Records

The five facts for every consignment

Regulation 5 of SI 2026/802 requires a person who imports a CBAM good in the course of a business to keep a record evidencing the eight-digit commodity code and description, the date the good was imported, its value and its weight, and regulation 17(2) of SI 2026/995 adds a fifth: where applicable, that section 147(2) applies, because the good is of UK origin or is a returned good. The duty has no threshold and no reference to registration, because the record is what proves where a business stands against the £50,000 test. HMRC's guidance, which is guidance and not law, states that import declarations, bills of lading, commercial documents and evidence of origin will serve.

Six years, in writing

Regulation 6 provides that a record relating to an accounting period is preserved for six years beginning with the day after the end of that period, and any other record for six years from the day it is created, and that records are kept in writing, which HMRC's guidance reads as including electronic form. A record of a consignment imported in March 2027 relates to the period ending 31 December 2027 and is kept until the end of 2033.

The records that registration and the return add

Regulation 8 requires a registered person to keep records evidencing the information given on registration, including the trigger date and the weight estimates by sector, with the working behind them. Regulation 11 requires a person who makes a return to keep records evidencing the place of origin of each good under the non-preferential rules, and every item on the return needs a source: the code, weight and origin from the customs documents, the default value from the Treasury notice, the intensity from the verification report and the relief from the calculation under SI 2026/809.

Verified data and relief

Regulation 16 of SI 2026/995 requires an importer who filed on verified data to keep the verification report, or a good-specific verification summary once the Commissioners define one, for six years; the duty does not apply where a default value was used. Regulation 15 of SI 2026/809 requires an importer who claimed relief to keep the evidence that the scheme qualifies, the carbon pricing verification form, the working for the effective carbon price and the working for the relief, for six years from the day after the accounting period of the return that claimed it.

The weight record

Regulation 4 fixes the weight as net of all packing at the time of import, in kilogrammes, and regulation 12 lets an officer determine the weight, using estimates and comparisons with similar goods, where the correct weight was not given or the record was not kept. A business whose goods are weighed on arrival should keep the weighbridge ticket beside the declared figure; one whose declared weight comes from the supplier's packing list should keep the list.

Goods that are not on the return

The return lists only goods on which the tax is charged, while regulation 5 requires a record for every covered good imported in the course of a business. Exempt consignments therefore have a record with the section 147(2) flag and the evidence behind it, and a business that cannot show why a consignment was left off the return will find it assessed as if it had been on.

The powers behind the duties

Paragraph 39 of Schedule 17 attaches a penalty of £500 to a failure to keep or preserve a required record. Paragraph 15 lets an officer direct a registered or registrable person to keep specified records for up to six years. Paragraph 20 makes a failure to keep the documents needed to verify a return a default that opens an assessment to the best of the officer's judgement, and Schedule 19 extends HMRC's information and inspection powers to anyone involved in the production, importation, supply, storage or transport of CBAM goods, so what an agent holds is as visible to HMRC as what the importer holds.

The file plan

Open one file for each covered consignment on the day its declaration is accepted, and put in it the declaration, the invoice, the packing list or weighbridge ticket, the bill of lading and the evidence of origin, marked with whether section 147(2) applies. When the return is prepared, add the verification report or the note that a default value was used and, if relief is claimed, the form and the working. Write on each file the date on which it may be destroyed.