Customs for retailers. Keep stock moving and costs under control.

No. Gaston Schul has its own teams in 14 European markets, with an alliance network reaching further, all working to one operating model. Your clearance, classification and VAT are handled to the same standard wherever we clear for you, through one partner instead of a broker per country.

Yes. We plan peak periods with you in advance, agreeing expected volumes, data and documents, so declarations can be prepared before goods arrive. Customs decides which goods it checks, but complete and accurate data is the best way to avoid holds.

Low-value consignments into the EU now carry customs duty per item, and a handling fee per item applies. A wider reform of EU customs is also on the way that will ask for more data and place more responsibility on sellers. If you import low-value goods, we review how your flows are affected and set up your declarations and VAT to match.

Only when they cross a customs border. Returns from customers in the same customs territory, such as within the EU, are not a customs matter. But when goods come back from the UK, Switzerland or Norway into the EU, or the other way round, they are imported again. Returned goods relief usually lets them re-enter without duty if they come back unaltered within three years and you can link them to the original export. Goods sent back to a supplier outside the EU because they were defective may qualify for a repayment. We set up the procedure and keep the evidence for both.

Yes. Once a product is classified and its origin is known, we can tell you the duty, any trade defence measure and the import VAT it will carry in each market we cover. That gives your buyers the customs part of the landed cost before they order. After import, our reporting and data exports show what was actually paid, ready to use in your own landed cost calculations.

We build and maintain one classification record for your range, with the reasoning for each code, and apply it to every declaration we file. New products are classified before they ship, and where a product is high-value or borderline we can support applications for Binding Tariff Information.

A customs warehouse is an authorised storage location where imported goods can be held with duty and import VAT suspended until they are released into free circulation. Whether it helps depends on your flows, the country and your existing arrangements. We assess the options and, where it makes sense, help you set it up and support it.

Not always. It depends on the country, how your goods move and whether you have a local entity. In some markets a non-resident importer needs one, and in others it simply makes import VAT easier to manage. We advise on the right setup for each market and can act as your fiscal representative in many of the markets we cover.

Customs and trade is all we do, so our advice is about your customs, not about selling you freight. And we are full-service: clearance, classification, warehousing, VAT, technology and advisory run as one operating model across Europe, so your retail customs is managed as a whole, not shipment by shipment.