Cyprus companies face October 30 customs switch deadline

Cyprus businesses using direct electronic links with Customs have until October 30 to switch their systems to CY Connect, when the existing Message Gateway for UCC Business-to-Government services will be permanently switched off. The deadline, announced by the Customs department and the Department of Information Technology Services (DITS), follows an earlier extension intended to give companies more time to complete the technical changeover. Businesses still sending UCC B2G messages through the old gateway must ensure their systems are connected to CY Connect and working in the live production environment before the cut-off. In practical terms, the change concerns economic operators whose own IT systems communicate directly with Customs, rather than businesses simply logging into an online government service. Under the EU’s Union Customs Code, or UCC, economic operators include businesses involved in activities covered by customs legislation, potentially ranging from importers and exporters to freight forwarders, customs representatives and carriers. Cyprus Customs already relies on B2G system-to-system communication for some of its main electronic customs operations, including the Automated Import System (AIS), Automated Export System (AES) and New Computerised Transit System (NCTS). Those systems form part of the wider move towards electronic customs procedures across the EU. The European Commission says the UCC, which has applied since May 2016, is intended to complete the shift towards a paperless and fully electronic customs environment, with information increasingly exchanged through interconnected IT systems rather than paper procedures. For companies in Cyprus, however, the immediate issue is not the wider European programme but how their own systems will connect once the Message Gateway disappears. CY Connect is part of the government’s wider digital infrastructure and is designed to allow information to pass securely between interconnected systems. According to the government’s Digital Services Factory, the platform supports Cyprus’ “Once Only” approach to public services, under which information already held by government systems can be exchanged through approved connections rather than repeatedly requested from citizens and businesses. Government development guidelines also envisage CY Connect as the route for digital services which need information held by another government system, with integrations required to use approved interfaces and meet authentication, security, data-protection and audit requirements. For firms using Customs’ UCC B2G services, one of the biggest practical changes is the way their systems will be identified. Customs said only one application, using one set of Client Credentials, will be created for each company information system connected to CY Connect. Authentication will therefore relate to the company’s IT system itself, rather than to individual members of staff. Different employee roles, permissions or user profiles within the same company will not result in separate CY Connect credentials. This could mean extra work for companies whose existing software has been built around different Profile IDs for individual users or different types of transactions. Customs has told those businesses to review their set-up and make any changes needed to fit the new model before the deadline. Companies which have already received their CY Connect access details have also been urged to check that their actual production traffic is now going through CY Connect, rather than the old Message Gateway simply remaining in use alongside the new connection. The October switch-off comes against a much broader overhaul of customs technology across the EU. The UCC work programme covers the development and upgrading of electronic systems intended to allow customs authorities and businesses to exchange information in a common way, while making procedures more consistent across member states and reducing compliance costs. For Cyprus companies, though, the message from Customs is considerably simpler: do not leave the switch until the final days of October. Businesses which have not yet completed their CY Connect onboarding, those which have been set up on the platform but continue to use the Message Gateway, and firms still making changes to their internal systems have all been told to complete the necessary work as soon as possible. Technical support on UCC B2G services and the move to CY Connect is available through the Department of Information Technology Services at the following two addresses: [email protected] and [email protected].