Dublin, Ireland, April 03 The Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD, has stressed the urgent need for businesses to take a few minutes to register online with Revenue in order to get a customs identification number.

This number, referred to as an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number will be needed by businesses in order to move goods to, from or through the UK and who wish to continue trading with the UK post-Brexit.

Post Brexit, the UK as a third country will fall outside the EU Customs Union, which means that different customs procedural rules will apply.  Businesses that already trade with non-EU countries will already have this customs identification number.

Minister Humphreys noted that: “While there has been an increase in the number of businesses that have registered for an EORI number, there are still a large number of companies who have not yet done so. I strongly encourage those companies to take the few minutes needed to complete this straightforward process through Revenue’s Online Service, ROS”.

The Minister said that whether a business is a small engineering company importing product from the UK or a large agri-food company exporting goods to the UK, the customs number is a minimum requirement in order to continue trading with the UK in the event of a no deal Brexit. 

“I do not want to see a situation arise where a company finds that it is prevented from trading with the UK due to a failure to complete a simple online registration process. Once registered for ROS, the turnaround registration for an EORI number is approximately 3 minutes”.

Noting that in a no deal Brexit scenario companies face a very different trading environment, the Minister took the opportunity to press home the Government supports in place to assist businesses to meet Brexit challenges. As regards new customs procedures, the Minister encouraged businesses to avail of the freely available customs advice and training through a number of Government Agencies, including the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) which have a number of upcoming ‘Prepare Your Business for Customs’ workshops throughout the country. 

In addition, Enterprise Ireland offer free online customs training that businesses can use at a time and place when it suits them and InterTradeIreland also offer online learning to help businesses understand changed customs procedures. 

Further information about actions businesses can take now to prepare for Brexit is available on gov.ie/brexit