ATA Carnet Explained: Temporary Duty-Free Import for Samples, Equipment and Trade Fairs

What an ATA carnet does

ATA stands for the French and English words admission temporaire, temporary admission. The carnet is a single document that serves as the goods declaration when the goods leave your country, when they pass through transit countries, when they enter each country you visit and when they come back. Instead of paying or guaranteeing import duties and taxes at every border, you present the carnet, and the issuing association guarantees to customs that the duties will be paid if the goods are not re-exported as declared.

The system rests on two World Customs Organization conventions, the ATA Convention of 1961 and the Istanbul Convention of 1990, and the national associations that issue carnets are approved by their customs authorities and belong to an international guarantee chain administered by the ICC World Chambers Federation.

What it covers and what it does not

• Commercial samples shown to buyers and then taken home, such as product samples carried by a sales representative.
• Professional equipment, such as cameras, broadcasting gear, tools, instruments or laptops used for a job abroad.
• Goods for trade fairs, exhibitions, shows and similar events, and in many countries goods for sporting events.
• Not covered: goods that will be sold, given away, consumed or used up (food samples to be tasted, brochures to hand out, spare parts to be fitted), and goods sent abroad for processing or repair, which use other customs procedures.
• Each country decides which of the conventions' categories it accepts, so check that your destination accepts carnets for your purpose before you apply.

How to get and use a carnet

• Apply to the issuing association in your country, usually the chamber of commerce, with a general list of the goods: description, quantity, weight or volume, value and country of origin of each item.
• Provide the security the association asks for, such as a deposit, bank guarantee or insurance, and pay the issuing fee.
• At departure, have your customs stamp the carnet's export voucher, so that the goods can come back without duty.
• At each foreign border, customs takes an import voucher on entry and a re-export voucher on leaving; transit vouchers are used for countries you only pass through.
• Bring all the goods back before the carnet expires, have the re-import voucher stamped and return the carnet to the association. Goods not re-exported in time lead to a claim for the duties and taxes in that country.

Carnets and shipping samples

A carnet suits goods that must come back. For samples that the buyer keeps, use a commercial or pro forma invoice marked as samples, and check whether the samples qualify for duty relief in the importing country; see Triplicate's note on shipping samples internationally. A carnet's validity cannot exceed one year, and some countries set shorter re-export periods, so plan trips within those limits.

Digital carnets

The WCO reports that countries are moving to digital ATA carnets, with full worldwide digitalisation expected by 1 January 2028, and that the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom launched digital procedures on 1 June 2026. Ask your issuing association whether a digital carnet can be used for your route; where it cannot, the paper carnet is still used.