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NCTS5 – practice makes perfect, says BIFA expert
[ October 23, 2024 // Chris Lewis ]BIFA policy and compliance advisor Igor Popovics is urging companies to “practice, practice, practice” ahead of introduction of the latest iteration of the EU’s transit system, NCTS5 on 22 January. They should also check with their software providers that they can support the new regime.
In an episode of BIFAlink TV on 23 October, he said that NCTS5 will usher in a paperless environment, with the paper transit document disappearing from normal operations. Drivers would instead scan a bar code, and it was important to ensure that they had this – a reference number would not be sufficient, he pointed out.
Border Force would no longer print transit documentation by default, so any drivers who did require paper documents would in future have to ask for it, specifying whether or not they needed a full print-out.
Under NCTS, six-digit HS commodity codes would need to be declared in Great Britain and eight-digit codes for Northern Ireland. MRNs will need to be entered digitally into the GVMS system and in future there would be financial penalties for failing to do so.
Another new feature will be an Office of Incident for reporting any transit issues.
NCTS5 will also bring the ability to declare multiple House consignments generally up to 999 lines, though with some limitations. There will also be an option to prelodge declarations up to 30 days prior to departure and to make amendments as required.
Popovics added that NCTS6, due to be introduced in September 2025, would also include a long awaited feature in the EU, namely the T-SAD combined Safety and Security and Transit declarations. However, the UK has decided to opt out of this.
Tags: BIFA