Belgium – Prohibition of shipments without customs documents

As advised in our previous communication the Antwerp port community will strictly apply a “no customs doc no load” principle for containers to be loaded on board of vessels in the Port of Antwerp as from January 1, 2020.

The Antwerp Port community has recently issued a follow up letter with important practical guidelines regarding:

1. Mandatory registration of the customs documents in the e-Desk application of C-point
2. Deadlines to be respected

In order to avoid that containers cannot be loaded on board due to missing customs documents, it is required that these guidelines are strictly adhered to.

For shipments with Hapag-Lloyd this means that:

• Customs document are required for all export containers, also for community goods for which you must issue and register a T2L document. (the only exception are empty shippers own containers as explained in our previous communication)
• Containers must be physically on terminal, and customs documents must be registered at least 24 hours before ETA of the vessel in Antwerp. Please see the closing information on our booking confirmation.

If containers cannot be shipped due to missing or invalid customs documents, a charge of EUR 75 per container will be applicable.