The European Commission has published the latest version of the Combined Nomenclature (CN) applicable as from 1 January 2019. The Combined Nomenclature forms the basis for the declaration of goods (a) at importation or exportation or (b) when subject to intra-Union trade statistics. This determines which rate of customs duty applies and how the goods are treated for statistical purposes. The CN is thus a vital working tool for business and the Member States’ customs administrations.
The Combined Nomenclature was established by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff. It is updated every year and is published as a Commission Implementing Regulation in the Official Journal of the European Union, L Series.
The latest version is now available as Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1602 in EU Official Journal L 273 of 31 October 2018 and applies from 1 January 2019. The latest version includes:
- Amendments to implement the gradual reduction of duty rates for fresh bananas, as required by Council Decision 2011/194/EU;
- Amendments to implement the gradual reduction of duty rates for products covered by the agreement in the form of the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA2), as required by Council Decision (EU) 2016/971;
- Amendments to take account of changes in requirements relating to statistics, to commercial policy and technological and commercial developments, by deleting obsolete codes, by introducing new subheadings to facilitate monitoring of specific goods;
- Amendments to adapt the list of international non-proprietary names (Annex 3 to Section II of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN) and the list of pharmaceutical intermediates, i.e. compounds of a kind used for the manufacture of finished pharmaceutical products (Annex 6 to Section II of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN), which are free of duty;
- New CN codes to better monitor the growing market of ‘beverage can body stock’, ‘beverage can end stock and tab stock’, under subheading 7606 12 and to definitions of these products under a new Additional note 2 to Chapter 76; and
- Certain minor changes in order to align the different language versions of the text.
