17/02/2021
According to the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes at present Russia and other four Member States, namely Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, transportation companies operating inter alia within the Union may be registered as bonded carriers. This official status basically allows carrying goods subject to customs control and without customs release, in particular via internal customs transit, throughout the whole territory of the Eurasian Economic Union.
In order to get the said status in Russia, the applicant must comply with a set of requirements. Thus, certified bonded carrier status may be granted to a transport company active in any type of international commercial transportation (by sea, river, air, road, railroad, multimodal), provided:
- it is in good standing and it has a license to transport goods;
- it has been in cargo transportation business for more than 2 years prior to applying for ‘bonded carrier’ status;
- it has a property title to vehicles and/or other conveyance or possesses and uses them on other legitimate grounds (legal custody);
- it has at least EUR 200 000 financial coverage;
- it has no outstanding liabilities in terms of customs duties, antidumping tax, interest, penalties or other similar payments;
- it has no records of certain administrative offenses within 1 year prior to applying for the status;
- It is not directly or indirectly state-owned.
Russian Federal Customs Service (FCS) is in charge of certifying bonded carriers in Russia and keeps the records of all bonded carriers registered in all five member states of the Union.
Recently FCS adopted new reporting rules which are to come into effect in March 2021 and shall apply to all bonded carriers. Thus, whenever requested by customs authorities, a bonded carrier shall provide a report within 15 business days through e-platform or in print. The report must contain full details of the bonded carrier and all data about a carriage operation / period in question, including transit declaration(s), waybill(s) and transportation doc(s), cargo details, mass, quantity, customs codes, value, currency, transport & vehicle details, some other data.
Failure to submit this report to the customs authority, or failure to comply with the deadline, as well as submitting an incomplete or inconsistent report qualifies an administrative offence and is subject to monetary sanctions depending on the severity and other relevant circumstances.
