What is a customs compliance check?
A customs compliance check is a systematic review of your import declarations to identify errors, overpayments and compliance risks. It examines every aspect of your customs entries, from commodity codes to customs values to preference claims, against current tariff rules and HMRC requirements, so you find problems on your own timetable rather than HMRC's.
It's not the same as a one-off customs audit: that's reactive, triggered by HMRC, and focused on a specific concern. It's not an AEO assessment, a certification process with different scope and objectives. And it's not a software implementation: tools matter, but a compliance check is about outcomes, not technology.
What does a customs compliance check cover?
Six dimensions of post-clearance risk: preference evidence, classification, valuation, special procedures, declaration data and agent concentration. Miss one and you leave risk, or money, on the table. They are the same six dimensions the Audit Readiness score measures from your declaration data, and the free two-minute check asks one question per dimension.
Preference evidence
Preferential duty rates are conditional: every claim must be backed by producible proof of origin. Invoices, certificates of origin and declarations must all align. Gaps in documentation are the first thing HMRC targets, and claims you can't evidence are repayable, with interest.
Warning signs: You don't know your preference utilisation rate (eligible imports against preferences actually claimed), or origin evidence isn't linked to the consignments it supports.
Classification
Are your commodity codes correct, and who verifies them? Wrong codes mean wrong duty rates: sometimes higher, sometimes lower, and both create risk. A code chosen once by an agent and never independently reviewed repeats on every subsequent entry.
Warning signs: Several codes in use for one product family, frequent manual overrides of system-assigned codes, legacy codes carried over from old suppliers or brokers, and no written classification decisions or rulings.
Valuation
Is your customs value the full price paid or payable, including assists, royalties and licence fees, and nothing more? Non-dutiable charges like post-importation inland freight or buying commissions should not be included; when they are, they inflate the duty bill on every entry.
Warning signs: The same Incoterms treated differently across entries, no documented valuation policy, and inconsistent treatment of freight, insurance and surcharges.
Special procedures
Are your customs procedure codes correct, and are duty-suspending procedures (Inward Processing, Temporary Admission, end-use, Returned Goods Relief) reconciled and discharged on time? Missed relief eligibility means paying full duty when you don't have to; an undischarged procedure converts suspended duty into a debt.
Warning signs: Standard release to free circulation used by default where a relief could apply, and import VAT under postponed accounting not reconciled to your VAT returns.
Declaration data
Does your record match HMRC's record of what was actually filed? What your agent filed and what you think was filed are not always the same, and an audit runs on HMRC's version, not yours.
Warning signs: Invoice values, quantities, Incoterms or currencies that don't match the entry, and evidence you can't trace from purchase order to declaration. Could you evidence your declarations within days, not weeks, if HMRC asked for a sample?
Agent concentration
How exposed are you to a single agent's habits? Most importers concentrate declarations with one or two agents, and a recurring error in a dominant agent's flow multiplies across thousands of entries before anyone notices.
Six questions. Two minutes. No data upload.
The interactive check asks one question per dimension and gives you an instant banded result, so you know where your risk probably sits before anyone opens a file.
What data do you need for a compliance check?
For the two-minute self-check, none: it is six yes-or-no questions. For a full check, start with your declaration history, then gather the commercial records that explain it. Pull two to three years where you can, because HMRC's window runs three years back and a shorter view understates both your risk and your reclaim opportunity.
- Your Trader Records Extract (TRE) from HMRC: line-level detail for every declaration submitted through CDS, including commodity codes, customs values, duty and VAT, preference codes, procedure codes and countries of origin. Every check depends on it.
- Commercial invoices and packing lists for a sample of entries.
- Contracts, purchase orders and Incoterms for your main suppliers.
- Origin evidence: EUR.1 certificates, statements on origin and supplier declarations.
- Classification rulings, valuation workings and broker instructions.
With BorderAudit you connect your HMRC Government Gateway account instead, and the declaration data is pulled for you.
What does a compliance check typically find?
These are the patterns that recur across UK importer compliance checks, and most importers have at least two of them. Each one shows up in the declaration data before it shows up in an HMRC letter, which is why a check that reads every line finds them earlier than any sample-based review.
The customs audit checklist sets out how to disclose, reclaim and fix what you find.
How often should you run a compliance check?
Annually as a minimum, and quarterly if you import at volume or your supply chain changes often. A workable pattern is a light quarterly review of your highest-value codes and lanes, with a full review of all six dimensions once a year. Continuous monitoring is better still, because errors compound with every entry filed.
Run an extra review after anything that shifts your risk profile: a new broker, a new sourcing country, a change of Incoterms, or a jump in declaration volume. Every quarter that passes without a review lets the oldest overpayments drop out of reclaim scope, while unreviewed errors keep compounding your exposure.
How does BorderAudit run your compliance check?
No spreadsheets and no manual data extraction. BorderAudit is a post-clearance customs audit platform: connect once and your full declaration history is scanned automatically, every entry against the classification, valuation, origin, preference and procedure checks above, with results in a dashboard that stays current as new declarations are filed.
The engine processes 4.4 million declaration lines a day and runs 100+ automated checks on every entry, and 250+ businesses are onboarded. It is free to start. For what happens after an overpayment is found, see the customs duty reclaim guide. The compliance analytics and audit automation pages cover the checks and the dashboard.
- Step 01Connect Government GatewayLink your HMRC Government Gateway account in a few minutes. Read-only access: nothing in your declarations is ever modified.
- Step 02Your CDS declaration data is pulledYour import declaration data is retrieved automatically from HMRC's systems. No CSV exports, no broker requests, no manual uploads.
- Step 03Automated checks runEvery declaration, not a sample, is checked across all six dimensions.
- Step 04The dashboard shows resultsRisks, recoverable duty and benchmarks against sector averages in one view, kept current as new declarations are filed.
- Step 05Repayment packs are generatedFor every overpayment identified, a repayment pack is prepared with the supporting documentation ready for HMRC, while the three-year window is still open.
What does the check look like on real declarations?
The video below is a short tour of the platform your check runs on: automated HMRC data collection, analysis across all six dimensions, and exceptions ranked by value. It shows what you see after connecting, from the first data pull through to the ranked list of issues, so you know what to expect before you start.
Compliance checks, answered.
Find the errors before HMRC does.
Six questions show where your risk probably sits, then connect your customs data and every declaration is checked automatically across all six dimensions. Free to start.