Just to be clear,the difficulty is with Southern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is still in UK and Royal Mail continue to operate there.
This is something that's relatively new, but I'm told it is affecting lots of mail going from the UK to southern Ireland, so I thought it would be useful to let people know here.
Every other country I send straps to (and that's most of the world) are accepting mail from the UK as long as there is a CN22 or CN23 customs declaration on the back with a description and value of the contents, but for some reason the customs in Southern Ireland have decided this isn't enough for them , and they are rejecting mail and returning it to sender. I've had a couple of straps returned this week as a result (stamped "Rejected / Failed electronic customs clearance") and so I have had a long chat with Royal mail this morning. They are aware of it, and have said this is new (last couple of weeks), and they don't really understand why Irish customs are doing this, but it's happening with a lot of mail.
Apparently Irish customs now require a commodity code for each item being sent, not just a written description, on the customs form attached to the package. The comodity code is obtained from HMRC and describes not just what the item is, but also where it was manufactured, how it was manufactured & what it is made of. This is the link to generate a code - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/finding-...de-tariff-tool. I'm sending the straps back this week along with the commodity code so hopefully they will now get through, but it's a pain in the arse, both for me and the customers!
This info isn't yet on Royal Mail's advice for exporting and I doubt the staff at the Post Office will know about it, but I thought it was worth a mention
Just to be clear,the difficulty is with Southern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is still in UK and Royal Mail continue to operate there.
Since it only affects (Southern) Ireland sounds like they're just being awkward for the sake of it.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
If you’re posting a lot of the same item (I suspect you are) it’s quicker to get pre populated customs labels printed up. I use a company called PPI labels, you’ll get them on Google
You can put all the required info on those labels; commodity codes etc
Northern Ireland may very well be in the UK but there are huge changes there with post brexit sea border now being in place.
Many unionists are very unhappy with this, trouble is on the way....
Cheers,
Adam.
While Northern Ireland remains part of the UK, the Northern Ireland Protocol means that products fall under EU regulations.
https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit-saus...arwell-1201618
Irish customs are only trying to streamline and make processing of goods more efficient. By using a system partly developed by the World Customs Organisation it should make customs clearance more efficient. Your comment makes it sound like Irish customs are deliberately targeting UK goods when in fact it applies to all non-EU imports.
It's because you do not realise that UK is a third country to the EU. It was just explained that Ireland is modernising its custom clearance process, possibly to make clearing UK goods faster. Other EU countries will possibly follow suit, but maybe the necessity vs extra cost implied by the modernisation is not as clear cut because of importance of trade with UK
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
This modernised procedure might make clearance quicker, but for the occasional non-business user sending anything abroad the necessity for a commodity code will make this far from simple.
Of course, eventually we may also need this to send from GB to NI too.
Benefits - anybody, anybody at all?
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
No, at least not until now in my experience. In the last month I've sent straps to customers in the following EU countries - France, Germany, Denmark, Slovakia, Italy, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden & Ireland, and all with a CN22 label describing the contents and declaring their value. Every strap has been delivered except those three sent to Irish customers. All three packages sent to Ireland were returned with a stamp saying "Return to sender. Rejected / Failed electronic customs clearance", but no explanation other than that (an explanation as to what is missing would have been useful). One of my customers contacted An Post (the national postal service in Ireland) last week and spoke to someone there who said they (An Post) were "tearing their hair out" because it had started happening with "all mail from the UK with a CN22 label", and they didn't understand why mail was being sent back. The implication was that it is just UK mail being affected.
Maybe this will help explain:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/cons...cism-1.4671803
It’s not just packages from the UK being affected; it’s from all third countries. I suspect the other EU states will follow suit.
Speaking from personal experience, my sister in London often sends packages to my son or me in Germany. This used to take 3/4 days. Now it takes 2/3 weeks to clear German customs.
I suspect we all got very used to the benefits of the single market when trading with the UK. Now that’s gone and it’s 1991 all over again. I’d say it’s inevitable that UK residents will start to buy more from the UK where possible as the red tape is a pain in the backside. Same is true for EU residents that used to buy from the UK.
I regularly buy items from the US and rarely wait more than one week. Two companies I use often get items to me within 3/4 working days. Three weeks to get a package to Germany is ridiculous.
Perhaps the submarines will improve matters.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.