Do you check in and our with customs in the EU?

tudorsailor

tudorsailor

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When I moved the yacht from Spain via France to Italy, I never checked in and out of each country. No marina asked if we had done this and no one seemed bothered. Now I am in Croatia where they love the bureaucracy of checking in and out. If you miss checking in at the very first available port, they can fine you.

When I last went from Croatia to Venice, I asked on arrival at the Italian marina where I should go for customs. There was a shrug of shoulders and they said that as I was UK registered in an EU country, I did not need to bother. It seemed they treated it the same as if one had driven across the border from France - where there is no border check

So what do people do when going from UK to France across the channel for example?

I am about to go the Venice again,. I will check out of Croatia, but do I need to find the customs in Venice when I arrive? Do I need to go to the customs quay or can I berth in a marina and find the customs by foot?

Thanks

Tudorsailor
 
Never checked in or out going UK-France or vice-versa. I did ask in the marina, once, whether they needed to see passports, but just got a puzzled look in return.

On arrival in the CI, however, (not EU member) they give you a little pack with a form to fill in. You're supposed to complete the declaration and post it in the customs box at the top of the gangway before you go ashore. It's self-declaration and relies on honesty, so we've always complied, although no-one has ever checked.
 
You shouldn't need to clear customs between EU members. But Croatia only joined a couple of years ago, and I guess old habits die hard.

Pete
 
Despite EU membership Croatia retains the need for all boats, including EU registered, to clear in and out. This is to levy the fees and taxes they impose on all visitors. Note that requirements are for reporting to police (crew list) and harbour officials (lights, environment and safety fees plus sojourn tax) but no longer customs. Customs can approach any EU-registered craft at any time to demand proof of VAT payment - they previously circulated Italian marinas that a T2L document was necessary for that.

Italy, where I keep my UK Part I registered boat permanently, requires no formal reporting or declaration, which is what the EU is all about - at least for Schengen agreement signatories. Croatia had intended to become a Schengen area this year but may be reconsidering in the light of the migrant crisis now playing out there. If they do so, I do not know how that would affect the present declaring in/out procedure - very little, I suspect.
 
No need to check into Italy when you arrive from Croatia. Which is not to say that you're not supposed to, but that in 25 years I have never met anyone who has (myself included). I think the Carabinieri would be very bemused if you were to turn up at that doorstep. Croatia is not yet Schengen (like the UK) and anyway likes its bureaucracy (and fleecing visiting boats), which is why you do need to check in and out from them.
 
Barnac1e said:
Croatia had intended to become a Schengen area this year but may be reconsidering in the light of the migrant crisis now playing out there. If they do so, I do not know how that would affect the present declaring in/out procedure - very little, I suspect.
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I had been hoping that when Croatia joined the Schengen agreement the rules for EU boats would be relaxed but I now suspect that the current crisis means that you may well be right about both your points. :(

Richard
 
KAL said:
Never checked in or out going UK-France or vice-versa. I did ask in the marina, once, whether they needed to see passports, but just got a puzzled look in return.

On arrival in the CI, however, (not EU member) they give you a little pack with a form to fill in. You're supposed to complete the declaration and post it in the customs box at the top of the gangway before you go ashore. It's self-declaration and relies on honesty, so we've always complied, although no-one has ever checked.
Click to expand...

They were certainly checking quite rigorously in Guernsey this year. The place was crawling with Guernsey Customs officers, morning, afternoon and evening. They even confiscated the 2lts of gin I'd bought in Alderney and put it in their safe until we left!! They must be on a job creation scheme, can't remember seeing any in previous years.
 
My understanding:
spain to france to Italy should be nothing: they're all schengen countries.
non-schengen to schengen (e.g. UK to France and, as I'm reading here, Italy to Croatia or vice versa) no customs/Q flag but you theoretically need to present a crew list on arrival and have passports available for passport checks if required. In practice finding someone in France interested in looking at these is practically impossible. Clearly Croatia are hotter on this but sounds like Italy have the same attitude as France.

The time when you need to "check out" of the UK is when leaving the EU directly from the UK (e.g. going to the Channel Islands). That's a form C1331 part A (and completion of part B on re-entry into the UK). Having said that, no-one seems to know if France has a similar form you theoretically need to fill in: certainly no french yachtie I've spoken to bothers with one for les Îles Anglo-Normandes, not many Britishers seem to bother and despite generally being happy to obey the rules, I saw the other side of the argument when trying to deal with the national yachtline last year.

RYA site is your friend:
http://www.rya.org.uk/infoadvice/boatingabroad/Pages/customsformalities.aspx
 
longjohnsilver said:
They were certainly checking quite rigorously in Guernsey this year. The place was crawling with Guernsey Customs officers, morning, afternoon and evening. They even confiscated the 2lts of gin I'd bought in Alderney and put it in their safe until we left!!
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That's bizarre, since Alderney is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey!

Pete
 
prv said:
That's bizarre, since Alderney is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey!

Pete
Click to expand...

If it was bought as Duty Free in Alderney, then you wouldn't be allowed to drink it anywhere in the Bailiwick.

From http://randallsdutyfree.com/

The below quantities are permitted per person on travel outward bound from Alderney, to a destination outside the Bailiwick of Guernsey.....
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Angele said:
If it was bought as Duty Free in Alderney, then you wouldn't be allowed to drink it anywhere in the Bailiwick.

From http://randallsdutyfree.com/
Click to expand...

Correct. But as we had already been in Guernsey for a few days and the gin was still in its original plastic duty free bag, and there were other bottles of non duty free gin beside it, I was a little surprised that they would not believe me when I said I promised not to open it till back home. And I offered them free reign to check whenever they were passing. To be fair, I was technically in the wrong, but what a lot of fuss over 2 bottles of gin. They even had to arrange for another Customs officer to return later in the day to confiscate it. He was actually rather embarrassed, said he thought it was rather petty and that he'd have turned a blind eye to it.

Even better, as I travelled from Alderney with another boat, and they consumed theirs before the customs started enquiring about mine. Totally ignored that!! It was actually a pita as we had moved to Beaucette before we left, which then meant coming back to SPP to pick it up. They do have some funny ideas in the CIs about how to attract visitors rather than pi55 them off. Lovely place to be, lots of great people but customer service does not seem to be a priority.
 
For what it worth , here is my take on it.
I think us British just love to go and find PP, custom, Harbour Master just to show we have arrived, year in and year out, here in Greece we get asked, where are the PP we need to get our log stamp, and no matter how much you tell them there no need to,
it's a once a year job, they still will ramble off to find them.
Croatia to Venice and back,
I wouldn't bother we done it twice now , spending a week or two then returning.
No ones the wiser.
 
In Portugal the procedure seems to vary from port to port. In Madeira and the Azores it was bureaucracy heavy at times with three chaps in uniform all filling in their forms and then we had to do it all again at the next island.
 
Laika had it right. EU is effectively borderless about things - ie - boats. And Schengen is borderless about people - crews.

And yes, the French ignore the Schengen requirements to track people's entry and exit from Schengen for English and French boats sailing from CI and UK. They assume you'll find immigration if you have a non-EU crew member on board.

And if a non-EU crew member tries to catch a ferry back to UK, or an airplane, and he hasn't checked in, he'll be fined for illegal entry. Ooops!

The Croatia and Greek arrangements to report on a boat's entry arise because boats have to have permission to sail in their waters. ICC or equivalent is required in Croatia, and both wish to see insurance.

Loads more detail at http://www.jimbsail.info/going-foreign/docs-and-VAT#Country%20Entry%20Procedures
 
jimbaerselman said:
And if a non-EU crew member tries to catch a ferry back to UK, or an airplane, and he hasn't checked in, he'll be fined for illegal entry. Ooops!
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Not on a yacht, but we had some trouble related to this after a trip to Germany. My wife has a BN(O) passport, and therefore doesn't count as an EU citizen. We had flown out to Germany with no problems, but on our return, the borders people at Bremen airport made a big fuss because apparently it appeared that my wife had not been correctly checked out of Germany on a visit some years ago, and it looked as if she'd seriously overstayed! Fortunately they eventually accepted that she had, in fact, been back to the UK between, and we got off with a "friendly" warning to make sure that all the formalities of entry and exit were carried out when she traveled.

It pays to be sure you've checked in and out as required by the regulations. In our case, I think my wife slipped through the net because she was traveling with me on both occasions, and our passports look identical even though hers isn't an EU one.
 
KAL said:
Never checked in or out going UK-France or vice-versa. I did ask in the marina, once, whether they needed to see passports, but just got a puzzled look in return.

On arrival in the CI, however, (not EU member) they give you a little pack with a form to fill in. You're supposed to complete the declaration and post it in the customs box at the top of the gangway before you go ashore. It's self-declaration and relies on honesty, so we've always complied, although no-one has ever checked.
Click to expand...

If you do UK - CI, you're meant to do a form as you leave the UK too.
 
laika said:
The time when you need to "check out" of the UK is when leaving the EU directly from the UK (e.g. going to the Channel Islands). That's a form C1331 part A (and completion of part B on re-entry into the UK). Having said that, no-one seems to know if France has a similar form you theoretically need to fill in: certainly no french yachtie I've spoken to bothers with one for les Îles Anglo-Normandes, not many Britishers seem to bother and despite generally being happy to obey the rules, I saw the other side of the argument when trying to deal with the national yachtline last year.

RYA site is your friend:
http://www.rya.org.uk/infoadvice/boatingabroad/Pages/customsformalities.aspx
Click to expand...

I used to keep my boat at Haslar and they had a customs box and a ready supply of C1331 forms. Now I am in Southampton I cannot find a customs box, I asked the marina and they had node what I was talking about. So I went to Carteret instead.
 
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