The most significant updates to the Combined Nomenclature (“CN”) relate to – amongst others:
- Addition of new subheadings to account for changes in requirements related to statistics, commercial policy, and technological and commercial developments and modernizing the current structure of subheadings to better monitor particular items, such as:
- Addition of a subheading for Plátano de Canarias in Chapter 8;
- Addition of subheadings for prepared tomatoes in Chapter 20;
- Addition of subheadings for plastic waste in Chapter 39;
- Simplification for woven fabrics containing more than 85% of silk or silk waste other than noil silk of yarns of different colours by removing subheadings in Chapter 50;
- Addition of subheadings for nonwoven fabrics in Chapter 56;
- Addition of subheadings for waste and scrap of other closed fabrics of rovings of glass fibres in Chapter 70;
- Addition of subheadings for parts of seats of motor vehicles in Chapter 94.
- Implementation of the gradual reduction of duty rates for products covered by the ‘Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products’-agreement (also referred to as the ITA-agreement). The relevant part of the respective agreement – that specifies the reductions to be implemented by 2024 – can be found here.
- Addition of a separate subheading for passive optical splitters (subheading 9013 80 40) to maintain a treatment ‘free of tariff duty’ by the ITA-agreement;
- Amendment of the classification of certain substances in the list of non-proprietary names of pharmaceutical substances in Annex 3 of Part Three (Tariff Annexes) of the CN.
The declaration of goods upon import, export, or when subject to intra-Community trade statistics between EU Member States is based on the CN. This sets the customs duty rate that is applicable as well as determines how the products are handled for statistical purposes. Therefore, the CN is an essential working instrument for industry and the customs departments of the EU Member States.
The publication of the 2024 CN can be found here.
