Enforcement vision: tailor-made supervision

The Netherlands is an important gateway for many flows of goods to and from Europe. Dutch Customs aim to slow down the logistics process as little as possible and so have introduced a system of layered enforcement. This means that we have the goods flow under our supervision, but only perform checks if necessary. Our judgement is based on the knowledge of the risks, the goods, of the commercial parties involved and of the logistic chain.

Dutch Customs has developed a vision entitled ‘Pushing Boundaries’. In it, we distinguish between three different flows of goods:

• The green flow of goods for trusted economic operators: Dutch Customs execute checks - outside of the logistics process, where possible - in order to evaluate the correctness of the action taken.
• The yellow flow of goods for chains with an smart information flow and a secure flow of goods (smart and secure trade lanes): Dutch Customs are working on making entire chains secure, partly based on the automated exchange of all kinds of information within the entire logistics chain.
• The blue flow of goods for unknown traders: in principle, Dutch Customs perform checks at the border, based on risk selection and risk analysis.

This approach leads to:

• fewer - and less invasive - interventions in the logistics of trusted companies
• more risk-based checks on unknown economic operators

This allows for checks to be focused on a company's records, on the declaration made, or on the goods themselves. A risk selection is essential for determining this.