Penalties
If you fail to declare customs duty and tax charges to Swedish Customs, you will be required to pay a penalty fee.
Swedish Customs may only impose a penalty if the company is required to submit a written or electronic customs declaration, which will constitute the basis for a customs decision.
Situations which may lead to a penalty
Examples of situations which may lead to a penalty from Swedish Customs include the following.
Example 1: Incorrect information in the customs declaration
If you submit incorrect information in your customs declaration or fail to provide such information
that is required for Swedish Customs to determine how much customs duty, tax charges and other charges you own, you may be liable to pay a penalty. The penalty amounts is mainly 20% of the incorrectly declared customs duty, tax charges and other charges.
Example 2: No supplementary customs declaration
If you fail to submit a supplementary declaration, Swedish Customs will issue a conditional fine. If you, in spite of the fine, fail to submit the supplementary declaration, Swedish Customs will calculate your debt “on reasonable grounds”.
The penalty amounts to 20% of the amount determined on reasonable grounds by Swedish Customs.
Example 3: Failing to comply with customs regulations
Failing to comply with your obligations according to the customs legislation may lead to a penalty. For example, you may have committed illegal importation, illegal avoidance of customs supervision or you may have used an uncleared or untaxed product in a prohibited manner,
The penalty amounts to 20% of the customs duty, tax charges and other charges that you would have paid.
Cases where Swedish Customs does not impose a penalty
If you, as a debtor, the party obliged to pay customs duty and tax on imports, discover that your company has submitted incorrect information or otherwise failed to comply with the customs legislation you may correct the erroneous information or report your non-compliance. If you correct your mistake unprompted, Swedish Customs will not charge any penalty.
This does not apply if you make the correction suspecting that Swedish Customs has initiated an audit of your company, whereby we may discover the error. In such cases, a penalty will be charged.
If more than five years have passed from the date when the customs debt for your goods arose, Swedish Customs may not charge any penalty.
You may be exempted from a penalty
You may be fully or partially exempted from a penalty if Swedish Customs finds it unreasonable to charge the penalty in full.