Duty Free Zone

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Customs office Bremen-Hansator at the former free port

A duty-free area , also known as a free port on waterways , or a free warehouse or free zone away from the waterways , is usually an enclosed or fenced-in area within a country in which no customs duties and import sales taxes are levied. Such free zones are used to store, further process and refine the imported goods. Free ports are usually sub-areas of ports that are delimited by border fences and that have customs passages.

particularities

Services within a customs-free area to end consumers are not subject to sales tax , as they are subject to special tax regulations: The free ports of control type I do not belong to Germany for sales tax purposes; In the free ports of control type II (currently Duisburg and until 2016 Deggendorf ) normal sales tax must be paid.

The customs law of the European Union designates free ports as "free zones of control type I".

As soon as deliveries are made from the duty-free areas to Germany or the rest of the European Union, customs and import sales tax (EUSt) are levied by the importing country . With this procedure, the company's liquidity is not strained by provisional levies if the goods are not to be sold domestically. However, since January 1, 2011 (according to Regulation / EC No. 2373/2009 of July 1, 2009), a summary declaration has been mandatory for goods imported from outside the European Union, which means that one of the main advantages of free zones is no longer applicable .

Free ports within the territory of the European Customs Union

Free ports are or were u. a. in Livorno (1675), Trieste and Rijeka (since 1719, then Fiume) and Emden (1751 up to and including 2009), in Bremerhaven (1827), Brake (1835) and Bremen (1888–2007) (see also: History of the Bremen ports ) as well as in Hamburg (1888–2012), Cuxhaven (1896), Stettin (1898) and Kiel (1924–2009).

The port city of Trieste at the end of the Maritime Silk Road (“Maritim Silk Road” or “21st Century Maritim Silk Road”) with its links to Central Europe is considered an important European free port. This was from Emperor Charles VI. founded in 1719 and later especially supported by his daughter Maria Theresia . With the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, the London Memorandum from 1954 and, for example, the Italian legal confirmations from 2017, the status of the free port has been extended internationally again and again. The special features and advantages of the free port are in the area of ​​special provisions on import, export, customs clearance, storage and tax law. The free port area provides special areas for storage, handling and processing as well as transit zones for goods.

Since the founding of the EU, free ports have also been established in the inland ports of Duisburg (1991) and Deggendorf (1992–2016). Further examples of free zones or free warehouses inland in 19th century Germany were the so-called Zollverein defeats in Bremen and Hamburg . In Austria there were four free zones for temporary storage, in Graz , near Hall in Tirol ( Tyrolean duty-free area ) and in the Danube ports of Vienna and Linz ( called duty- free zone here ).

The free ports of Emden and Kiel were closed on January 1, 2010 for economic reasons ( Federal Law Gazette  I 2009 p. 1713), since in recent years only community goods, i.e. goods that have come from free circulation in the EU, have been stored and transhipped were.

In December 2009 the Hamburg Senate decided to apply for the closure of the free port on January 1, 2013. The federal government launched the necessary draft law in September 2010; the Federal Council approved this on December 17, 2010. The repeal became effective on January 1, 2013 through the “Law to Repeal the Free Port of Hamburg” of January 24, 2011 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 50). The port became a maritime customs port. For free port of Hamburg was one of the local storage City with special warehouses, especially for tea, coffee, spices and carpets. Due to structural change, the area was released from customs borders around the turn of the millennium and now forms the north-western border of the HafenCity, which is under construction .

There are currently free ports in Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven in Germany .

Italy

The Italian municipality of Livigno , which lies on the border with Switzerland, is a customs exclusion area of ​​the European Union.

Switzerland

There are several bonded warehouses in Switzerland, including a. in the Basel area , at Zurich Airport and in Geneva ( free port ).

In the municipality of Samnaun on the eastern border between Switzerland and Austria, you can shop and refuel duty-free. The village is known as a winter sports area and has become a tourist attraction.

literature

  • From the free port to the sea ​​customs port . In: Port of Hamburg Magazine , 2/2012, pp. 6–13, Hafen Hamburg Marketing e. V.

Web links

Wiktionary: Freihafen  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Historical data of the city of Brake ( Memento from March 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Entry on duty-free zones in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon ); older version aeiou.at
  3. Press release from December 17, 2010 , hamburg.de
  4. detailed information ( memento of August 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on zoll.de.
  5. Free zones in existence and in operation in the community, as notified by the Member States to the Commission . ( Memento from March 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 186 kB) Status: August 9, 2012
  6. Simon Bradley: The discreet bunkers of the super-rich , swissinfo.ch, July 9, 2014 ( German translation )