What does Brexit mean for Groupage Transport or LTL?

The United Kingdom left the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020. Since the beginning of 2021, rules that apply between the EU and the UK must be followed.  Doing business with the UK is different than before. When importing or exporting goods, you will encounter border formalities such as customs declarations and controls, import/export regulations and product liability. What has really changed in terms of transport?  

Experience is key in this new way of working.

Before Brexit, a customer could make a price enquiry and immediately set up a new account after a credit check. Now this is no longer the case, nor can the transport order be executed immediately. A lot of customs formalities have to be arranged, including a POA (Power of Attorney), which must be signed each time by someone who can legally bind and represent the company. 

We are aware that setting up the customs side is a very important topic, as well as bringing you and your customers on board is vital. This process is crucial when handling LTL transport. 

As few middlemen as possible

Currently, we work with 3 to 4 different parties when shipping to the UK. We try to keep the number of parties to a minimum because the more parties involved, the more things can go wrong. Firstly, we have the customer and his export agent. Then we have the consignee who also has his customs clearance agent. These parties have to communicate with each other and exchange information (the port of departure and arrival, the date of shipment and under which regime the goods have been shipped). 

The regime under which you want to ship your goods is crucial for the clearance of your goods. You can ship the goods to an inventory linked port or a non inventory linked port. Both require a different way of clearing. If the customs agent is not aware of this regime it will cause problems and delays. They assume that the goods have been cleared but not released from Destin8 (=port community) or another port community system (depends on the port).

In order to meet tight timing and take into account ferry schedules, all customs formalities must be in order for export. For shipping to Calais, you also need to do import customs clearance. 

Service tailored to your company

To ensure a seamless service it requires a lot of experience and expertise. At Middlegate Europe we offer different solutions for all types of transport. Our chauffeur-driven transport for 24 hour or 48 hour deliveries is our premium service. The goods are cleared before they leave for the UK. We guarantee delivery and you pay a premium for this.

For the second service we ship unaccompanied to our ETSF Warehouse in Hull where your goods await clearance. This enables us to let our customers organise their own customs clearance if they wish. If we do not arrange customs clearance, we use our ETSF Warehouse. In this way, we prevent other cargo from being held up for clearance. This way, the trailers do not remain on the quay and we do not have to charge the client for the quay rent. This service is our standard 96 /120 hour service to the UK with daily departures.

Our third service is unaccompanied shipping and has a 72 hour service where we ship under pre-lodgement. In that case we are responsible for the customs clearance. So, you get the optimal service if you choose to have your goods both exported and imported by Middlegate