A letter from customs about a familiar shipment can easily look like a continuation of earlier correspondence. The documents have already been submitted, the price explained and the company’s position set out. It may seem that the next response can simply be based on the previous one.
During that exchange, customs may have completed its checks and issued a decision. The new letter refers to the same goods and the same amount, but the steps the company needs to take to protect its interests may now be different. Before repeating earlier arguments, it is worth taking a closer look at what customs is saying this time.
Preserve the Original Bundle
Keep the message exactly as received, together with all attachments, the list of enclosures and the system acknowledgement. Record any attachment that appears on the list but is missing from the files received. Request the missing file immediately, but do not assume that a time limit has automatically stopped running: the consequences depend on the rules governing service of that particular document and on whether it was possible to comply with the demand without the missing attachment.
The date shown on a document, its dispatch date and its receipt date must be distinguished. For electronic exchanges with customs authorities using the methods listed in Article 282 of Russian Federal Law No. 289-FZ, a document is deemed received on the day after it is sent. A company employee may actually open the file later, but that does not in itself change the statutory date of receipt. This rule does not automatically apply to procedural documents in administrative offence proceedings: since 2025, these have been governed by the specific provisions of Article 24.9 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences (CAO), while Article 25.15 separately governs notification of participants in the proceedings.
There is no single deemed-receipt rule for paper documents either. A notice of a desk-based customs audit, a decision to conduct an on-site customs audit, an audit report and a notice of unpaid amounts each have their own rules on service. The formula ‘received on the sixth working day’ therefore cannot be applied to every envelope from customs.
If a document reaches an employee of a company although it is formally addressed to another person, first establish the addressee, the method of service and the representative’s authority. The mere fact that a document has been forwarded internally from a customs representative or another counterparty does not establish that the relevant public-law obligation has arisen for the company itself. Where the deadline is short, make these checks while recording receipt and preparing the procedural step needed to preserve the company’s ability to defend its interests.
Requests and Demands for Documents
Requests and demands for documents cannot be distinguished simply by assuming that ‘responding to a request is voluntary, complying with a demand is mandatory’. Article 340 of the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU Customs Code) allows a customs authority to request documents and information necessary for customs control and, in the cases specified in the Code, to demand them. The document’s legal significance depends on the procedure, the addressee and the provision under which it was sent.
Before goods are released, Article 325 of the EAEU Customs Code provides for at least two distinct situations. Under paragraph 1, customs may request documents referred to in the declaration if the declaration was lodged without those documents. They must be submitted no later than four hours before the applicable deadline for release expires; failure to submit them results in refusal of release under paragraph 3 of Article 325.
An additional request under paragraph 4 of Article 325 has a different basis: the material already submitted does not contain the necessary information, or customs has identified indications of non-compliance with the law, including potentially inaccurate information. Under paragraph 5, it is this type of request that must be reasoned and set out the indications identified, the additional documents requested and the deadline for submitting them. These two situations must be distinguished because their grounds and consequences differ.
After release, documents and information may be checked under Article 326 of the EAEU Customs Code and Articles 225–226 of Russian Federal Law No. 289-FZ. A request of this kind does not in itself mean that a desk-based customs audit has begun or that an audit report under Article 237 will necessarily be drawn up. Under Article 340, sufficient time must be allowed for submitting documents. That period may be extended following a reasoned application by the addressee, but the extension may not exceed two months from the expiry of the original deadline. An application for an extension does not itself mean that the deadline has changed.
The procedure for responding to a request for documents is discussed in detail in Customs Request for Documents: the Response Deadline Depends on the Procedure. For the initial assessment of the document, the key point is to identify the procedure first, then calculate the deadline and choose the form of response.
Different Types of Notice
Notice does not denote a single legal category. The document’s full title is particularly important here.
A notice of a desk-based customs audit confirms the start of a distinct form of customs control. Under Article 228 of Law No. 289-FZ, it is sent to the person being audited on the day the audit begins. The notice itself is not a report setting out the final findings and does not replace a separate demand for documents. The duration of a desk-based audit is calculated under the specific rules in that Article; in the prescribed circumstances, periods spent awaiting the documents requested are excluded.
A notice of a scheduled on-site customs audit serves a different purpose. The audit is ordered by a separate decision, while the advance notice merely informs the person to be audited. Under paragraph 14 of Article 333 of the EAEU Customs Code, a scheduled on-site customs audit may not begin until fifteen calendar days have elapsed after receipt of that notice or after the customs authority receives the postal item marked as undelivered. The notice and the decision to conduct the audit therefore cannot be treated as two copies of the same document.
Another distinct document is a notice under Article 73 of Law No. 289-FZ concerning amounts of customs payments, special, anti-dumping and countervailing duties, interest and late-payment penalties that have not been paid by the prescribed deadline. The issue at this stage is compliance with a payment obligation. For brevity, it can be referred to below as a notice of unpaid amounts. The general period for complying with the notice is fifteen working days from receipt. If the amount owed changes after the notice has been sent, the customs authority sends an amendment to the notice; the general period for complying with the amendment is ten working days from receipt, but the deadline cannot fall before the deadline under the original notice.
Such a notice cannot be treated solely as a covering letter accompanying an earlier decision. Paragraph 28 of Resolution No. 49 of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 26 November 2019 allows the notice to be challenged in its own right, including on the grounds that the customs payments were assessed unlawfully; the court also examines the lawfulness of the decision being implemented through that notice. An ordinary letter stating ‘we disagree with the assessment’ therefore does not replace the chosen procedural means of protecting the company’s interests and does not in itself suspend the obligation to comply with the notice.
Notifications and summonses in proceedings under the CAO form a separate category. They are governed by the CAO, rather than the general rules for electronic communication in Article 282 of Law No. 289-FZ. Articles 24.9 and 25.15 of the CAO govern the preparation, sending and receipt of procedural documents and notifications, including electronic ones. A notice that an administrative offence report is to be drawn up is not itself the report, still less a penalty decision.
What an Audit Report Means
Report is another term that does not, on its own, establish a document’s legal nature. A desk-based or on-site customs audit report under Article 237 of Law No. 289-FZ records the audit results and marks the start of a specific stage for submitting objections. The person being audited may submit objections to the report as a whole or to individual parts of it no later than fifteen working days from receipt.
Where objections are sent by post, a further timing rule applies: the law separately sets the deadline for their receipt by the customs authority as the sixth working day counted from the day following the end of the fifteen-working-day period for submitting objections. This does not provide extra time to prepare them; fifteen working days remains the submission period, while the special rule determines the latest date for receipt of the postal item. If the person being audited is registered for an online account, objections must be submitted as an electronic document through that account within the same fifteen-working-day period from receipt of the report.
A report of a customs inspection or customs examination serves a different purpose. It records the control measure carried out and its results. The fifteen-working-day period in Article 237 applies to a customs audit report and does not automatically extend to an inspection or examination report. Before calculating a deadline, the document’s full title should therefore always be read, rather than just the word ‘report’.
Decisions and Appeals
A decision may either initiate a procedure or directly change a person’s legal position. A decision to conduct an on-site customs audit orders the audit; under Article 229 of Law No. 289-FZ, its start date is determined by the rules governing service, postal receipt, electronic transmission or the recording of a refusal to accept delivery. A decision following customs control that changes the classification, customs value, origin, reliefs, declaration particulars or another legally significant position adopted by customs is of a very different nature.
If a substantive decision has been taken, immediately establish exactly what has changed, which declarations and goods it concerns, to whom it is addressed and when it was received. Chapter 51 of Law No. 289-FZ sets a general three-month time limit for an administrative appeal. For a decision or action, it runs from the date on which the person became aware or ought to have become aware that their rights had been infringed; for an appeal against a failure to act, it runs from the expiry of the period within which the customs authority should have taken a decision or performed an action. The appeal is lodged with a higher customs authority through the authority whose decision or action is being challenged; an appeal concerning a customs post is lodged with the customs office. There is an important exception: under Article 286(2), a decision, action or failure to act by the Federal Customs Service of Russia itself must be challenged in court.
Filing an administrative appeal does not in itself suspend implementation of the decision. Under Article 292, implementation of a decision aimed at recovering customs payments payable as a result of that decision may be suspended upon the applicant’s written application, provided that security is furnished in the form of a cash deposit or bank guarantee for an amount no lower than the relevant payments. The law provides special suspension arrangements for certain persons. The appeal and the question of implementing the decision therefore need to be considered in parallel.
The route for a judicial challenge depends on the applicant’s status and the nature of the dispute. For an economic dispute heard by a state commercial court, Article 198(4) of the Russian Arbitrazh Procedure Code (APC) sets a general time limit of three months from the date on which the person became aware that their rights had been infringed, unless federal law prescribes a different time limit. If the dispute falls within Chapter 22 of the Russian Code of Administrative Court Procedure (CACP) and no special time limit is prescribed, Article 219(1) of the CACP also sets a three-month time limit. However, Article 218(6) of the CACP excludes this procedure where the legality of the relevant decision, action or failure to act must be reviewed under a different judicial procedure. The fact that the time limits are the same does not make the procedures under the APC and the CACP interchangeable.
The administrative appeal procedure is examined in more detail in ‘Appealing a customs decision before going to court’.
Administrative Offence Reports and Decisions
An administrative offence report is drawn up under Article 28.2 of the CAO and records the alleged offence, its legal classification and other circumstances of the proceedings, but does not impose an administrative penalty. The person is entitled to inspect the case materials, give explanations, submit evidence, make applications and be assisted by a defence representative. Refusing to sign does not invalidate the report: the official records the refusal.
Once the case has been considered, a penalty decision or a decision terminating the proceedings is issued; in the circumstances specified in Article 29.9, the procedural outcome may be recorded in a ruling. The general ten-day time limit under Article 30.3 of the CAO applies to an appeal against the decision imposing a penalty or terminating proceedings and runs from service or receipt of a copy. It does not apply to the administrative offence report itself and is unrelated to the three-month time limit for an administrative appeal in a customs matter.
If a demand for documents, an audit report, a decision and a notice of unpaid amounts arrive together in a single electronic bundle, dealing with all of them in a single outgoing letter is risky. Each document has its own subject matter. A demand calls for documents to be submitted or their absence explained; an audit report calls for consideration of whether to submit objections; a decision is challenged through the appropriate route; a notice of unpaid amounts requires a separate assessment of compliance and the appropriate remedy; documents under the CAO are governed by their own administrative offence procedure.
This is particularly important where the deadline is short. If the document’s legal classification is still being checked, do not remain inactive while waiting for a comprehensive analysis to be completed. Preserve the original bundle, establish the addressee and date of receipt, and at the same time prepare whichever step is already clearly permitted by the relevant procedure: submission of available documents, a reasoned request for an extension, objections, an appeal or an application. There is no single letter that both extends every time limit and replaces all forms of legal protection.
If the company has already responded to the wrong document, remedying the mistake starts with reconstructing what happened: which file was received, when it is deemed to have been received, what text was sent and which attachments accompanied it. A subsequent letter does not turn a late response into a timely one or remove the earlier document from the customs file. Objections to a customs audit report remain objections, an appeal against a decision remains a separate appeal, and in administrative offence proceedings, explanations concerning the report do not replace an appeal against the decision disposing of the case.
The document’s full title, legal basis, addressee, content and procedural stage identify the applicable procedure. The date of receipt determines the timetable. A request for documents, a notice of an audit, an audit report, a decision, a notice of unpaid amounts and an administrative offence report may arrive on the same day, but legally they are distinct events. Responding, submitting objections, appealing, discharging a payment obligation and defending a case under the CAO are not interchangeable. This is why the incoming documents must first be grouped by procedure before working out the details of each action.