Trade operations
Cross-border formalities — customs procedure, classification and valuation, documents, Incoterms rules, duties and import VAT, and trade controls.
- Air waybill and how air cargo documentation differs
Why the air document is never a document of title, how master and house documents nest, and what the number actually tracks.
- ATA carnets for goods that come back
How an international carnet lets samples, equipment and exhibition goods cross frontiers temporarily without duty or deposits.
- Authorised operator status and what trusted trader schemes deliver
How customs authorise trusted traders, the criteria assessed, the practical benefits, and what mutual recognition does and does not give.
- Bill of lading: receipt, contract evidence and document of title
The three functions of a sea transport document, why originals control delivery, and how waybills and release mechanisms change the picture.
- Binding rulings on classification and origin
How advance rulings work, what they bind, and when it is worth asking an administration to commit before goods move.
- Building a trade compliance programme that survives an audit
The components of an internal customs and controls programme: ownership, classification governance, screening, records, training and disclosure.
- Carriage and Insurance Paid To and the wider default cover
How this any-mode rule adds an insurance obligation to a first-carrier delivery, and why its default level of cover is the broad one.
- Carriage Paid To and delivery to the first carrier
How delivery to the first carrier ends the seller's exposure while its freight obligation continues to a distant named destination.
- Certificate of origin and what it does not prove
Who issues origin certificates, what a non-preferential certificate evidences, and why it is weaker evidence than traders assume.
- Classifying goods against the tariff
How the Harmonized System is structured, how the interpretative rules resolve difficult goods, and why a code is a decision rather than a lookup.
- CMR consignment note and international road carriage
What the road consignment note evidences, why reservations at loading and delivery matter, and how liability under the convention operates.
- Commercial invoice as the document customs reads
Why the sales invoice doubles as a customs document, what it must show beyond the price, and how a sloppy one stops a consignment.
- Consignee and the right to take delivery
What naming a consignee on a transport document does, how it differs from being the buyer or the declarant, and where the field goes wrong.
- Cost and Freight: two places in one term
Why the seller pays carriage to the destination port while the buyer has carried the exposure since loading, and how to handle the gap.
- Cost, Insurance and Freight and the cover the seller buys
What insurance the seller must provide under this maritime rule, why the buyer still carries the voyage risk, and when wider cover is needed.
- Customs brokers: what you are buying and what stays yours
How brokerage is licensed and scoped, what a power of attorney does, and why data quality remains the importer's problem.
- Customs clearance from arrival to release
The steps between goods arriving and goods being usable: presentation, declaration, risk selection, charges, other-agency holds and release.
- Customs transit and moving goods with charges suspended
How goods move between customs offices without duty falling due, what secures the movement, and what happens when one is not discharged.
- Customs valuation and the hierarchy of methods
How the value that duty is charged on is established, the ordered methods available, and the additions that traders routinely miss.
- Customs warehousing and holding stock before the charge falls due
How goods can be stored under customs control with duty suspended, what the authorisation demands, and when the structure pays for itself.
- Deferring or postponing tax due at import
Mechanisms that move import tax off the frontier and onto a periodic return, what they require, and the working capital they release.
- Delivered at Place Unloaded and the seller's unloading duty
The only trade rule that obliges the seller to unload, how it replaced the terminal-specific term, and what to check before agreeing it.
- Delivered At Place: arrival without unloading
What the seller undertakes when it delivers to a named place ready for unloading, and why import formalities stay with the buyer.
- Delivered Duty Paid and the seller as foreign importer
The maximum seller obligation, why eligibility to act as importer is the binding constraint, and what happens to unrecoverable tax.
- Documentary credits and payment against documents
How a bank undertaking to pay against conforming documents changes trade risk, and why the presentation, not the goods, decides payment.
- Documentary risk and the cost of paperwork that does not match
How mismatches, delays and missing documents stop consignments and payments, and the controls that reduce the exposure.
- Dual-use goods and items with both civil and military potential
How ordinary commercial items become controlled by technical parameter, how the lists are structured, and what classification against them requires.
- Duties, tariffs and the measures attached to a code
How tariff rates are structured, what determines which rate applies, and the additional measures that sit alongside ordinary duty.
- Entry summary and the split between release and accounting
Why some systems separate getting goods released from accounting for what is owed, and why the same phrase means a pre-arrival filing elsewhere.
- Ex Works and the minimum the seller can undertake
What Ex Works obliges each side to do, the loading and export-formality traps, and the narrow situations where it works well.
- Excise goods and the second layer of border charges
Why alcohol, tobacco and energy products carry a charge separate from customs duty, and how suspension arrangements move the duty point.
- Export controls and the licences that govern what may leave
How control regimes decide whether goods, software or technology may be exported, the four triggers, and what a licence application involves.
- Export declaration and the confirmation of exit
Who lodges an outbound declaration, how the office of export differs from the office of exit, and why the exit message is the valuable output.
- Exporting and proving that the goods actually left
Why outbound trade is lighter on revenue and heavier on control, and how an exporter evidences departure for tax, contract and audit purposes.
- Free Alongside Ship and delivery at the quay
What alongside means in practice, the gap between quay and vessel, and why the rule suits bulk cargo rather than containers.
- Free Carrier and the two delivery points inside one rule
How Free Carrier works at the seller's premises versus another named place, who loads and unloads, and the on-board document provision.
- Free circulation and what release actually confers
What it means for imported goods to acquire domestic status, how that status is evidenced, and what it costs to obtain and to lose.
- Free On Board and the line drawn at the ship
Where delivery occurs under Free On Board, why the rule fits bulk and not boxes, and the cost items that straddle the loading operation.
- Import consumption tax and how it differs from duty
Why a consumption tax charged at import behaves differently from customs duty, how the base is built, and where the tax is recovered.
- Import declaration: claiming a procedure and settling the charges
How an inbound declaration places goods under a procedure, how the charge is computed from it, and which supporting evidence it relies on.
- Importer of record: who the authority holds answerable
The party legally accountable for an import declaration, how representation arrangements shift or share that accountability, and who can hold the role.
- Importing and the obligations that attach at the border
What changes legally and commercially when goods enter a customs territory, and which duties fall on the party that brings them in.
- Inward processing and duty relief on materials that leave again
How imported inputs can be processed with charges suspended, what a rate of yield is, and how a bill of discharge closes the arrangement.
- Landed cost: what imported goods actually cost delivered
The full build-up from supplier price to goods available for sale, which components are recoverable, and where estimates go wrong.
- Notify party and routing arrival information to the right desk
What the notify field on a transport document does, who to name in it, and why an unread arrival notice becomes a daily charge.
- Outward processing and relief when goods come back improved
How goods sent abroad for work can return with duty charged on the added value rather than the whole product, and what proof that needs.
- Packing list: mapping goods to the packages they travel in
How a packing list ties invoice lines to physical cartons, why examinations and claims depend on it, and what makes one useless.
- Preferential origin and claiming a lower rate under an agreement
How a trade agreement's tariff benefit is claimed, what proof is required, and how verification unwinds a claim that cannot be supported.
- Restricted and prohibited goods at the point of import
The non-fiscal controls that stop consignments at the frontier, why they bind harder than duty, and how to identify them before ordering.
- Rules of origin and how nationality is assigned to goods
How goods made from inputs of several countries acquire a single origin, and the tests administrations use to decide the question.
- Running an export from enquiry to closed file
The exporter's sequence: qualifying an order, turning a contract into shipping instructions, clearing outbound and closing the evidence file.
- Running an import from purchase order to release
The order the steps of an import actually happen in, which must finish before the vessel or aircraft arrives, and where hand-offs break.
- Sanctions screening and knowing who you are actually dealing with
How restricted-party and destination screening works, why ownership and end use matter, and where screening has to sit in a process.
- Shipper on the transport document and what the name commits you to
Why appearing as shipper creates carriage obligations and declaration duties that are separate from being the seller or the exporter.
- T1 movements and the external transit procedure
What the external transit status means for goods that have not been cleared, how it differs from internal transit, and how movements are closed.
- Tariff quotas and getting access to the lower rate
How quota volumes at a reduced rate are allocated, why timing decides access, and what happens to goods that arrive after exhaustion.
- Temporary admission for goods that will be re-exported
The procedure allowing goods in for a limited purpose with relief from charges, the same-state condition, and how the arrangement is discharged.
- The customs declaration as a legal instrument
What a declaration is in law, the data it carries, how a procedure is claimed on it, and what happens when it has to be corrected.
- The Incoterms rules and what they allocate
What the eleven trade terms decide about delivery, risk and cost, what they deliberately leave alone, and how to choose one.
- Transaction value: the price paid or payable, adjusted
The conditions for using the primary valuation method, what counts as the price payable, and when the method has to be abandoned.