Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:T:2026:53
Date: 2026-01-28
Language of the case: Polish
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Poland

Summary T-177/25 – 1 
Case T-177/25 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
24 February 2025 
Referring court: 
Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny (Poland) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
30 December 2024 
Appellant: 
C. sp. z o.o. sp.k. 
Respondent: 
Dyrektor Izby Administracji Skarbowej w Gdańsku 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Appeal on a point of law regarding an administrative decision determining 
customs duties. 
Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
Giving priority in the use of a tariff quota to entities making a customs declaration 
with the intention of later amending it over those making a correct customs 
declaration at the earliest possible date. 
Questions referred 
1. Must Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union […] be interpreted as 
meaning that giving priority in the use of a tariff quota to entities making a 
customs declaration with the intention of later amending it under Article 173(3) of 
Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
9 October 2013 laying down the Union Customs Code […] over those making a 
EN 
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correct customs declaration at the earliest possible date breaches the principles of 
equality, justice and solidarity? 
2. Must Article 173(3) of the Union Customs Code be interpreted as allowing a 
customs declaration to be amended in order to ‘comply with the obligations 
relating to the placing of the goods under the customs procedure concerned’ by 
supplementing it (for instance, with a tariff quota number) and by replacing the 
erga omnes rate with a preferential duty rate in the customs declaration? 
3. Must Article 22(3), read in conjunction with Article 173(3) of the Union 
Customs Code, be interpreted as meaning that the date on which a request to apply 
a tariff quota is submitted for an entity that makes an incomplete customs 
declaration is the date on which it was originally submitted or rather the date on 
which the administrative decision by which the customs authority permits the 
customs declaration to be amended becomes final, assuming that the maximum 
time limit for taking that decision is 120 days? 
4. Must Article 120(1) of the Union Customs Code be interpreted as meaning 
that special circumstances where ‘no deception or obvious negligence may be 
attributed to the debtor’ in connection with a customs debt being incurred also 
obtain if that debt is incurred despite the submission, at the earliest possible date, 
of a correct customs declaration with the preferential duty rate resulting from a 
tariff quota? 
Provisions of European Union law relied on 
Treaty on European Union – Article 2 
Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
9 October 2013 laying down the Union Customs Code (‘the UCC’) – Article 120 
and Article 173;  
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447 of 24 November 2015 
laying down detailed rules for implementing certain provisions of Regulation 
(EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the 
Union Customs Code (‘Regulation 2015/2447’) – Article 50; 
Regulation (EU) 2017/1566 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
13 September 2017 on the introduction of temporary autonomous trade measures 
for Ukraine supplementing the trade concessions available under the Association 
Agreement (‘Regulation 2017/1566’) – Article 1, Annex I. 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 On 1 October 2017, which was a Sunday, Regulation 2017/1566 entered into 
force, allowing the import into the Union of, among other things, bee honey from 
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Ukraine within the limits of Union zero-tariff quotas. However, on that date, the 
tariff quota number was not integrated into the TARIC and ISZTAR systems, 
which, as confirmed by the Minister Finansów (Minister of Finance, Poland) in a 
letter dated 10 November 2017, precluded the possibility of declaring the goods 
with a preferential duty rate and submitting a request for those goods to benefit 
from the tariff quota. The attempt made by the appellant on that date to declare 
goods in the form of natural bee honey from Ukraine together with a request for 
those goods to benefit from the tariff quota and for a 0% duty rate to be applied 
was unsuccessful. 
2 In view of the fact that on 2 October 2017 (Monday), the missing quota number 
09.6750 was integrated into the TARIC and ISZTAR systems, the appellant made 
a customs declaration for the aforementioned goods and, by filling in box 39 in 
the declaration, requested the application of a 0% duty rate based on Annex I to 
Regulation 2017/1566. 
3 After verifying the customs declaration, the Naczelnik Urzędu Celno-Skarbowego 
w Gdańsku (Head of the Customs and Tax Office in Gdańsk, Poland) found that 
the quota had been exhausted on the day it was opened, that is to say, 1 October 
2017, and by way of an administrative decision dated 27 March 2018 assessed the 
amount of customs duty due from the appellant at the erga omnes rate of 17.3%. 
Following the lodging of an appeal, the Dyrektor Izby Administracji Skarbowej w 
Gdańsku (Director of the Tax Administration Chamber in Gdańsk, Poland), by 
decision dated 29 August 2018, upheld the decision of the first-instance authority. 
4 As a result of the action brought by the appellant, the Wojewódzki Sąd 
Administracyjny w Gdańsku (Regional Administrative Court in Gdańsk, Poland), 
in a judgment dated 13 February 2019, set aside the decision of the Director of the 
Tax Administration Chamber, ordering the customs authority to supplement the 
evidence and findings made in regard to the reason why the tariff quota number 
had not been integrated into the IT systems and the time when the problem arose, 
whether the problem affected all importers of honey from Ukraine, and the 
manner in which the other importers had made customs declarations that resulted 
in the tariff quota being exhausted. The court ordered the authority to evaluate 
those circumstances, taking into account the conditions stipulated in 
Article 120(1) of the UCC. 
5 In the course of the reopened proceedings, the Director of the Tax Administration 
Chamber supplemented the evidence with clarifications from the Minister of 
Finance and the European Commission. A letter of clarification from the 
European Commission dated 27 February 2018, obtained by the appellant, 
indicated that Regulation 2017/1566 was published on 30 September and entered 
into force on 1 October 2017, and that on the latter date the total number of 
requests exceeded the available quota of 2 500 tonnes. Subsequently, in a letter 
dated 29 July 2019, the European Commission stated that importers took 
advantage of the tariff quota ‘when submitting their declarations on 1 October 
2017. They requested the release of the goods for free circulation at the most-
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favoured-nation duty rate, and subsequently amended the declarations in 
accordance with Article 173(3) of the UCC’. On that basis, 165 importers from 
the European Union were found to have successfully submitted declarations on 
1 October 2017. The tariff quota was blocked until 13 October 2017 in order to 
collect the customs declarations and send them to the European Commission. 
6 By decision dated 31 August 2020, the second-instance authority maintained its 
position and once again upheld the decision of the first-instance authority. The 
action brought by C. sp. z o.o. [C limited liability company] with its registered 
office in Ł. against the aforementioned decision of the Director of the Tax 
Administration Chamber in Gdańsk was dismissed by the Regional 
Administrative Court in Gdańsk. The appellant appealed the above judgment in its 
entirety, bringing an appeal on a point of law. 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
7 According to the position of the customs authority in the present case, all 
importers were in the same situation, as the IT systems were not updated until 
2 October 2017. Furthermore, it was possible to make a customs declaration 
requesting the release of the goods for free circulation at the erga omnes duty rate, 
and subsequently apply for the declaration to be amended and for a zero rate to be 
applied under tariff quota No 09 6750.  
8 The authority found that the circumstances of the case precluded the assumption 
that the conditions for remitting customs duties in the interest of equity referred to 
in Article 120(1) of the UCC had been met, as no importer could have made a 
customs declaration requesting that tariff quota No 09.6750 be applied. 
9 The appellant argued that the tariff quota had been wrongly allocated – to the 
appellant’s detriment – through a misapplication of the applicable regulations. In 
the appellant’s view, there was no factual or legal basis for applying a duty rate of 
17.3%. 
10 According to the appellant, the position of the customs authorities that the 
appellant should have made a declaration on 1 October 2017 at the erga omnes 
duty rate of 17.3%, and should have subsequently applied to the customs authority 
for the customs declaration to be amended, was incorrect. In the appellant’s 
opinion, the only reason why a customs declaration requesting that the goods be 
covered by the tariff quota could not have been made on that date was the failure 
to integrate the quota number into the Union’s IT systems. 
11 The appellant further contended that there was no basis for assuming that the 
subsequent amendment of the declaration by the authority after the release of the 
goods would be possible at all, and that it would also have retroactive rather than 
prospective effect. 
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12 The appellant argued that since the customs declarations of other importers had 
been amended in the manner described, the tariff quota was distributed 
incorrectly, and the appellant was in a special situation compared to other 
importers. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
13 Giving priority in the use of a tariff quota to entities making a customs declaration 
in which the erga omnes duty rate was knowingly stated and there was no request 
for the goods to benefit from the tariff quota, with the intention of later amending 
the declaration, and doing so before it was objectively possible to submit a 
customs declaration requesting that tariff quota to be applied solely in order to get 
ahead of other importers, may breach the principles of equal treatment, non-
discrimination and solidarity.  
14 That is because giving priority in such a manner favours a certain group of 
entities, namely those importers of a given category of goods seeking to benefit 
from the tariff quota who knowingly made an incorrect customs declaration.  
15 At the same time, it should be noted that Article 173(3) of the UCC governs the 
amendment of a customs declaration after release of the goods. In the case-law of 
the Court of Justice, it is accepted that ‘the Union Customs Code, in Article 15, 
places an obligation on declarants to provide accurate and complete information’ 
(see the judgment of 9 July 2020, C-[391]/19, paragraph 22). It is also stressed 
that that obligation is ‘the corollary of the principle of irrevocability of the 
customs declaration once it has been accepted, a principle the exceptions to which 
are strictly defined by the relevant EU legislation’ (see the judgment of 8 June 
2023, C-640/21 [paragraph 42]). Those exceptions must be subject to strict 
interpretation. 
16 It is questionable whether Article 173(3) of the UCC allows the amendment of a 
customs declaration by substantively changing the duty rate and also by filling in 
the otherwise empty box 39 with the quota number. Since an amendment is an 
exception to the principle of the immutability of a customs declaration, it should 
be limited to the removal of errors and mistakes, and should not consist in 
modifying the importer’s declaration of intent as it was knowingly stated in its 
original version. 
17 Moreover, it is emphasised in the literature that the amendment procedure 
provided for in Article 173(3) of the UCC is different to that provided for in 
Article 173(1) of the UCC, where the authority is bound by the importer’s 
position. When examining an application for amendment submitted under 
Article 173(1) of the UCC, the authority is not bound by the party’s request and is 
free to assess its legitimacy, taking into account the criterion of good faith.  
18 It is questionable whether it is permissible to allow such an amendment by an 
entity acting in bad faith, that is to say, an entity that was aware, or should have 
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been aware, at the time of making the customs declaration that the information it 
provided was incorrect. 
19 The referring court is of the view that the amendment provided for in 
Article 173(3) of the UCC is not permitted either for the purpose of taking 
advantage of the preferences omitted from the customs declaration or in cases 
where the importer was aware, or could have been aware, of the error in the 
customs declaration at the time when it was submitted. 
20 In addition, an amendment under Article 173(1) of the UCC is introduced before 
the goods are released and consists in making an entry in the IT system. On the 
other hand, an application for amendment under Article 173(3) of the UCC 
requires the authority to take a position. The phrase ‘may be permitted’ suggests 
that this should be done in the form of an administrative decision as referred to in 
Article 22(3) of the UCC. In the Polish legal system, an application for the 
amendment of a customs declaration under Article 173(3) of the UCC must be 
made in writing. It is not possible to submit such an application through the IT 
system. 
21 Under Article 22(3) of the UCC, the customs authority must take a decision in 
response to a party’s application within 120 days. If it is accepted that it is 
possible to amend a customs declaration with a request for a preferential duty rate 
to be applied and with a tariff quota number, the authority’s decision on whether 
to permit such amendment could be issued after a longer period of time. Given 
that in the event of a negative decision, the importer would have recourse to an 
appeal and possibly to judicial review, that period of time could be as long as 
several years.  
22 Therefore, a question arises as to whether, if amending the customs declaration 
within the scope indicated is deemed permissible, a request that a tariff quota be 
applied made by means of such an amendment has retroactive effect from the date 
on which the original customs declaration was made, or from the date on which 
the decision to permit the amendment becomes final. The answer to that question 
is important because the immediate reason for the customs authority finding that 
the quota had already been exhausted on 1 October 2017 was that requests from 
other applicants to apply the tariff quota, submitted by way of amending their 
customs declarations, had retroactive effect from the date on which the original 
declarations with an erga omnes rate had been made, that is, from 1 October 2017. 
23 The final issue raised in the questions referred concerns the interpretation of 
Article 120(1) of the UCC. In that context, the question arises as to whether the 
acceptance by the European Commission and subsequently by the customs 
authorities of customs declarations knowingly made with an erga omnes rate 
before the date on which the quota number had been entered into the electronic 
system, and later amended, solely in order to get ahead of, among others, the 
appellant in applying for the tariff quota, constitutes a breach by those authorities 
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of the obligation to lawfully administer the tariff quota and implement EU law in 
that regard.