Customs authorisation · Value, origin and tariff
Registered exporter (REX): certifying preferential origin yourself
Registration proves nothing about the origin of your goods. It allows you to certify it yourself, and shifts onto you the burden of proving it if the authorities come asking.
What REX changes
Until now it was the administration that certified preferential origin: an EUR.1 certificate endorsed by customs, a FORM A endorsed in the beneficiary country. The REX system moves that certification to the operator: you draw up a statement on origin yourself, on the invoice or on another commercial document, quoting your REX number.
The gain is real: no more going through a counter before every consignment. So is the trade-off, and it is rarely spelled out: the control moves downstream. It is no longer an officer validating before departure, it is a subsequent verification that can reach back over several years of consignments.
Who has to register
- The exporters established in the Union whose consignments exceed EUR 6,000 of originating products, in the relations where REX applies.
- Operators using bilateral cumulation with a GSP country above that same threshold.
- The re-consignors who make out replacement statements for split consignments coming from a GSP country, towards another Member State, Switzerland or Norway.
- The exporters established in a GSP beneficiary country or in a third country applying the system, who register through a separate procedure.
REX does not replace everything
This is the most widespread mistake. The system applies to the GSP and to a list of agreements: Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Vietnam, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar. For every other agreement, the EUR.1 certificate remains in force.
And even where REX applies, the exact wording of the statement differs from one agreement to another. The GSP wording is in Annex 22-07 of the Implementing Regulation; for a bilateral agreement you have to find it in that agreement's origin protocol. A wording taken from the wrong text is enough to have the preference refused on arrival.
What you need to provide
- Le EORI number and access to the UUM&DS system, the technical prerequisites for the application.
- Full identification of the company and a description of the goods concerned, with their tariff headings.
- The preferential relations covered : GSP, bilateral agreements, overseas countries and territories.
- Theundertaking formally to make out statements only for genuinely originating products, to keep the evidence and to accept verification.
- Evidence that you are able to determine origin: bill of materials, source of the inputs, applicable list rules, declarations from your own suppliers.
The pitfalls
- Registering before establishing origin. Registration is quick; determining that a product genuinely originates is not. Certifying without having done the work exposes your customer to a claim for the duty.
- Applying the threshold to the invoice. The EUR 6,000 is assessed per consignment and on the value of the originating products, not on the invoiced total.
- Taking the statement wording from another agreement. The wording is specific to each origin protocol.
- Forgetting supplier declarations. Without them you cannot prove the origin of the inputs, and therefore not that of the finished product.
- Not keeping the evidence. Subsequent verification is the counterpart of self-certification, and it reaches back in time.
- Letting the registration go stale. Data not updated, or registration revoked: your buyer will see it in the public database.
What we do, and what we do not do
Included: determining preferential origin product by product against the applicable list rules, checking that the preferential relation concerned actually falls under REX, collecting and checking your suppliers' declarations, drafting the correct statement wording for the agreement in question, assembling the registration file and organising the evidence to be kept.
Not included: filing the application on the client's behalf unless expressly mandated, the registration decision, which belongs to the administration, signing the statements on origin, and the lodging of customs declarations.
CTB Group steers customs compliance and governance; the lodging of declarations remains with the representatives appointed by the company.
Frequently asked questions
My consignments stay under EUR 6,000. Do I have to register?
No. Below the threshold, any exporter can make out a statement on origin without being registered. But the threshold is assessed consignment by consignment, and on the value of the originating products: a single consignment above it is enough to make registration necessary, and it is not obtained the same day.
I export to Mercosur. Does REX apply?
Not automatically. REX covers only the GSP and a list of agreements where it has been put in place. For any other preferential relation, it is the origin protocol of the agreement concerned that determines who may certify, in what form and above what amount. That is the first thing to check before promising a buyer a tariff preference.
What exactly does registration prove?
Nothing about the origin of your goods. It proves that you are authorised to certify it yourself. The burden of showing that the goods genuinely originate stays entirely with you, and it is checked after the fact.
Do your products genuinely originate?
Thirty minutes, with no commitment, to look at one of your references, the list rule that applies to it and what you could actually prove if verified.
Free first call (30 min)Sheet updated on 14 September 2026, sources checked with the Belgian FPS Finance, FPS Economy and the European Commission. This sheet is a working reference, not legal advice: the applicable preferential relation must be checked agreement by agreement. See also: the authorisations catalogue, our solutions for exporters, the EU-Brazil corridor.