Explaining the Legal Background of Intrastat Declarations

The formation of the EU, which was agreed upon by the Member States in the Maastricht Treaty, aimed to extend the scope of economic cooperation and moreover, political integration. The long-planned Single Market finally became a reality on January 1, 1993. From that date, customs supervision of the movement of goods within the EU is no longer required. Within the borders of the Single Market, customs duties, import turnover tax, and special excise duty no longer apply.

Since the customs declaration also formed the basis for the retrieval of statistical data in intra-Union goods movements and these data are of particular importance for trade policy, the EU established the permanent statistical retrieval system Intrastat. These statistics are based solely on intra-Union goods movements. Goods movements with third countries and intra-Union goods movements with non-Union goods are the subject of foreign trade statistics.

Note

In the European Single Market, supplies from another Member State are referred to as receipts (and not imports). Supplies to another Member States are referred to as dispatches (and not exports).

As a rule, Intrastat declarations only concern the goods movements between the Member States. Receipts and dispatches of Union goods are declared separately. Companies are only required to submit information in the Member State in which the goods physically arrive or from which they are physically dispatched. Receipts and dispatches that are free of charge and intra-Union subcontracting must also be reported.

The following data must be provided:

Unlike other Member States, Italy also collects data on the supply of services to or from other Member States as a part of the Intrastat declaration. To report the supply of services, the providers of information have to use codes from the nomenclature in the annex to Council Regulation (EC) No. 451/2008 establishing a new statistical classification of products by activity (CPA). This classification is also referred to as CPA 2008.

You can submit Intrastat declarations for services in Italy from SAP S/4HANA.