Notice

NTE 2024/14: customs declaration service (CDS) - exhaustion in error guidance

Published 21 June 2024

CDS Exports - important information you need to be aware of if you are a declarant who exports goods under a licence.

HMRC are aware of some temporary issues with licence data flows between CDS and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) electronic licensing systems (SPIRE/LITE). These issues occur when a CDS exports declaration contains errors which impacts the licence. As a result, the declaration cannot progress to a cleared status.

What do I need to do?

Do not use document status code EE (Electronic Exhausted) or ES (Electronic Surrendered) details on CDS (DE 2/3) unless you wish to exhaust or surrender the licence. Instead, you are advised to use document status code EP (Electronic Partial). If you have incorrectly used document status code EE or ES and you have exhausted or surrendered your licence in error, you will need to contact HMRC.

In addition to the above, declarants must ensure that the details within Data Element 2/3 (DE 2/3) have been completed correctly before the declaration is submitted:

1. Quantity for the licence must not be zero, unless you want to delete an existing reservation. If no reservation exists an issue will occur and the declaration cannot be amended or deleted and you will need to submit a new declaration.
2. The measurement unit for the quantity must match the measurement unit associated to the licence.
3. If a document status code applies, the same document status code must be used for all goods items in the declaration.

What to do if you make an error and your declaration has been registered

If there is a discrepancy with DE 2/3, as described in points 1 to 3 above, your declaration will not be rejected and will remain stuck in a ‘received’ state. In addition, if your goods have been arrived at the frontier, the CSP/carrier will not receive any response notifications and your goods will not gain P2P.

At this point you may be notified by the carrier that there is an issue, and that you need to take action. You must not attempt to amend the declaration as this will not rectify the issue and could cause your licence usage to be stored incorrectly.

Instead, you must invalidate your declaration and submit a new declaration using the same DUCR (if your software allows) and a new LRN.^{[footnote 1]}

If your goods have been consolidated into a Master Unique Consignment Reference (MUCR), when you invalidate your declaration your Declaration Unique Consignment Reference (DUCR) may not auto disassociate from the MUCR. If you are using the same DUCR you may need to arrange for the DUCR to be associated back into the MUCR. If your DUCR/MUCR has already been arrived, the carrier may need to re-arrive it to trigger the relevant messages (P2P). Please liaise with your carrier and freight forwarder/ intermediary for guidance if necessary.

If you have attempted to amend a declaration that has a licence error, the declaration will remain in a ‘received’ state and not progress to ‘registered’ or accepted’. You will need to submit a new declaration and contact HMRC for a correction to be applied to the licence reservation.

What to do if you have a declaration rejected due to an incorrect licence EORI (CDS70740)

This error may occur if the EORI attributed to the licence does not match the exporters EORI declared in the declaration. You will need to contact HMRC via this link for a correction to be applied if possible.

HMRC are working with DBT to resolve these issues and will notify traders once these have been resolved or if there are any further updates to the above guidance. In the meantime, we ask that declarants follow the temporary guidance outlined above.

1. Declarant’s unique number for a consignment. ↩