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 you own, you may be liable to pay a penalty. The penalty amounts to 20% of the incorrectly declared customs duty.
For companies registered for VAT with the Swedish Tax Authority prior to 1 January 2015, the penalty is 10% of VAT according to the Swedish Value Added Tax Act (1994:200).
If Swedish Customs charges a penalty on goods where the customs decision was made prior to 1 January 2015, other provisions apply in part. For companies registered for VAT, the penalty on any avoided VAT only amounts to 10%, provided that you actually declared the goods, although incorrectly.
Goods for which Swedish Customs made customs decisions prior to 1 January 2015 are in part subject to other provisions. If a company registered for VAT incorrectly has declared goods prior to 1 January 2015, the penalty will amount to 10% of the VAT.
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 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 three 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.
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