You’ve got a GB EORI number. You discovered that you’ll also need an EU EORI number if you sell or hold goods in Europe. Now you’ll need to apply for a third XI EORI number if you sell to or from Northern Ireland.
Thanks go to our friends at GFS who tipped us off on the post Brexit requirement XI EORI for Goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As well as keeping Tamebay readers up to date with all the key changes and breaking news on everything shipping related in Q4, we are also holding a webinar in January to review what’s happened and offer advice to cover anything, like applying for an XI EORI, that you might have missed. Register for our Peak, Brexit and COVID – What on earth happened? webinar now to get a reminder nearer the time.
If you’ve been ignoring Brexit because you only sell within the UK then this will also impact you as the first time a customer based in Northern Ireland purchases from you your carrier will need your XI EORI number. While the ‘Whole of the UK’ has left the EU with the transition agreement expiring on the 31st of December 2020, a new Northern Ireland Protocol comes into force the next day on the 1st of January 2021 meaning that Northern Ireland will be treated somewhat differently from the rest of the UK.
As an example, if you are sending a shipment from Great Britain to Belfast in Northern Ireland you will quote your XI EORI number. And for shipments from Great Britain to Dublin in the Republic of Ireland you will quote your GB EORI number. N.B. you do not need to quote both EORI numbers for Northern Ireland – only the XI EORI number.
If you do not quote the correct EORI number when shipping to Northern Ireland then the likelihood is that the goods will not be shipped by the carrier.
Sign up on Gov.uk here to to make sure your business gets an XI EORI number that you’ll need to move goods to Northern Ireland from the 1st of January 2021.
6 Responses
Thanks for the consistently useful information. Minor gripe; “Southern Ireland” is not a thing – please refer to the Republic of Ireland. Stuff like this matters.
Thanks Sean, updated 🙂
“Now you’ll need to apply for a third XI EORI number if you sell to or from Northern Ireland.”
Hopefully my mainland UK suppliers will have the XI EORI number sorted promptly.
Selling via Royal Mail from N.Ireland to the rest of the UK, surely I would not need an EORI for that?
I contacted Royal Mail about this recently and they confirmed nothing needs to change for post through Royal Mail.
I also signed up for, and asked TSS about this, and they said packages sent to NI won’t be impacted. It is more for freight shipments, not packets/parcels.
However I suggest everyone contacts TSS themselves to verify this, and maybe they will update their website to make this clear so people don’t need to go through the trouble of registering to find out!
Cheers Nick.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/trader-support-service
Republic of Ireland is also not a thing since 1998, the country is called Ireland as explained in the Belfast Agreement 1998