GUIDES · COMPLIANCE CHECK

Check your customs compliance before HMRC does.

A customs compliance check is a systematic scan of your import declarations — classification, valuation, origin, preferences, and procedure codes — to surface errors, overpayments, and risks. 17% of UK import declarations contain errors. Most importers don't know until HMRC tells them.

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What a check covers · the six dimensions · common findings · run it free in 2 minutes
THE DEFINITION

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 (HM Revenue & Customs) requirements.

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.

Format 01
Compliance scan
A broad health check across all your declarations. Identifies systemic issues, patterns of error, and recovery opportunities across your full import history.
Format 02
Targeted audit
A focused review of specific risk areas — a particular commodity code, supplier, or preference claim — where you suspect issues or HMRC has flagged concerns.
WHAT IT COVERS

What does a customs compliance check cover?

Six dimensions of post-clearance risk. Miss one and you're leaving risk — or money — on the table. They are the same six dimensions the Audit Readiness score measures from your declaration data — and the free 2-minute check asks one question per dimension.

Dimension 01
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.
Dimension 02
Classification
Are your commodity codes correct — and who verifies them? Wrong HS 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.
Dimension 03
Valuation
Is your customs value the full price paid or payable — including assists, royalties, and licence fees — and nothing more? Non-dutiable charges like inland freight or buying commissions should not be included; when they are, they inflate the duty bill on every entry.
Dimension 04
Special procedures
Are your customs procedure codes (CPCs) 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.
Dimension 05
Declaration data
Does your record match HMRC's record of what was actually filed? 17% of UK declarations contain errors, and what your agent filed and what you think was filed are not always the same. An audit runs on HMRC's version, not yours.
Dimension 06
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.

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COMMON FINDINGS

What does a compliance check typically find?

These are the patterns that recur across UK importer compliance checks. Most importers have at least two of them.

17%
Of UK declarations contain errors
53%
Preference-claim gaps across 2.3M textile declarations
£4.7M
Duty recovered through the platform
£144K
Recovered for a single fashion retailer
Finding 01
Missed preferences
Zero-tariff opportunities under UK FTAs not claimed at clearance. Retrospective preference claims can recover thousands per shipment across your declaration history — across 2.3M textile declarations analysed, 53% showed preference-claim gaps.
Finding 02
Classification drift
Commodity codes not updated when products change. A product range evolves but the HS codes stay the same — resulting in incorrect duty rates across hundreds of entries.
Finding 03
Valuation overstatement
Non-dutiable charges like inland freight, buying commissions, and post-importation costs incorrectly included in customs value. These inflate your duty bill on every entry.
Finding 04
Procedure misapplication
Wrong CPC for the relief type, or eligible reliefs not applied at all. Inward Processing, Temporary Admission, and end-use relief can suspend or reduce duty entirely.
▲ Under-declaration — caution
Not every finding is money back
Errors cut both ways. Where a check surfaces underpaid duty — a wrong code at a lower rate, an unsupported preference claim — the exposure runs in HMRC's favour: the shortfall is demandable with interest and penalties. Finding it yourself first means correcting on your terms, not theirs.
THE PLATFORM

How BorderAudit runs your compliance check.

No spreadsheets. No manual data extraction. BorderAudit is an automated post-clearance customs audit platform: connect once and your full declaration history is scanned automatically — every entry, against the same classification, valuation, origin, preference, and procedure checks described above, with results in a compliance dashboard that stays current as new declarations are filed.

The engine processes 4.4 million declaration lines a day, and reclaims prepared through it carry a 91% HMRC first-time acceptance rate across the 200+ businesses using the platform. It's freemium software with flat pricing — free to start, Premium at £149/month — never a success-fee service. For what happens after an overpayment is found, see the customs duty reclaim guide.

Step 01
Connect Government Gateway
Link your HMRC Government Gateway account in under 5 minutes. Read-only access — nothing in your declarations is ever modified.
Step 02
Your MSS/CDS data is pulled
Your import declaration data is pulled automatically from HMRC's systems. No CSV exports, no broker requests, no manual uploads.
Step 03
Automated checks run
Every declaration — not a sample — is checked across all six dimensions: classification, valuation, origin and preferences, procedures, declaration data, and agent patterns.
Step 04
Dashboard shows results
Your compliance dashboard surfaces risks, recoverable duty, and benchmarks against sector averages — all in one view, kept current as new declarations are filed.
Step 05
C285 reclaim packs generated
For every overpayment identified, a C285 reclaim pack is auto-generated with the supporting documentation ready for HMRC submission — while the 3-year window is still open.
WATCH · 80 SECONDS

The compliance check, running on real declarations

Automated HMRC data collection, six-dimension risk analysis, and exceptions ranked by value — a tour of the platform your check runs on.

FAQ

Compliance checks, answered.

A customs compliance check is a systematic review of your import declarations to identify errors, duty overpayments, missed preferences, and compliance risks. It covers six dimensions of post-clearance risk — preference evidence, tariff classification, customs valuation, special procedures, declaration data accuracy, and agent concentration — across your full declaration history.

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. Flat pricing. No success fees.

Run the 2-minute checkborderaudit.io/resources/guides/customs-compliance-check