Guidance

Get an individual guarantee to cover customs debts

Use individual guarantees to cover customs duties for one-off or high value imports.

You should use individual guarantees if you:

  • move goods no more than 3 times a year under Common Transit Convention or Union Transit
  • put goods into customs procedures (inward processing, temporary admission, or end use) 3 times a year or less
  • need to cover an unusually large amount of customs debt that cannot be covered by your customs comprehensive guarantee

For transit procedures, check the Transit Manual Supplement for guidance on guarantees for transit.

Check what type of guarantee you need if you’re not sure.

Your guarantee must cover 100% of the customs duties. You cannot get a reduction or waiver for individual guarantees, even if you’re an Authorised Economic Operator for Customs (AEOC).

You can give HMRC an individual guarantee using a:

Deed of guarantee

If you are providing a customs guarantee in Great Britain, your guarantor must be a financial institution regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

You can check if a financial institution is regulated by the PRA on the Bank of England website.

If you are providing a customs guarantee in Northern Ireland your guarantor must be one of the following financial institutions established in either:

  • Northern Ireland and regulated by the PRA
  • the EU and accredited under the EU regulatory framework

Your guarantor needs to give you the guarantee on form C&E250 before your goods are released from customs.

General guarantee account

A general guarantee account allows you to provide multiple individual guarantees from the same account, rather than needing to provide separate guarantees.

To provide a guarantee for a general guarantee account you need to submit a C&E250 guarantee form.

This is included in an application pack which you need to request from:

Guarantee Seat
NTAS
HM Revenue and Customs
1st Floor West, Ralli Quays
3 Stanley Street
Salford
M60 9LA

Telephone: 0300 322 7064

If you’re not VAT registered, you’ll also need to get an EORI number.

Duty deferment account

If you already have a duty deferment account and customs comprehensive guarantee, you can extend your comprehensive guarantee to cover potential customs duties. You can also provide an individual guarantee in the form of a payment from your duty deferment account.

If you apply for duty deferment approval in Great Britain, and you are not approved for a guarantee waiver you may be able to use an individual guarantee for duty deferment.

If you want to use duty deferment in Northern Ireland you will need to provide a customs comprehensive guarantee. The Trader Support Service is able to provide advice on what’s needed for different goods movements.

Published 1 March 2019
Last updated 12 November 2021 + show all updates
  1. The telephone number to request an application pack has been updated.

  2. Section about 'deed of guarantee' has been updated to advise the guarantor must be a financial institution regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

  3. This guidance has been updated to explain how you can get a guarantee for duty deferment from 1 January 2021.

  4. First published.