Europa Road offers hauliers end to “inland customs nightmare”

The company's DAP Flow service allows hauliers to clear customs directly in Calais with goods travelling straight to their European destinations, without the post-Brexit bureaucratic maze that has disrupted UK trade. The new service eliminates the expensive inland customs stops that can add days to delivery schedules and thousands to transport costs. Under traditional processes, trucks must take lengthy detours to inland customs points, adding hours or even days to delivery times while drivers wait in queues for paperwork processing.

Businesses face additional transit form costs and importers face upfront VAT payments - all contributing to supply chain disruption and cash flow problems, ultimately making it less appealing for EU businesses to buy from the UK and creating a significant disadvantage for British exporters. DAP Flow aims to avoid these delays. By clearing customs in Calais, the service eliminates T-forms, the customs document used in the EU to facilitate the movement of goods that originate outside the EU through EU member states without immediate import duty or tax payments.

It also removes the need for inland customs stops, and removes upfront VAT requirements - delivering faster transit times and improved cash flow for EU buyers of British goods. Jack Baxter, Europa Road general manager for haulage, said: "British businesses are still struggling with the extra red tape surrounding customs clearance when shipping using DAP incoterms. "We work with materials suppliers, manufacturers and retailers who must pay for T-forms and transport their goods via third-party clearance facilities before delivery.

"This means appointing brokers, longer transit times and delays to time-critical consignments."  The company's customs clearance site, located in Calais, is fully integrated with technology that enables real-time processing.  Since Brexit, Europa has integrated its Leonardo software to transfer customs data directly into the Le Shuttle Freight IT infrastructure and border-related service offering to Border Control in France. 

This allows shipments travelling through the tunnel to undergo customs clearance processes simultaneously. "We want to streamline the process, cutting down on unnecessary deviations, costs and delays in transit so that businesses can focus on growth in new markets," said Baxter. Adrian Redmile (pictured), Europa Worldwide Group branch and sales director, added: "With most of our full load shipments being transported using DAP incoterms, we felt it was time to invest further to reduce the cost of deliveries and processing customs, while maintaining our market-leading transit times." 

The service  builds on the firm's DDP Europa Flow service launched in 2021, which now accounts for 50% of all groupage transport leaving the UK.

Earlier this year, the company also launched FCA Flow for full loads entering Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg from the UK.