Approved exporter (EA) and registered exporter (REX):

A preference is preferential customs treatment. This means that customs duties in the trade in goods are lower or completely eliminated. For which goods as well as countries or groups of countries such preferences exist, the preferential agreements of the European Union regulate.

An example: Your company wants to export a product from the EU to Switzerland as part of a preferential agreement. In order for your goods to benefit from preferential customs treatment when imported into Switzerland, the importer must provide a corresponding proof document. As an exporter, you provide your trading partner in Switzerland with this proof document that this product fulfils the corresponding requirements.

The details can vary from agreement to agreement. But as a rule, the specifications are aimed at the origin of the goods. For example, it may be necessary for your company to prove that a product has been completely manufactured or sufficiently processed in the European Union.

A proof of preference is used for this purpose. This is regularly issued by the competent customs office or an approved authority. As a rule, this process can be simplified. Other preferential agreements only provide for the exporter to issue a proof of preference without the involvement of a public authority.

Approved exporters (EA) may, if provided for in the relevant preferential agreement:

• Make out proof of preference regarding the origin of a product yourself. The value of the goods is not limited.
• issue pre-treated certificates in trade with Turkey (A.TR.

If you wish to benefit from these advantages as an approved exporter, you must submit an application.

As an approved exporter, you must ensure through your internal organisation that your certificates of preference comply with the requirements.

For this purpose, a work and organization instruction (AuO) is used, which you must submit to the main customs office together with the application. The AuO contains, among other things, the following information:

• Person with overall responsibility
• Person responsible for proof of preference
• Activities of the company: trade, production or both
• Procedure for checking the origin of goods
• Procedure for archiving the preference certificates and associated documents.

Registered exporters (REX) may, provided that this procedure is provided for in the respective preferential agreement:

• Make out proof of preference regarding the origin of a product yourself. The value of the goods is not limited.

To obtain registered exporter status, you must submit an application for registration. Further requirements are not to be met.

Book-related separation:

The manufacture of a product originating in the European Union must comply with established rules. Only in this way is the manufactured product an original product. It must always be clearly verifiable which primary materials have been used in the manufacture. Materials that are themselves already originating in the EU must be stored separately from the other materials. However, some preferential agreements of the European Union provide for an exception.

An example: Your company produces goods from plastic granulate. In many cases, however, only a certain maximum amount of the plastic granulate used may be a starting material without origin in the EU, i.e. imported from China, for example. If you store plastic granules without origin in the EU and plastic granules originating in the EU in a common storage tank, then it is not possible to prove which granules were used in the production. The respective proportion of originating or non-originating materials in the EU could only theoretically be determined via the merchandise management system. However, this is only permissible when applying the method of accounting separation.

Where the method of accounting separation is applied, joint storage is possible in the case of a purely accounting separation of certain materials.
If you want to take advantage of these benefits, you must submit an application.

As part of the application process, you must explain how to document and monitor the accounting separation in such a way that unlawful confirmation of originating status is excluded.