An ATA Carnet acts as a 'passport for goods’, allowing for duty and tax-free temporary movement of goods between certain countries. The ATA Carnet scheme is now operating in over 80 countries worldwide, and has been particularly important in allowing UK-based companies to temporarily import their goods into the EU since new Brexit rules came into place.
We spoke to Professor James Brownjohn, Director at Full Scale Dynamics, a company which specialises in structural engineering work and investigates the dynamic performances of large civil infrastructures. James’s work involves structural health monitoring, extreme structure testing, and measuring and modelling crowd synchronisation. James and his colleagues used an ATA Carnet to take engineering equipment over to Ireland for a year.
Who are your clients/what types of businesses do you work with?
Our main clients are infrastructure owners and operators, structural engineering consultants, and contractors.
Why did you apply for an ATA Carnet?
We applied for an ATA Carnet to facilitate the temporary movement of our equipment to Ireland, where we are tracking the effects of wind on the performance of a large structure.
Our equipment is due to stay in Ireland for a year, and then we will bring it back.
Had you ever applied for an ATA Carnet before?
Yes. We had previously applied for an ATA Carnet at Business West, so decided to come back to use the same Carnet service again. The process was easier than we remembered.
The most difficult part of the application was understanding what was needed to fill in the application form – but receiving advice from the team made it all much more straightforward.
Do you have any advice for other companies who are looking to take their goods abroad temporarily?
Business West’s ATA Carnet team was excellent – so our main advice would be to use you guys to process your Carnets.
Find out more about Full Scale Dynamics.
Find out more about Business West ATA Carnets.
Apply for an ATA Carnet today
Start creating and submitting your ATA Carnets today. To apply for your carnet, you'll be taken to our easy-to-use export documentation platform, eCert.