TSS Bulletin 226th Edition

Published: 27 August 2026|

Contents

This fortnight’s bulletin begins with several key updates, followed by our themed focus – Outstanding Supplementary Declarations: what to do.

Pre-lodging declarations: cut-off from 20 October 2026

You will need to use the new Trader Support Service (TSS) to pre-lodge declarations for goods movements arriving on or after 20 October 2026.

From 20 October 2026, new movements will no longer be accepted on the outgoing TSS platform. This also means that the outgoing service will only accept pre-lodged declarations for goods movements with an arrival date up to and including 19 October 2026.

As the pre-lodgement window on the outgoing service runs up to 14 days before a movement’s arrival date, the restriction will start to affect some movements before 20 October 2026. Any new movement with an arrival date of 20 October 2026 or later will not be accepted for pre-lodging.

You will be unable to pre-lodge declarations on the outgoing service for goods movements with a movement arrival date on or after 20 October 2026.

This applies even if you submit the declaration before 20 October 2026.

For example, if your goods are due to arrive on 21 October 2026 and you want to submit a pre-lodged declaration on 18 October 2026, you must use the new TSS service.

Join the private beta of the new TSS service

If you need to pre-lodge a declaration for a goods movement taking place on or after 20 October 2026, you will need to join the private beta of the new TSS service by registering your interest.

Joining the private beta will allow you to start making declarations before the public launch and ensure you are ready to use the new service when it becomes available to all users on 20 October 2026.

If you have any questions, call the new TSS service contact centre on 0800 870 8173, available from 8am to 5:30pm, 7 days a week.

TSS Portal outage notification

The TSS Portal will be updated on Sunday 06 September 2026. This will require a short period of downtime between 5pm and 10pm.

Customs Duty Waiver Scheme users: confirm beneficiary details from 14 September 2026

From 8:00am on 14 September 2026, undertaking administrators must log into their Customs Duty Waiver online service account and follow the instructions to confirm beneficiary details for every business in their undertaking. This will include one of the following:

  • Company registration number
  • VAT registration number
  • Charity registration number
  • National Insurance number

To comply with new legal requirements, you must complete this process by 25 September 2026. If beneficiary details have not been confirmed by an administrator for all relevant businesses by this date, none of them will be able to use the Customs Duty Waiver Scheme (CDWS). The process for claiming a customs duty waiver will not change.

If you believe any beneficiary details are incorrect, contact HMRC as soon as possible at [email protected].

Why is this required?

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is required to comply with relevant legal requirements on state aid. Updated legal requirements on state aid will mean that limited information on ‘de minimis’ state aid granted under the CDWS will need to be recorded in a register and made publicly accessible. This legal requirement is aimed at ensuring transparency of state aid awards.

The limited information relating to de minimis aid awards that must be recorded by HMRC and published is:

  • The beneficiary’s name
  • The relevant beneficiary identifier
  • Amount of aid granted (the value of the customs duty waiver, which may in future account for adjustments)
  • Date the aid was granted (the date of the waiver)
  • Granting authority (in the case of the CDWS, this is HMRC)
  • Type of aid instrument (for the customs duty waiver, this will always be Tax Advantage or Tax Exemption)
  • Economic sector of the undertaking (NACE classification)

Where a National Insurance number is used, it will be pseudonymised in the public register in line with applicable data protection requirements.

Members as well as undertaking administrators can also log in to view:

  • Their business details
  • Information about how HMRC uses your data

The limited information on awards granted under this scheme will be published on the EU eAid Register in accordance with the law.

Further information and support

We will keep you informed of any additional updates to the CDWS.

For further support, contact HMRC at [email protected].

Final reminder: the Assisted Completion Service closes to new requests on 15 September 2026

This is a final reminder that the Assisted Completion Service (ACS) will close to new requests on 15 September 2026.

There is now limited time remaining. If you are eligible for ACS and genuinely need support, please act now. Capacity is limited and support cannot be guaranteed, especially for requests made close to the closure date.

If you have already been asked for an onboarding template, supporting documents or further information, please provide these as soon as possible. Cases cannot be progressed where the required information has not been provided.

Please do not submit duplicate requests for the same declaration.

From 15 September 2026, you will no longer be able to submit a new ACS request. You will still be responsible for completing and submitting your Supplementary Declarations and paying any duties due.

You can continue to access support through TSS guidance, the Get Help function in the TSS Portal and the TSS Contact Centre on 0800 060 8888.

UKIMS movements incurring incorrect additional duties

HMRC is aware that there is an ongoing issue concerning certain food/agricultural goods and fertilisers moving into Northern Ireland (NI), where ‘at risk’ tariffs are being calculated and applied on goods subject to Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1227.

This measure should only apply to goods when they are exported, directly or indirectly, from the Russian Federation or Belarus. However, even when this isn’t the case, the European Union (EU) measure is currently being triggered in the Customs Declaration Service (CDS), resulting in an additional duty rate and an ‘at risk’ duty outcome.

If you think your goods movement has incurred incorrect duty calculations, or would incur incorrect duties on submission, please contact TSS immediately for advice and support on how best to proceed.

Now that you’re up to date, explore our themed articles below on Outstanding Supplementary Declarations: what to do.

‘How do I find my outstanding Supplementary Declarations?’

The TSS Portal allows you to view all your goods movements and filter them by type and status, making it easy to identify any outstanding Supplementary Declarations.

To get started, select Goods Movements from the navigation bar in your TSS Portal and choose View a Goods Movement from the drop-down menu.

To view your Supplementary Declarations, select Supplementary Declarations (by consignment) from the Type filter on the left-hand side of the screen. You can then view declarations that are currently in one of the following statuses:

  • ‘Draft SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Input Required SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Pending Payment SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Tax Calculation Verification Declarations’
  • ‘Fiscal Hold SUP Declarations’

Note: A Supplementary Declaration remains outstanding until its status changes to ‘Closed’. It is your responsibility to ensure all Supplementary Declarations are accurate and submitted within the required timescales.

Selecting any status displays the goods movements associated with it. You can further refine the results using the filters on the right-hand side of the screen:

  • ‘This week’
  • ‘This month’
  • ‘Last 6 months’
  • ‘Last 12 months’
  • ‘Over 12 months’

You can also use the Post-Movement To-Dos section at the top of the View Goods Movements page, which provides a summary of how many Supplementary Declarations you have in each status. Selecting a status tab displays the corresponding declarations.

For a broader overview, visit your Company Profile and review the Post-Movement Submission Status section. This provides an up-to-date summary of your TSS account, including whether you have any outstanding or overdue Supplementary Declarations.

For further guidance on using the Search and Quick Filters functions within the TSS Portal, refer to the How to use the TSS Portal guide or the Supplementary Declaration: Step-by-step guide – both available on the NICTA website.

‘Once I’ve found my outstanding Supplementary Declarations, how do I close them?’

In order to avoid having outstanding Supplementary Declarations, there are steps you should take to move them through to Closed status, outlined in this article.

Read on to learn what to do when a Supplementary Declaration is in any of the following statuses:

  • ‘Draft SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Input Required SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Pending Payment SUP Declarations’
  • ‘Tax Calculation Verification Declarations’
  • ‘Fiscal Hold SUP Declarations’

Overall, it is important to keep note of any status updates for your Supplementary Declarations and how to process them.

Start by heading to your Company Profile and locating any outstanding Supplementary Declarations. Depending on their status, listed below, different actions may need to be followed before they can be closed.

  • ‘Draft SUP Declarations’

A declaration still in Draft requires the form to be completed, ensuring all mandatory fields have been correctly updated with your movement information. You can then press the ‘Submit’ button.

  • ‘Input Required SUP Declarations’

If your declaration has an ‘Input Required’ status, an error message will be shown on the consignment page that describes the field and particular error that needs attention.

For more details on these errors, see the Guidance on resolution to common error codes for Supplementary and Full Frontier Declarations guide on NICTA.

When you have successfully completed and updated the declaration, press ‘Reprocess’ at the bottom of the consignment page.

Once the declaration has been processed, TSS will notify you by email if VAT and/or duty payments are due, with instructions on how to arrange payment.

The declaration will move to ‘Closed’ status if there is no customs debt (for example, zero rate of duty) or if you are using a Duty Deferment Account (DDA) with sufficient funds, if any payment is due.

  • ‘Pending Payment SUP Declarations’

This status awaits payment for any due VAT and/or duty payments. If using a DDA, ensure there are sufficient funds available. The submission of the Supplementary Declaration in TSS is required by the tenth calendar day of the month following the goods movement.

Once charged against your DDA, the declaration will automatically move to a Closed status.

If you need to make amendments, use the Recall to Draft button in the Payment Summary section and the declaration will return to a ‘Draft’ status.

See the Payments Guide on NICTA for more information on available methods of payment and what payments you may need to make.

  • ‘Tax Calculation Verification Declarations’

A Tax Calculation Verification status requires the acceptance or decline of a duty calculation created by CDS.

If your Supplementary Declaration is in this status, you will be required to review the goods lines where duty has been calculated. Where the goods lines require a manual calculation, you can do this to verify the amount generated by CDS.

Within the Payment Summary section of your TSS profile, select the declaration by finding the related ‘SUP’ reference, and you can then either select Recall to Draft or Accept Calculation.

If you choose the Accept Calculation option, the TSS Portal will await payment for the declaration to be closed.

If your calculations are different to those that CDS has calculated, or if you wish to amend the declaration, press Recall to Draft, returning it to Draft status. All duty lines and tax calculations will be cleared. Note that this process cannot be reversed, so make sure you take note of the duty lines requiring manual calculations and why they are required before hitting the Recall to Draft button.

The declaration can now be amended and reprocessed as required.

  • ‘Fiscal Hold SUP Declarations’

Fiscal Hold status relates to a method of payment, such as a DDA, that has insufficient funds.

Note that a Fiscal Hold will be in place until there are sufficient funds to cover any VAT and/or duty payable. At this stage, the method of payment cannot be changed and funds must be made available for the goods to be accepted by customs.

If you follow these steps, in particular regarding the availability of funds for duty payment, there is a greater chance of successfully closing your Supplementary Declarations. Additionally, visit the Supplementary Declarations: Step-by-Step Guide on NICTA for more details.

Your bi-weekly jargon buster

A short, bi-weekly glossary to demystify terms related to the bulletin’s theme.

Supplementary Declarations

The TSS Simplified Procedure is a two-step process for moving goods from Great Britain (GB) to NI. It enables businesses to move goods from GB to NI by making a simplified declaration pre-movement and then providing the full information about the goods post-movement, for both ‘not at risk’ and ‘at risk’ goods.

While an Entry Summary Declaration is completed before the goods move, the Supplementary Declaration is completed after the movement.

As its name suggests, a Supplementary Declaration contains the full information, such as commodity codes and EORI numbers, needed to close the customs journey and enable the payment of any required customs duties or other taxes.

Regardless of the type of goods that have been moved (for example, standard, controlled/licensed), information for a Supplementary Declaration must be provided at two levels:

  • Consignment (header) level: provided once for each consignment or set of goods being moved from an exporter to an importer
  • Item level: provided once for each item or set of goods with the same description and with the same commodity code

As mentioned above, submission of the Supplementary Declaration is required by the tenth calendar day of the month following goods movement and is the responsibility of the Importer of Record, as indicated by the importer’s EORI on the TSS Simplified Frontier Declaration.

For further information, see the Supplementary Declarations: Step-by-Step Guide and the Data Guide: TSS Declaration Data Requirements guide on NICTA.

Trade tariff measures

Trade tariff measures are specific rules that must be satisfied when importing or exporting certain goods. These can include the potential need for a licence, special permits/certificates needed and restrictions on certain products.

The UK trade tariff system outlines the customs duty rates, import/export rules and commodity codes required for moving goods across borders. It applies standard classifications, preferential trade terms and specific protective or economic trade measures.

For goods moving into NI, information on whether any measures apply is found in the Commodity Code import tab on the Northern Ireland Online Tariff tool on GOV.UK

Any measures are shown as general (applies to all countries) or specific (applies to the country concerned). These can be filtered by country and by date of trade.

TSS Contact Centre hours of operation:

07:30 – 22:30, 7 days a week

Contact options

Tel: 0800 060 8888

Welsh speakers Tel: 0800 060 8988

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