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Import or export procedures EU VAT case law

9 cases of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union on this point of VAT law, from 2010 to 2025.

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Under each case, what the Court decided, from its summary. The summaries are AI-generated and are not official documents: open the case for the Court’s own text.

C-125/24 Palmstråle

Judgment · 12 June 2025 · Sweden

Reimportation exemption and breach of customs formalities

Failure to comply with formal obligations, presentation to customs and declaration for release for free circulation, does not preclude the exemption in Article 143(1)(e) for goods reimported in the state in which they were exported. Article 86(6) extends the returned goods relief to customs debts arising under Article 79, and would otherwise be deprived of effect. The qualification is that the exemption is lost where the failure constitutes an attempt at deception, and the national court must verify good faith and mere negligence. Assessments of import VAT founded purely on missed customs formalities on reimportation are open to challenge where the substantive conditions of Article 203 UCC are satisfied and there is no attempt at deception. Relevant to owners and handlers of goods temporarily taken outside the European Union, notably horses, artworks, exhibition goods, tools and equipment, and to their customs agents.

C-714/20 U.I. (Indirect customs representative)

Judgment · 12 May 2022 · Italy

Liability of the indirect customs representative for import VAT

Article 77(3) of the Customs Code covers customs debt only. Import VAT is not an import duty, so that provision alone makes the indirect representative liable for customs duties, not import VAT. Under Article 201 Member States retain a free choice and may designate the representative as jointly and severally liable, but only through national provisions that do so explicitly and unequivocally, consistently with legal certainty. Whether the Italian provisions do so is for the national court. Customs agents, freight forwarders and clearance brokers acting as indirect representatives cannot be assessed for import VAT by simple analogy with the customs debt.

C-489/20 Kauno teritorinė muitinė

Judgment · 7 April 2022 · Lithuania

Extinguishment of the customs debt and survival of import VAT and excise duty

The customs debt is extinguished on seizure and subsequent confiscation even where the goods had already been unlawfully introduced. Unlike the 1992 Code, Article 124(1)(e) sets no timing condition. But neither Directive 2008/118 nor the VAT Directive contains any equivalent extinguishment provision. Once the goods have gone beyond the first customs office inside the territory, importation and release for consumption have occurred, the chargeable events have taken place, and excise duty and import VAT remain due regardless of the customs position. Confirms the customs and VAT/excise regimes have decoupled on extinguishment.

C-154/16 Latvijas Dzelzceļš

Judgment · 18 May 2017 · Latvia

Import VAT on goods destroyed under external transit

Article 203(1) does not apply where destruction or irretrievable loss is proven to a satisfactory standard. Such goods cannot enter the EU economic network. Article 204(1)(a) applies instead, so a customs debt arises in principle for the part not produced intact, unless the national court finds force majeure or unforeseeable circumstances under Article 206(1). Import VAT, however, is not due on the destroyed or irretrievably lost part, because those goods cannot be integrated into the EU economy and so are not imported. The principal remains liable. Customs need not pursue the carrier. Confirms a clean split between customs duty and import VAT on transit shortfalls.

C-226/14 Eurogate Distribution and DHL Hub Leipzig

Judgment · 2 June 2016 · Germany

Import VAT where a customs debt arises from a procedural breach on re-exported goods

No import VAT is due. The goods remained under customs warehousing or external transit until re-exportation and left the arrangement only because of it, so there was no importation under Article 2. That holds even though an Article 204 customs debt was incurred, the breach here being discovered after re-export, with no risk of entry into the EU economic network. Nobody is liable for the VAT, so the question of the debtor does not arise. Article 236 does not apply to VAT repayments.

C-187/14 DSV Road

Judgment · 25 June 2015 · Denmark

Import VAT deduction by the carrier under a transit procedure

No customs debt arises under Article 203 merely from the return and non-presentation, provided the same goods were later carried to destination under a correctly discharged second procedure. If identity cannot be established, a debt arises. Late presentation under the second procedure triggers Article 204 unless Article 356(3), or the no obvious negligence and reasonable time conditions in Article 859, are met. Article 168(e) does not preclude refusing deduction to a carrier that is neither importer nor owner. The value of the goods is not a cost component of its transport charges. Confirms that freight forwarders and hauliers made liable for import VAT under national law cannot deduct it where they merely transport the goods and handle customs formalities, since the goods' value does not enter their pricing. Relevant to logistics operators in Member States designating carriers as persons liable on importation.

C-273/12 Harry Winston

Judgment · 11 July 2013 · France

Theft of goods from a customs warehouse, customs debt and import VAT

Theft of warehoused goods is an unlawful removal from customs supervision under Article 203(1) of the Customs Code and gives rise to a customs debt. Article 206 applies only where a debt would arise under Articles 202 or 204(1)(a), so force majeure is irrelevant here. Because customs duties become chargeable, the second subparagraph of Article 71(1) of the VAT Directive applies and import VAT becomes chargeable at the same moment. British American Tobacco concerned supplies, not importation, and does not transpose. Operators of customs warehouses and their customers cannot rely on force majeure, or on the theft case law on supplies, to escape import VAT when goods disappear from a suspensive regime. Relevant to high value goods sectors (jewellery, tobacco, electronics), warehousekeepers, logistics providers and their insurers.

C-248/09 Pakora Pluss

Judgment · 29 July 2010 · Latvia

Import VAT and the accession transitional regime for goods in transport

The accession regime is exhaustive for goods in transport on 01-05-2004 and requires three cumulative conditions: export procedure completed, release for free circulation, and proof of preferential origin or Community status. Article 448 steps cannot substitute for the export formalities. The Customs Code applied in the new Member States from 01-05-2004, but the duty-free accession regime cannot be invoked where those formalities were not completed. Import duties under Article 4(10) do not include import VAT. Import VAT is payable by the person designated or accepted as liable by the Member State of importation. Confirms that import VAT sits outside the customs concept of import duties even though duties enter the import VAT taxable amount, and that liability for import VAT is a matter of national designation rather than automatically attaching to the transit principal under customs rules.

C-230/08 Dansk Transport og Logistik

Judgment · 29 April 2010

Smuggled goods seized and destroyed, and where the import VAT falls due

The Court held that for goods seized by the authorities after their irregular introduction, that is from the moment they left the area in which the first customs office inside the territory is situated, and simultaneously or subsequently destroyed by those authorities without ever ceasing to be in their possession, the chargeable event for VAT occurs and the tax becomes chargeable, even if the goods are subsequently placed under a customs procedure. It further held that Articles 202, 215(1) and (3) and 217 of the Customs Code and Articles 7(2) and 10(3) of the Sixth Directive mean that the authorities of the Member State situated at the external frontier through which the goods were irregularly introduced are competent to recover the customs debt and the VAT, even where the goods were afterwards carried to another Member State and there discovered and seized. Excise duty, by contrast, is recoverable by the authorities of that latter Member State provided the goods are held there for commercial purposes, which is for the referring court to determine. The judgment separates three charges that arise on the same physical movement and does not align them.

Related topics

Customs Code · Persons liable for payment of VAT · Chargeable event, chargeability and collection of VAT · Incurrence of a customs debt · Customs union · Excise duties · Importation of goods · External transit procedure · Exemptions on importation and exportation · Exemptions