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Apply for permission to handle tobacco products

  • Steuern und Abgaben 



    	    

		    
Procedure

            			
You must apply for the permit in writing: 


  • Download the appropriate forms for the main application and any other required forms from the Customs website.
  • Fill out each required form completely, print it out and sign it. Compile the respective required documents and send everything by mail to your responsible main customs office. The responsible main customs office is the one from whose district you operate your business or, if you do not operate a business, in whose district you are domiciled. If your business is operated from a location outside Germany or if you do not have a residence in Germany, the main customs office in whose district you first appear for tax purposes is locally responsible.
  • For tax warehouse holders, registered consignees and registered consignors: The "List of Varieties, General" (Form 1684) must also be submitted to the main customs office in Bielefeld.
  • The main customs office will examine your application.
  • You will receive a notice with the permission or a refusal.
			
Legal bases
			
More information
"Tax warehouse holder": you operate a tax warehouse for untaxed tobacco products. A tax warehouse is a place approved by the main customs office where tobacco products may be manufactured, processed, handled or stored under tax suspension. Please also note: If you only want to store tobacco products in the tax warehouse, but not manufacture them, you must be authorized to obtain tax stamps or exclusively hand over untaxed tobacco products. You must purchase tax stamps from the Bielefeld Main Customs Office, affix them with a corresponding cancellation mark and attach them to the packaging of tobacco products. 


  • In the tax warehouse is not considered manufacturing:
    
 
    • the packaging of tobacco products
    • the marking of packages
    • the affixing of tax stamps
    • the tearing open of cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos
    • the finishing of cigars or cigarillos by pressing, sorting, powdering, ringing, wrapping and the like
    • the blending, flavoring and pressing of smoking tobacco.
  • In the so-called "tax suspension procedure" you can send and receive tobacco products tax-free under certain conditions.

"Registered consignee": you receive tobacco products with German tax stamps. The tobacco goods are transported under suspension of tobacco tax. Consignor is a tax warehouse keeper or a registered consignor in another member state. 

"registered consignor": after an import, you dispatch tobacco products for which tobacco tax is suspended from the place of import to authorized consignees in Germany or in other countries of the European Union (for example, to a tax warehouse). 

"User": you use tobacco products tax-free outside the tax warehouse, for example 


  • For commercial purposes, except for smoking and manufacturing tobacco products.
  • For scientific purposes, for example, for experiments.