Transporting goods across multiple borders can be a complex process, requiring careful navigation of diverse regulations and compliance requirements at each point along the journey.
With each movement across a border, there may be separate customs regimes and requirements to consider. That’s why traders use measures like transit procedures, which facilitate smoother movements when goods must cross multiple borders.
UK traders can make use of transit procedures when moving goods between various nations, allowing them to travel across the borders of the EU and other Common Transit Convention (CTC) countries with duties suspended. This means that import and export declarations and other formalities only need to be carried out for the goods’ country of departure and their final destination.
You can read more about transit and other changes to imports for UK traders in our guide on importing in 2025, which you can find here.
NCTS5
The system for making transit declarations is the New Computerised Transit System (NCTS). Each member of the CTC has its own national version of the New Computerised Transit System. These systems communicate with one another to oversee and manage the transit process.
In the UK, NCTS Phase 5 (NCTS5), the latest version of the system, was implemented on 1 July 2024. NCTS5 has been deployed in multiple stages and includes a host of major changes aimed at modernising transit, including advanced functionalities for guarantee management that guarantee financial coverage is closely monitored throughout the transit journey.
Other CTC nations’ implementation should be completed in January 2025, allowing them to comply with the most recent technical specifications required under the revised NCTS system.
Significant changes with NCTS5
The final stage of NCTS5 in January will bring several significant changes to the process of completing a transit declaration.
The first is the removal of the mandatory requirement for a paper Transit Accompanying Document (TAD) to be moved with the goods in transit. It introduces an electronic presentation of the Movement Reference Number (MRN) for inbound movements and introduces a requirement for commodity codes to be entered for each goods item on a transit declaration – which so far has been voluntary.
Traders will be able to pre-lodge a transit declaration by submitting a ‘Type D’ additional declaration type, and it will be possible to amend this up to 30 days in advance of the movement of the goods. NCTS5 also introduces the ‘office of incident’, to which drivers will be obliged to report serious incidents in real time.
The last change with NCTS5 is the introduction of Multiple House Consignments, which will require the goods to be declared at the house consignment level and need the goods to be grouped according to the consignor or consignee rather than declared on the item level. The Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade offers learning on this process in its dedicated Moving Goods Using Transit (NCTS) training course, which can be accessed here.
NCTS6
Following Phase 5 will be NCTS Phase 6 (NCTS6), planned for implementation on 1 September 2025. The next phase will allow the users to create a combined safety and security (S&S) and transit declaration (TSAD). However, each CTC member will be able to decide whether to allow this functionality. It is important to mention that, as of today, the UK has opted out of utilising TSAD, but can choose to allow it in the future – this will be subject to future consultations with the trade community.
For countries that opt in to implementing TSAD with NCTS6, the system will allow better integration of transit declarations with entry summary declarations. The next phase should also improve NCTS’ interaction with other customs systems, allowing better data interchange and communication between various customs platforms. For countries that opted out, the impact of the system upgrade will be minimal.
