ICC International Customs Guidelines
Commission on International Trade and Investment Policy, 10 July 1997

Introduction
These Guidelines, an initial business contribution to the implementation of the ICC Cooperation Agreement (1996) with the World Customs organization (WCO), present a comprehensive set of practices which the ICC considers are of particular value and importance for those engaged in international trade and transport and should characterise all modern customs administrations.
The Guidelines draw on a range of documents established by the WCO, including the Kyoto Convention and the Columbus Declaration. Many of their recommended practices — for example, the use of risk-assessment techniques with pre-entry and post-audit procedures — are as favourable to more effective customs control as to improved trade facilitation. The Guidelines make specific reference to the value of systematic customs/trade cooperation through Memorandum of Under-standing programmes.
The Guidelines will have many uses. They set out, in a convenient and well-defined form, a summary list of key procedures which can be readily expanded into a comprehensive Code of Best Customs Practices, which would be of considerable value to customs and trade in many emerging and transition economies. They should prove most useful as a means of rapid analysis of customs quality by such lending agencies as the World Bank or the IMF, for which international trade performance, greatly influenced by customs efficiency, is a key factor in financing and loan assessments.
They can serve as the basis for a regular review and classification of customs services and as a reliable index of their progress. They look ahead to certain potential extensions of current practice, and so provide signposts to customs innovations.
They will, of course, be adapted over a period to reflect new trading, transport and administrative techniques, particularly in respect of information and communication t echnologies. The ICC expects to gain much from experience of their use, in their present form, in European transition economies and in the focal customs activities now under way in APEC and NAFTA.
They are a powerful tool to help bring practical freedom for the individual international transaction into line with the policy objective of global trade liberalisation.
Certain procedures may not be feasible at the moment, in some countries, by reason of legal constraints. It is no part of the ICC intention to ask customs to question national legislation, but all the points set out in the Guidelines have satisfactory practical application by some leading customs administrations and the ICC advances such proposals in the expectation that any remaining legal obstacles, elsewhere, will be progressively removed.
The Guidelines in no way imply any reduction in the responsibilities of traders to comply fully with customs laws and regulations. Indeed, they are intended to encourage cooperation between customs and commerce so that both can fulfil their obligations without conflict.

The Guidelines
A modern, efficient and effective customs administration:

A. Strategic Plan
1. associates its business community with the development of a strategic plan, looking forward three to five years, which describes its overall strategy and key priorities, supported by an annual management plan containing more detailed targets, objectives and performance measures;
2. publishes an annual review, up-dating strategy and reporting progress;

B. Workforce and Structure
3. employs a highly professional workforce, which is recruited competitively, well trained, adequately paid and screened for enforcement risks, with written, standardised job descriptions and objectives, supporting transparent career development and promotion policies;
4. establishes an internal security unit, or is subject to an equivalent external body, to deal with issues of employee integrity. These arrangements should be known to the trade community, which should be given information enabling them to contact the appropriate security agency as and when necessary;
5. ensures that all employees having contact with the public carry proper identification, which should be shown on request;
6. employs, trains and identifies, as appropriate, tariff classification, valuation and rules of origin experts, to assist the trade community in these areas;
7. trains officers to investigate complex frauds, and recommend appropriate action;

C. Cargo Processing (General)
8. applies the WCO Kyoto Convention and actively supports current WCO work on its review and revision;

D. Cargo Processing (Inwards)
9. relates physical control procedures to documentary control procedures, in such a way that essential control data are processed in advance of the arrival of the goods, while other, administrative data are handled by post-clearance controls;
10. gives the declarant the option to secure immediate or rapid release by filing entry data in advance of the arrival of the goods;
11. gives the declarant the option to enter data, either manually or electronically, and comply with essential control requirements, at a place different from the location of the goods;
12. establishes control and release systems that enable the importer or agent to obtain the goods prior to the completion of administrative requirements and payment of duties, taxes and fees;
13. applies the WCO Express Guidelines for consignments for which immediate or expedited release or clearance is requested, regardless of weight, value, size, type of operator or carrier, or mode of transp ort;
14. applies a de-minimis regime whereby certain goods, including documents, private gift packages and trade samples, not exceeding a certain value or weight, are exempted from import duties and taxes and from formal declaration procedures;
15. reviews de-minimis levels regularly to take account of such factors as inflation;
16. gives the importer the option to file entries himself or to use an authorized agent;
17. releases goods at carrier’s point of arrival, without requiring their interim transfer to a government-operated or -designated warehouse;
18. uses selectivity, based on automated compliance measurement and risk-assessment and profiling systems, to target suspect consignments and so minimise the incidence of physical examinations;
19. operates a corporate surety bonding system, or other appropriate means, such as a duty- and tax-deferral system, to protect the revenue and ensure compliance with customs laws without unnecessarily delaying the release of goods;
20. fixes, in the absence of any evidence of fraud, a reasonable limit on the time during which it can demand additional duties and/or the re-delivery of the goods;
21. develops the use of non-intrusive examination techniques, such as X-ray;
22. develops and applies performance standards to check that its processing and release of goods are timely and meet reasonable business needs;
23. allows authorized importers to file single entries covering all their importations in a given period, e.g., monthly;
24. replaces transaction-by-transaction treatment by account-based, post-entry procedures for importers with proven compliance histories and consistent import patterns (e.g., types of goods and origins);
25. has government authority to perform certain control functions, at the time of import, for other official agencies and links these agencies to customs automated systems and databases for targeting and risk-assessment purposes;
26. adapts its working hours to ascertained commercial needs and operational requirements, and operates any necessary overtime or other exceptional service systems on transparent cost bases negotiated with business clients;

E. Cargo Processing (Outwards)
27. ensures that the statistical requirements for recording purposes are not applied in ways, or at times or places, that could significantly affect the efficiency of the export operation;
28. accepts, as far as possible, a commercial document, e.g., invoice, containing the necessary particulars, as the export declaration, in place of an official form;

F. Cargo Processing (Transit)
29. applies appropriate international transit conventions, for example, those noted in Annex E.1 of the Kyoto Convention;
30. cooperates closely with other neighbouring customs administrations to assist effective control and facilitation of common transit traffic;
31. operates computerised systems providing early, reliable notice of discharge of declarants’, carriers’ and guarantors’ transit obligations and effective means of identifying and preventing fraud;
32. accepts that guarantees or deposits for the transit operation remove any need for supplementary undertakings or payments at point of entry;

G. Transparency of Regulation and Administration
33. publishes its strategic plan and all customs regulations and makes them available to the public through the most modern and practical media, while ensuring that existing and new regulations and legislation are simple in form, content and presentation;
34. consults the trade community, systematically, to obtain views on proposed new regulations and procedures, or amendments to existing requirements, and gives them timely notice of any eventual changes;
35. adopts a Memoranda of Understanding programme, based upon that spon sored by the WCO, by which improved cooperation with the trade community is established in the areas of information exchange, security and training, with a view to more effective interdiction of customs fraud, in particular drug trafficking, infringements of intellectual property rights and threats to endangered species;
36. provides the means for the trade community to question or appeal decisions, by local officials, to a higher level, within customs, and, eventually, to a court of law, settling minor violations, normally, at the local level;
37. establishes an ombudsman, specialised in customs matters, as a medium for approaching the administration and a general information office or section to deal with queries from the trading community;

H. Automation
38. operates a nationwide automated system to provide electronic filing facilities for the trade community in respect of declaration data to be submitted at both import and export and for banks and corporate sureties in respect of duty and tax guarantees and surety bonds;
39. is able to transmit and receive data, nationally and internationally, using appropriate international EDI standards;
40. provides automated systems for the payment of duties, taxes and other fees by electronic fund transfer;
41. makes tariff and related information/data available to the trading community from an automated system;
42. establishes and operates an automated enforcement information system, using risk assessment and other modern control techniques;
43. requires, as a matter of routine, in automated systems, only those data items which can be clearly linked to significant gains in customs operational efficiency;

I. Tariff Classification and Valuation
44. applies the WCO Harmonised System Convention;
45. applies the WTO Valuation Agreement;
46. issues binding pre-entry classification and valuation rulings, on request, which will be honoured by officers, throughout the customs territory;
47. identifies and makes available customs experts to advise the trade community on tariff classification and valuation matters;
48. provides a sound, scientific basis for classification decisions through the use of laboratory analysis, equipment and technology;
49. publishes tariff classification and valuation rulings, either in printed form or on electronic media, and makes them available to traders and other customs administrations;

J. Origin
50. publishes current origin rules and rulings;
51. applies, in due course, the WTO Rules of Origin;

K. Disputes and Sanctions
52. accepts and applies the penalty regimes in Annex H.2 of the Kyoto Convention;
53. favours the resolution of disputes with traders through conciliation and financial adjustment rather than recourse to courts;

L. International
54. is a WCO member and participates in WCO and regional customs activities;
55. shares information with, and provides technical assistance to, other customs administrations for enforcement and facilitation purposes;
56. consults with major traders/carriers to develop customs/customs/business electronic information systems that would, initially, link and, eventually, replace traditionally separate export and import formalities;

M. Passenger Processing
57. relies on passenger observation techniques and behaviour profiles rather than routine questioning of all passengers;
58. establishes benchmark standards for passenger processing times and checks performances with corresponding benchmarks in other customs administrations;
59. uses automation techniques, including EDI, to improve the efficiency and security of passenger processing, including, where appropriate, the capture of Advance Passenger Information (API) from machine-readable travel documents, leading t o expedited passenger clearance;
60. uses a passenger processing system that is integrated with immigration and other control authorities, in order to avoid procedural duplication.

Document n 103/190 Rev.

Back to ICC statements and rules
Back to Rules