Advance notice and one-off guarantee in excise taxation – companies

These instructions are for companies and only concerns products subject to excise duty which are dispatched outside a duty suspension arrangement. The instructions apply to casual importers, not to authorised operators.
Information about private individuals’ advance notices: Advance notice – Private individual ordering or sending alcohol or tobacco to themselves. 

Products subject to excise duty can be imported under a duty suspension arrangement or outside such an arrangement.  A casual importer that does not operate under a duty suspension arrangement, and so they must file an advance notice of the products imported and usually also deposit a one-off guarantee.

If you are importing or receiving a casual batch of products under the duty suspension arrangement, read the following instructions: Temporarily registered consignee

Imports, reception and dispatch of products outside a duty suspension arrangement

Products subject to excise duty can be imported, received and dispatched from another EU Member State with duty paid, which means that they have been released for consumption. Excise duty on these products has been pain in the country of dispatch.

Products subject to the EU harmonised excise duty

The excise duties on the following products have been harmonised in the EU:

alcohol and alcoholic beverages
cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos, fine-cut tobacco, and other pipe and smoking tobacco
liquid fuels.

When products subject to EU harmonised excise duty are imported to Finland from another EU Member State, the consignee must file an advance notice and pay a one-off guarantee equalling the amount of the excise duty before the transport begins.

In such a case, the consignee operates as a temporary certified consignee.

An advance notice and a one-off guarantee are required – What to do

Importer or consignee:

File an advance notice in MyTax and pay the guarantee before the products are dispatched or their transport to Finland begins. File an advance notice and pay a guarantee separately for each consignment. The Tax Administration will use the guarantee you have paid to cover the excise duty.
When you have filed the advance notice and paid the guarantee, MyTax assigns you a personal excise duty number. The excise duty number is valid only once and only for a specific consignment.
Give the excise duty number to the consignor by email or telephone. The consignor needs the excise duty number for recording the consignment on EMCS. The consignor submits an e-SAD in the system.
After you have received the products, submit a report of receipt in the EMCS system in MyTax.
File an excise duty return on the products in MyTax.

Information about other licences needed to import alcohol is provided by Valvira, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health.

Example: A company in Finland orders a batch of wines from France. The company must file an advance notice of the wines with the Tax Administration and set a one-off guarantee before the transport of the products from France to Finland begins. The consignor in France will have to submit an e-AD accompanying document on EMCS.

Example: An Estonian distance seller with no tax representative in Finland dispatches long drink beverages to a private individual. In the case of distance sales, the buyer is always a private individual. The seller must file an advance notice of the alcoholic beverages and set a one-off guarantee before the products are dispatched from Estonia to Finland.

Products subject to national excise duty

An advance notice of the imports or reception of products must be filed if the following products subject to national excise duty are imported from another EU Member State to Finland:

soft drinks
beverage containers
certain products containing tobacco
cigarette paper or electronic cigarette liquids

Depending on the situation, the advance notice must be filed by the importer, the consignee or – in the case of distance sales – by the consignor. The advance notice must be filed before the products are dispatched or their transport to Finland begins.

Example: An importer of soft drinks with no excise duty authorisation imports orange juices from Spain to Finland. The importer must file an advance notice of the soft drinks and beverage containers.

Example: An Estonian distance seller with no tax representative in Finland dispatches a cola drink order to a private individual. The distance seller must file an advance notice of the soft drinks and beverage containers before dispatching the products from Estonia to Finland.

An advance notice is required – What to do

Importer or consignee:

File an advance notice in MyTax before the products are dispatched or their transport to Finland begins.
When you have filed the advance notice, MyTax assigns you a personal excise duty number.
The excise duty number is valid only once and only for a certain batch of products.

An advance notice has to be filed for each consignment.

After you have received the products, file an excise duty return.

No advance notice is needed if a party with an excise duty authorisation acts in compliance with the authorisation – for example, if the products are received directly in a tax warehouse. Further, no advance notice is needed if the products were produced by small producers of soft drinks and beverage containers.

Example: An authorised warehouse keeper for soft drinks and beverage containers imports mineral waters from Austria to Finland and places them directly in their tax warehouse. No advance notice has to be filed on the soft drinks and beverage containers.

Example: An authorised warehouse keeper for alcoholic beverages and beverage containers orders a batch of fruit juices (i.e. soft drinks) from Germany. The warehouse keeper must file an advance notice of the soft drinks before their transport from Germany to Finland begins.

Small producers of soft drinks and/or beverage containers (available in Finnish and Swedish, link to Finnish)