gov.uk. If you’re declaring in the EU as well, you need an EU EORI too. Many businesses forget the second one until a load is already at the port.

The practical question is whether the declaration is filed under your EORI or the broker’s. Brokers can act as your representative and file under their own authorisations where that suits, but you should know which arrangement you’re in, because it decides who answers HMRC’s questions.

Why the system matters less than the data

Declarations now go through HMRC’s Customs Declaration Service. It replaced the old CHIEF system for imports in September 2022 and for exports in June 2024, so there’s no legacy route left. Your broker needs to be set up on CDS, but you don’t have to learn it.

What you do need to understand is how much the system asks for. HMRC’s import declaration completion guide runs to dozens of data elements, covering commodity codes, origin and preferential origin among others. Each one is a place for your paperwork and the declaration to disagree.

What speed really depends on

Zelir says most declarations clear within minutes of the paperwork arriving. That’s plausible, and it isn’t the number to worry about. The variable is whether HMRC routes your consignment for a documentary or physical check. If it does, clearance waits for the check, however fast the filing was.

You can’t control selection, but accurate paperwork submitted early is the best defence against it.

If the load is held

A hold usually means someone wants clarification, not that the goods are in trouble. Someone then has to find out which authority has the hold and why, supply what’s being asked for, and stay on it until release. Ask your broker in advance who does that and how you’ll hear about it. “You’ll know when the driver calls” is not a good answer.

Two things that catch people out

Ireland is the first. Zelir has a Dublin office and files into the Irish system as well as CDS, so a Great Britain to Ireland movement can be handled at both ends by one team. Using two brokers who have never spoken is a common way to lose a day.

France is the second. Freight crossing by ferry or shuttle needs the French ELO barcode as well as the UK paperwork, and the envelope is only as good as the references inside it. A missing MRN or an unlinked transit movement and the vehicle is pulled into the control lane.

A five-minute check before you send anything

• Do the invoice, packing list and transport details agree on quantities and values?
• Is the commodity code right for these specific goods?
• Do you have the licences or origin statements this product needs?
• Do you know whose EORI is on the declaration?
• Does the route involve Ireland or France?

If you can answer all five, your broker has what it needs.