Declaration header details

Under “Declaration header”, provide the following details: trader reference, additional declaration type, tax determination date, total amount invoiced, location, additional information and additional documents.

Basic information

Provide here the required basic information. Read the detailed guidance below.

Trader reference

As trader reference, provide a free-form reference that specifies the customs declaration. The reference can contain no more than 22 characters, and it can consist of numbers, letters or special characters.

Declaration type

The declaration type is filled in automatically based on your earlier choices. In tax border declarations, the declaration type is always “CO – Union goods in the context of trade between parts of the customs territory of the Union”. The declaration type can’t be changed. If the declaration type is incorrect, you’ll have to start lodging the declaration all over again.

Additional declaration type

The service automatically fills in the additional declaration type “A – Standard customs declaration”. If you lodge the periodic declaration within the specified time limit, that is, no later than the last day of the month following the month of import, provide “A – Standard customs declaration” as the additional declaration type. You can only change the declaration type to “R – Retrospective customs declaration” in exceptional cases, e.g. if the declaration has not been lodged within the specified time limit. 

Tax determination date

If the date when the declaration was lodged is the same as the arrival date, provide the arrival date as the tax determination date.

If you are pre-lodging a one-stage declaration, select the estimated date of arrival of the goods or the date when the goods cross the tax border. If the goods have already arrived across the tax border and you don’t know the date for that, provide the date when you submit the customs declaration.

If you are lodging a periodic declaration for a calendar month, provide under “Tax determination date” exceptionally the date of lodgement of the periodic declaration.

If you are lodging a declaration for inward processing or for temporary admission, select the date of lodgement of the declaration as the tax determination date.

Total amount invoiced and invoice currency

Provide the total amount invoiced here at declaration header level only if the importer is registered for VAT. If the importer isn’t registered for VAT, you can’t provide this detail here. Provide it later at goods item level.

Provide the total amount invoiced for the whole consignment, including the transport costs, in euros.

If you are submitting a periodic declaration, provide the total amount in euros for the goods in all the previous declarations covered by the periodic declaration. If you are declaring goods for processing, provide the value of the goods. If you are lodging a declaration for discharging the processing, provide the value of the processing. In the case of a declaration for temporary admission, provide the value of the goods.

Locations

The identification of warehouse doesn’t usually have to be provided in a national tax border declaration. If you are lodging a declaration for goods brought into Åland and you know, when completing the declaration, that the goods will be transported via a temporary storage facility, provide the warehouse. The identification of warehouse is the EORI number with code extensions (e.g. FI1234567-800101).

If you are lodging a periodic declaration of a VAT-registered importer, provide as the goods location the address where the importer received the goods.

Additional information 

If you haven’t given your consent for electronic notice, there is the additional information code “FINCO – The customer does not consent to receiving electronic notifications” in the additional information at declaration header level.

However, if you wish to make changes to the consent, that is, if you nevertheless want to receive electronic notifications from Customs by email, edit the consent details in the user settings. For detailed guidance on making changes to the consent details, Settings – Customs instructions.

If needed, provide one or more than one header level additional information code under “Additional information”. The service will automatically fill in the additional information code “FIPDF”. This means that the service generates a PDF document in the prescribed form, and you can retrieve it later from the e-service. Don’t remove this information if you need e.g. a decision on release that you will present to the transport company or the warehouse keeper.

If you need to provide other additional information, you can add it by clicking on “+ Add information”. From the drop-down menu, select the code needed in the declaration. If needed, provide the description of the additional information code in the field “Description”. The additional information codes FIPDF, FITIJ, FITPA, FIAXM and FIMAN don’t require any description.

Examples of additional information codes:

• If you are lodging a periodic declaration of a VAT-registered importer, provide the code “FITIJ – Import across the national tax border, periodic declaration” and as the description the month that the declaration concerns (mm/yyyy). The tax determination month is the month when the transport company has handed over the possession of the goods to the consignee. This is the date that the importer has entered into their records in the first stage of the customs declaration procedure.
• If you are submitting a periodic declaration, provide the code ”FIPER”. Its description will automatically be the length of the aggregation period based on your earlier choices. 
• If you are providing the amount invoiced or to be invoiced as an estimate, provide the additional information code “FITPA – Import across the national tax border, the data is based on estimates”. Provide the final total amount invoiced within 30 days of the date when you provided the estimated total amount invoiced. Read more on the Finnish Customs website about providing the final total amount invoiced. 
• If you are lodging a declaration for goods placed under or returned after inward processing or temporary admission, use additional information codes to indicate in which direction the goods are transported. When the goods are transported to Åland, use the additional information code “FIAXM”. When the goods are transported to mainland Finland, use the additional information code “FIMAN”.

If you have added an additional information code row by mistake, remove it by ticking the box next to the “Code” column and clicking on the button “Remove selected” above the rows. 

Additional documents

Provide here the additional documents concerning the whole declaration. In an import declaration, you must always provide an invoice or other additional document with which the declared goods can be connected to the importer’s records. If there are other additional documents that concern the goods and that shall be declared to Customs, provide them too.

Please not: If you have an identifier of the notice of arrival received by the customer from Åland Post (AN identifier), don’t provide it here. Provide it later as the previous document.

If you are providing a periodic declaration, provide as an additional document an invoice or other document that can be connected to the importer’s records and to the goods delivery as well as to the amount paid or to be paid for the goods.

If you are submitting a customs declaration for discharging an inward processing or temporary admission procedure, provide “C019” as the additional document type. As the identifier, provide the MRN of the declaration used for placing the goods under the inward processing or temporary admission procedure.

Add a document by clicking on “+Add document”. From the dropdown menu, select the type of additional document and provide the identifier, such as the number of the additional document or other identifier.

You don’t need to upload the document as an attachment, unless Customs specifically asks for it. You can upload an attachment by clicking on “Upload file”. The supported attachment file types are PDF, JPG, PNG and TIF. The maximum attachment size is 5 MB. The service will automatically fill in the attachment reference, if you upload a document as an attachment.

You can, if necessary, add documents by clicking on “+Add document”. If you have added a document row by mistake, remove it by ticking the box next to the “Type” column and clicking on the button “Remove selected” above the rows.