The New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) is a Europe-wide digital system designed to provide better management and control of goods under Union and Common Transit. It involves all EU countries and Common Transit Convention (CTC) contracting parties. Based on transit declarations, NCTS processes safety and security data for entry and exit formalities.
NCTS facilitates the movement of goods between two points in the customs territory of the Union (CTU) while passing through or ending in an area outside that customs territory. In this process, there is no change in the customs status of those goods. NCTS also enables Common Transit, which facilitates the movement of goods between CTC contracting parties.
Latest News
*eLearning modules for NCTS-P6: Two new eLearning modules for NCTS-P6 have just been released: One module is intended for Customs Officers and the other for Economic Operators. The links are below:
Course: New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) Phase 6 for Customs Officers, Topic: en
Course: New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) Phase 6 for Economic Operators, Topic: en
* Continuation of transitional rules for an extended period in view of late deployment of NCTS-P6: As of 01/09/2025, Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) may be provided in combination with transit declaration in road and rail transport using NCTS-P6. As some Member States needed more time to implement NCTS-P6, they asked for temporary derogation from the deployment date of 1 September 2025.
More information and guidance about NCTS-P6 and temporary derogation period can be found under the "Deployment of NCTS-P6" and “Temporary derogation” sections below.
How does NCTS work?
NCTS comprises interconnected national applications which exchange messages on a common network. These messages are exchanged electronically on three levels:
- between the economic operators and customs (‘external domain’);
- between customs offices of one country (‘national domain’);
- among the national customs administrations themselves and with the Commission (‘common domain’).
Transit declarations include information on items carried, their sender and recipient, the mode of transportation, the intended route and the customs offices engaged. The holder of the transit procedure must also provide a valid guarantee.
When a transit declaration is accepted, NCTS generates a unique ID called the Master Reference Number (MRN). The MRN enables the product’s movement to be tracked throughout its transportation procedure. Customs officers in each customs office can track the movement of goods via NCTS to ensure that they travel on the authorised path. See below a schema of the process.
When a movement is initiated, the holder of the transit procedure receives a digital Transit Accompanying Document (TAD) or MRN of the transit declaration to confirm that it has been accepted, can be released for transit. The vehicle containing the goods can then go to the first Customs Office of Transit (if any).
If the consignment is destined for outside of the Safety and Security Area (SSA), it arrives at the Customs Office of Exit for Transit to leave the SSA. If its risk analysis results are positive and permission to leave the SSA is granted, the consignment arrives at the Customs Office of Transit where frontier-crossing processing occurs. Subsequently, the consignment leaves either for the next Customs Office of Transit or ends its journey at its destination.
When a consignment arrives at its destination, the goods are presented to the Customs Office of Destination. The trader sends an arrival notification, which is processed by the customs office. Once processing is complete and the destination control results are received, the Customs Office of Departure writes off the movement and releases the guarantee.
In case the Customs Office of Departure does not receive any feedback or control results on the movement from Customs Office of Destination within the expected period, an enquiry procedure is started. Depending on the results of the enquiry and/or potential discrepancies, a recovery procedure may be started, and additional taxes and duties may need to be collected. In all cases, sooner or later, the movement is written off.
The deployment of NCTS-P6
According to the scope defined in the UCC-Work Programme, NCTS-P6 is also aligned to the ICS2 requirements. It makes it possible to combine the transit formalities in road and rail transportation with those related to safety and security at entry into the Safety and Security Area. This is a further simplification for economic operators, who will only have to lodge a transit declaration combined with security and safety particulars, instead of submitting transit declaration and an Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) separately using two systems.
NCTS-P6 offers two options, and it is up to the Customs authorities in the countries using NCTS to decide which option they would like to implement:
- Opt-out option means when ENS particulars are not included in the transit declaration, but ENS is lodged directly to ICS2;
- Opt-in option means when ENS particulars are included in the transit declaration and NCTS-P6 is connected to the ICS2 to ensure that ICS2 requirements regarding ENS business processes (risk analysis, control recommendations, decisions etc.) are also fulfilled. Please note that only complete ENS can be lodged together with the transit declaration.
In the table below, you can see which countries decided to use opt-out or opt-in options in NCTS-P6. Please note that a country may later decide to move from opt-out to opt-in.
Continuation of transitional rules for an extended period in view of late deployment of NCTS-P6
According to the Union Customs Code, as of 1 September 2025, Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) may be provided in combination with transit declaration in road and rail transport using NCTS-P6. As some Member States needed more time to implement NCTS-P6 opt-in option (more information about `opt-in` can be found in previous chapter), they asked for temporary derogation from 1 September 2025.
Derogation decisions to provide ENS data either in NCTS-P6 or in ICS2 in relation to road and rail traffic may be granted by the European Commission with retroactive effect from 1 September 2025:
until 31 December 2025 for goods entering the Union customs territory through countries found in the Annex of the below inserted Guidance document; until that date, the entry summary declarations (ENS) may be lodged in ICS1 or in ICS2.
- until 1 June 2026 for goods entering the Union customs territory through countries found in the Annex of the below inserted Guidance document; these Member States will develop the additional and voluntary interconnection between the ICS2 and NCTS systems (NCTS-P6 opt-in Member States). Until that date, the entry summary declarations (ENS) may be lodged in ICS1, in ICS2 or, where applicable, in combination with the transit declaration in NCTS-P5.
Please note that all the information about how the safety and security and transit declaration should be submitted depending on the derogation requests of the countries can be found in the Guidance document and its Annex below:
History of NCTS
In 1997, the Commission adopted an action plan to reform the transit system in Europe. This reform aimed to recreate a balanced, realistic and trustworthy transit system for economic operators and customs authorities.
One major pillar of this action plan was the development of a New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) to better monitor, streamline and speed up transit processes. NCTS was launched in 2004 and became mandatory for Union and Common Transit in 2005.
NCTS has been released over several phases. Phase 4 was released in 2009, and Phase 5 is currently being implemented, with a full deployment date of 2 December 2024.
NCTS and transit movements
There are several forms of transit movements which require processing via NCTS:
Used for customs transit operations between EU countries (and Andorra and San Marino). It is generally applicable to the movement of non-Union goods for which customs duties and other charges are at stake. It is also used for Union goods which, between their point of departure and point of destination in the EU, must pass through the territory of a third country.
Used for the movement of goods between EU countries, EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland), Turkey (since 1 December 2012), the Republic of North Macedonia (since 1 July 2015), Serbia (since 1 February 2016), the United Kingdom (since 1 January 2021), and Ukraine (since 1 October 2022). The procedure is based on the Convention of 20 May 1987. The rules are effectively identical to those of Union transit.
Generally applicable to non-Union goods. It allows for non-Union goods to be moved from one point to another point within the CTU or between CTU and CTC countries with customs duties and other charges suspended.
Generally applicable to Union goods. It allows goods to temporarily leave and re-enter the CTU while maintaining Union status.
Allows goods to be transported across multiple borders using a single TIR carnet, thus travelling between customs offices in two countries or customs unions - of departure (entry) of destination (exit). The TIR carnet is used as a customs declaration which also serves as an internationally valid guarantee for the payment of suspended duties and taxes. Note: the CTU is to be considered as one territory. In addition to the paper TIR carnet, the holder is obliged to lodge the data in the NCTS system. The TIR carnet is only valid when the related guarantee is accepted in the CTU.
NCTS connects with national risk analysis systems and ensures that risks analysis is initiated once transit data is received and validated by NCTS.
National risk analysis systems carry out the required analysis and send the results together with a control recommendation back to the NCTS.
Within the countries of the SSA, NCTS forwards the risk analysis results, control recommendations and control results to the relevant Customs Offices involved.
When EOS-registered traders are to be declared in an NCTS message, the unique Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number shall be declared. When validating a received NCTS message, the NCTS consults the EOS through the CRS to check the provided EORI number. If the declared EORI number is invalid or if it is not declared where required, NCTS rejects the transit dataset.
Authorised Economic Operators (AEO) and their AEO certificates are registered and managed in the EOS. When validating a received dataset, NCTS consults the EOS to check whether the appropriate traders are registered as AEOs and whether they have a valid AEO-certificate of the relevant type. The query will be performed based on the declared EORI or Third-Country Unique Identification Number (TCUIN).
CDS enables electronic processing and central storage of the applications and authorisations, as well as the publication of the list of holders on the Internet.
This system facilitates the necessary consultations between EU countries’ customs authorities during the decision-taking period and the management of the authorisations process.
When validating a received data set for which authorisations are valid in more than one EU country, NCTS consults the CDS to check the existence and validity of the customs decisions.
When export is followed by transit, EU countries’ NCTS need to connect with AES. Part of the so-called national domain, this is to synchronise and optimise transit and export procedures and avoid open movements.
For both external and internal transit, NCTS and AES exchange the following information:
- Goods are released for Transit;
- Goods are not released for Transit;
- The Transit declaration is amended;
- The Transit declaration is invalidated.
In case of control: when Control Results are communicated to the Customs Office of Departure, NCTS will inform AES that there are positive/negative Control Results.
In case of negative Control Results, NCTS will inform AES about the identified discrepancies of the movement. Finally, in exceptional cases of recovery, NCTS will inform AES at the start of the recovery.
NCTS-P5 interacts with the centrally deployed TARIC3 system to validate the commodity codes declared in the transit declaration.
The aim of TARIC is to be a compilation of the community tariff, commercial and agricultural legislation, codified in a unique and consistent way.
NCTS is to be tightly coupled with ICS2 Release 3. The NCTS-ICS2 interface (via the Transit ENS Data Processing Bridge (TED)) will support the interactions required to manage the submission and further lifecycle of ENS particulars contained in a (combined) transit declaration.
Legal texts
- Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 October 2013 laying down the Union Customs Code
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 of 28 July 2015 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards detailed rules concerning certain provisions of the Union Customs Code
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447 of 24 November 2015 laying down detailed rules for implementing certain provisions of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the Union Customs Code
- Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/2879 of 15 December 2023 establishing the Work Programme relating to the development and deployment for the electronic systems provided for in the Union Customs Code
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/341 of 17 December 2015 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards transitional rules for certain provisions of the Union Customs Code where the relevant electronic systems are not yet operational and amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446
- Convention on a Common Transit Procedure
Important links
- Union and Common Transit
- UCC Work Programme - incl. national project plans for AES and NCTS
- MRN Follow-up (Export & Transit)
- Reference Data & Customs Offices List
- Transit Movements Electronic Map of the EU and selected countries
