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Apply for permission to handle tobacco products

  • Steuern und Abgaben 



    	    

		    
Procedure

            			
You must apply for the permit in writing: 


  • Download the appropriate forms for the main application and any other required forms from the Customs website.
  • Complete the required forms in full, print them out and sign them. Compile the required documents and send everything by post to your main customs office. The main customs office from whose district you operate your company is responsible or, if you do not operate a company, in whose district you have your place of residence. If your company is operated from a location outside Germany or if you do not have a place of residence in Germany, the main customs office in whose district you first appear for tax purposes is responsible.
  • For tax warehouse holders, registered consignees and registered consignors: The "List of varieties, general" (Form 1684) must also be submitted to the main customs office in Bielefeld.
  • The main customs office will check your application.
  • You will receive a notice of approval or rejection.
			
Legal bases
			
More information
"Tax warehouse operator": You operate a tax warehouse for untaxed tobacco products. A tax warehouse is a location approved by the main customs office where tobacco products may be manufactured, processed, treated or stored under duty suspension. Please also note: If you only want to store tobacco products in the tax warehouse but not manufacture them, you must be authorized to obtain tax stamps or only supply untaxed tobacco products. Tax stamps must be purchased from the main customs office in Bielefeld, stamped accordingly and affixed to the packaging of tobacco products. 


  • In the tax warehouse does not count as manufacture:
    
 
    • the packaging of tobacco products
    • the labeling of packs
    • the affixing of tax stamps
    • the tearing open of cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos
    • finishing cigars or cigarillos by pressing, sorting, powdering, ringing, wrapping and the like
    • mixing, flavoring and pressing smoking tobacco
  • Under the so-called "tax suspension procedure", you can send and receive tobacco products tax-free under certain conditions.

"Registered consignee": You receive tobacco products with German tax marks. The tobacco products are transported under suspension of tobacco tax. The consignor is a tax warehouse keeper or a registered consignor in another member state. 

"Registered consignor": After an import, you send tobacco products for which the tobacco tax is suspended from the place of import to authorized recipients in Germany or in other countries of the European Union (e.g. to a tax warehouse). 

"User": You use tobacco products tax-free outside the tax warehouse, for example 


  • for commercial purposes, except for smoking and the manufacture of tobacco products
  • for scientific purposes, for example for experiments.