3 November 2026 · Bearsource
The scene plays out at Hamburg and Bremerhaven every week: a container arrives, the customs agent opens the declaration — and stops. The importer has no EORI number. Nothing can be declared, nothing can be cleared, and the goods start collecting storage charges while a form makes its way through an office in Dresden. The frustrating part is that the EORI is free, the application is short, and the only real requirement is doing it before the goods ship.
If you are importing products into Germany — as a German company, or as a foreign brand selling into the German market — two things need to be in place before your first shipment: an EORI number and a working plan for import VAT (Einfuhrumsatzsteuer, EUSt). Here is how both work, in plain terms.
EORI stands for Economic Operators Registration and Identification. It is the EU-wide identification number for businesses in all customs matters. Every customs declaration in the EU names the declarant and the importer by their EORI number — without one, the declaration literally cannot be lodged in the ATLAS system German customs uses.
Three properties matter. First, the number is EU-wide: an EORI issued in Germany works in every member state, and you need exactly one. Second, it is issued by the country where you are established — or, if you are established outside the EU, by the member state where you first import. Third, in Germany it is issued by the Generalzolldirektion in Dresden, and it costs nothing.
One point that is widely misunderstood: your freight forwarder's or customs agent's EORI is not a substitute for yours. An agent can declare on your behalf, but the declaration names you as importer under your EORI. If an agent offers to clear goods 'under our number', your goods are being imported in someone else's name — with the liability and paperwork problems that creates (see our article on DDP shipping to Germany).
German companies apply online through the customs portal (Bürger- und Geschäftskundenportal) using an ELSTER certificate, or with form 0870 submitted to the Generalzolldirektion. You will need your tax number and basic company details, and the number is assigned to the legal entity — so the applicant name must match the name that will appear on your commercial invoices and declarations, letter for letter.
Processing is often a matter of a few working days, but in busy periods it stretches towards two weeks, and queries about mismatched details add more. Plan on applying at least two to three weeks before your first shipment leaves the factory. Also keep the registration alive: address changes, a new legal form or a merger must be reported, or the number and your company data drift apart — a classic cause of held declarations.
Separate from customs duty, Germany charges import VAT — Einfuhrumsatzsteuer — on goods entering the EU. The standard rate is 19% (7% for a small list of reduced-rate goods such as many foods and books). It is calculated on the customs value plus duty plus the transport costs to the EU border, so the base is higher than your factory invoice.
For a VAT-registered business, import VAT is not a real cost: it is deductible as input tax (Vorsteuer) in your VAT return. But it is a serious cashflow item, because Germany — unlike the Netherlands with its Article 23 licence — has no general postponed-accounting scheme for importers. The EUSt is normally due at clearance. Regular importers manage this with a deferment account (Aufschubkonto) with customs, settled monthly by direct debit, which at least turns per-shipment payments into one monthly outflow.
Two traps sit here. First, the deduction only works if the customs assessment (Einfuhrabgabenbescheid) is issued in your name and you keep it — no document, no deduction. Second, if you are a non-EU seller, importing in your own name has tax-registration consequences in Germany; many foreign brands need a German VAT registration and, for customs, an EU-established representative. Get this structure settled before goods move, not after the first assessment arrives.
The EORI number takes an afternoon to apply for and weeks of pain if you forget it. Import VAT is manageable — deductible, deferrable, predictable — but only if the declarations run in your name with your documents. Both belong to the pre-production checklist of any Germany import, right next to lab testing and packaging registration, not to the week the vessel docks.
Importing into Germany? This setup work is part of what we manage. As a production-management partner, we line up the factory, the compliance file and the import structure together — EORI, customs agent, VAT documents — so your first shipment clears instead of waiting. You bring the product. We take it from idea to shipment.
