SPE15480 - Common storage: identification of customs duty status
This manual will be archived on 15 December 2025. For up-to-date guidance on special procedures, please refer to Pay less or no duty on goods you store, repair, process or temporarily use (GOV.UK) and Customs Technical Handbooks (GOV.UK). If you have feedback about this manual being archived, email hmrcmanualsteam@hmrc.gov.uk.
Note: This manual is under review and is likely to be withdrawn. If there is anything within this manual you use regularly, please email hmrcmanualsteam@hmrc.gov.uk to let us know. Please check the other guidance available on GOV.UK from HMRC.
The term 'impossible to identify at all times the customs status of the goods' can be applied:
- when the accounting system does not identify the duty status of particular goods even though it is physically possible to identify the goods, for example, computers that may have individual serial numbers but these are not used to identify the goods within the authorisation holders records, and
- to bulk goods like wheat and oil which are to be stored in the same silo or storage tank.
Note: Northern Ireland (NI) customs authorisations will continue to fall within the provisions of the Union Customs Code (UCC), as retained by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and CEMA 1979.