By November 30, 2023, all member countries of the Common Transit Convention (CTC) are required to transfer to New Computerized Transit System (NCTS) Phase 5.
This change will affect all users of our Customs Management solution who submit UK transit declarations (transfer and discharge movements) via the application.

In this article, we will tell you more about the background and point out the UK timeline to enable you to prepare for this transition in a timely manner.

• More information on this topic will be made available on our Help Center soon. Subscribe to this article to receive update notifications by e-mail.

Background, key changes, and benefits of NCTS5

NCTS is a European-wide software system for automating the Common and Union transit procedures. Since its existence in 2003, NCTS has gone through various enhancements and upgrades and is currently operating under Phase 4 specification. To further modernize and harmonize transit processes, new requirements have been implemented by the CTC. These specifications will be rolled out with NCTS Phase 5.

Apart from certain message structure changes, NCTS5 introduces functional changes and benefits, like:

• Amending pre-lodged declarations (replacing the workaround to cancel and resubmit transit declarations)
• Extending the submission of pre-lodged declarations to simplified procedure usage
• Introduction of a digital Transit Accompanying Document, TAD (replacing the paper document carried with the goods and presenting the MRN electronically instead)
• Introduction of a new customs role “Office of Incident” (for registering incidents that occur during the transit journey to the nearest customs office)
• Introduction of house consignments in one declaration
• Introduction to indicate the 6-digit commodity number or customs tariff number in transit in accordance with the Harmonized System

Source: UK Customs transit newsletters. 

• Since the implementation of NCTS Phase 5 is delayed in individual CTC countries, there will be a “transition period” in which not all NCTS5 features will become mandatory, and some temporary rules remain in place to allow the compatibility between NCTS4 and NCTS5. Please refer to the following section for more details.

Extended “transition period” for the migration to NCTS5

Since not all CTC countries will have finished their migration to NCTS by the deadline November 30, 2023, there will be an extended “transition period” to allow compatibility between NCTS4 and NCTS5 until December 2024. In this transition phase, some temporary rules (like the NCTS message translation service ieCA) will remain in place and some NCTS5 features will not be compulsory yet. This means in practice:

• Commodity codes will not be mandatory yet
• New Office of Incident procedures are delayed (incidents en route must be recorded on the paper TAD as now)
• Digital TAD will start later, and paper TADs are still required

UK timescale for switching to NCTS5

There is a migration deadline for all member countries of the CTC to implement NCTS5 specification by November 30, 2023, with a subsequent transition period until December 2024.
However, there is a slightly different timescale for the UK:

• The UK (Great Britain & Northern Ireland) will switch over to NCTS5 on November 16, 2023. That means:
  • NCTS4 can only be used for closing and handling of movements that were started before the Go-live date of NCTS5
  • NCTS5 must be used to create new transit declarations from November 16, 2023
• The migration window from November 16-30 allows Phase 4 declarations submitted before 16th November to be finalized and new Phase 5 declarations to be submitted.
• More information regarding the handling of in-flight movements (movements started in NCTS4 before November 16 but will arrive at their destination after the go-live of NCTS5) is going to be communicated by HMRC soon.

• AEB is preparing for the migration and the implementation of UK NCTS5 functionality for our Customs Management solution. We will provide a detailed timeline for the test and rollout phase as soon as possible.

Make sure you are ready to move to NCTS5

Please take following steps to prepare for the migration at an early stage:

• Familiarize yourself with the technical and functional changes that will be implemented with NCTS5. Specifications can be found on the official UK customs website or, in future, here on our Help Center.
• When planning the migration, consider timing, resources, and staff training.
• If you submit pre-lodged NCTS4 declarations, make sure that these movements have been released prior to November 16 to avoid having to submit a new declaration in NCTS5.