What a customs agent asks for is not complicated. What is expensive is finding out a document is missing with the machine already at the port.
Inside the European Union, moving a machine from Spain to Germany is just transport: there is no customs procedure. The moment the deal crosses the EU's external border — to Morocco, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Latin America or anywhere else — a procedure appears that has to be prepared in advance, not afterwards.
It is not especially complicated, and a freight forwarder or customs representative normally handles it. But buyer and seller need to know what will be asked of them, because the documents that turn out to be missing are almost always on their side, not the forwarder's.
A machinery sale involves two separate procedures: the export declaration at origin, made by the seller, and the import declaration at destination, made by the buyer. Each with its own operator registration, its own representative and its own obligations.
Settle early who takes on each procedure and who pays for what. A seller who has never exported may not hold the registration required; a buyer who has never imported may not know that their country requires prior authorisation for used machinery.
Every good has a tariff code, and that code determines the duty, the taxes and the controls applied at destination. Misclassifying a machine is not an administrative detail: it can mean paying too much, or customs holding the machine over a requirement that never applied to it.
The customs representative classifies it from the technical description, so the quality of that description matters. An invoice reading “used industrial machinery” forces guesswork; one that says what the machine does, how it works and what it is for does not.
A machine's origin is not the country it ships from but where it was manufactured. A Japanese machine that has spent fifteen years in a Spanish factory is still of Japanese origin for customs purposes, and that changes the duties applied at destination.
Customs value is usually the price actually paid, with whatever adjustments the incoterm requires. Declaring a lower value to pay less duty is fraud, and it also backfires: if the machine is damaged, the insurer pays out on the declared value.
The incoterm defines who arranges transport, who pays for it, at what point risk passes and who handles the customs formalities. It is not a formality itself: it is the line that decides who owns the problem when something goes wrong halfway.
The two typical extremes are EXW, where the buyer takes on everything from the seller's door, and DDP, where the seller delivers with everything paid at destination. In used machinery the norm is something in between. What matters is writing it with the exact place: “FCA Gijón plant”, not “FCA” on its own.
Some equipment, because of its technical capability, is subject to export control even when the use is purely civil: certain high-precision machine tools, heat treatment equipment or particular measuring systems. On top of that sit international sanctions, which change often and target specific countries, companies and individuals.
Before committing to a buyer in a sensitive destination, check two things: whether the equipment appears on a control list, and whether the counterparty appears on a sanctions list. It is a quick check that avoids a serious problem.
Demurrage and storage. When a machine reaches port and the paperwork is incomplete, it starts running up storage days, and at some ports that bill grows fast. If the equipment travels in a container, detention charges stack on top.
Which is why the right order is the opposite of the intuitive one: complete documentation, validated with the customs representative, and only then loading. A machine waiting in the seller's workshop costs nothing; waiting in a foreign port, it does.
Almost everything customs asks for comes off the nameplate. Weight and dimensions also drive the cost of transport, and conformity is covered in the CE marking guide. If you need the whole move coordinated, that is transport and logistics.
This guide is indicative and does not replace advice from a customs representative or freight forwarder. Requirements vary by country, by type of equipment and over time, and must be verified for each specific transaction. MAKINTER does not act as exporter, importer or customs agent.