Customs lawyers in Spain: international trade, defence and licences
Spanish customs is claiming duties and import VAT on imports you thought were closed, has opened smuggling penalty proceedings against you or is holding your goods over a trade mark or a safety check. Or the Secretaría de Estado de Comercio (Spain's Secretary of State for Trade) has refused you a dual-use licence, or your Chinese supplier has stopped shipping rare earths because it cannot get an export licence. Our customs and international trade lawyers defend you before customs, the economic-administrative tribunals (Spain's tax appeal boards) and the administrative courts, and prepare your licences, certificates and supply contracts for critical raw materials. You work with a lawyer registered with the Spanish bar, in English or in Spanish. The customs declaration itself is lodged by your company or by a registered customs representative; we prepare everything that supports it and we handle the dispute.
What we handle
Customs is claiming duties and VAT on goods already cleared
Before issuing an assessment, customs must give you 30 days to respond, and no customs debt may be notified more than three years after it arose (articles 22.6 and 103 of the Union Customs Code). The assessment can be challenged by an appeal for reconsideration or an economic-administrative claim within one month, and appealing does not stop collection unless you apply for suspension.
Your origin preference is cancelled or anti-dumping duties are applied
If the certificate of origin was issued by the authorities of the exporting country, this may be an error you could not reasonably have detected, and repayment or remission can be claimed within three years (articles 119 and 121 of the Customs Code); good faith cannot be pleaded if the Commission had published a notice of doubts about that country in the Official Journal. Where anti-dumping or anti-circumvention duties are claimed, we check the true origin, the producer and the date of import registration, from which the extension applies.
Smuggling penalty proceedings have been opened against you
Below 150,000 euros (50,000 for dual-use items, defence material or protected species) it is an administrative infringement: a fine of 100% to 350% of the value, with a minimum of 500 euros (200% to 350% and 1,000 euros for the goods in article 2.2 of Organic Law 12/1995), plus confiscation. You have 15 days to respond; if the case becomes a criminal offence, Managora does not handle the criminal defence.
Your goods are being held at customs
If it is over a suspected trade mark counterfeit, from notice of the detention you have 10 working days (3 for perishable goods) to object to destruction, and silence is taken as consent (article 23 of Regulation 608/2013); if you object and the right holder does not go to court in time, the goods are released. If SOIVRE (Spain's official foreign trade inspection service) declares your product non-compliant, an administrative appeal (recurso de alzada) lies within one month, and the goods may not be presented for inspection at another inspection point (article 6 of Royal Decree 330/2008).
Your dual-use licence or REOCE registration is refused
They are decided by the Secretaría de Estado de Comercio on a binding report from the JIMDDU (the interministerial board on defence and dual-use trade); with no answer in six months, the licence is deemed refused. We appeal as the decision itself indicates and then before the Audiencia Nacional (Spain's National High Court) within two months (article 11.1.a of the Judicial Review Act), or prepare a fresh application that cures the ground for refusal.
You are investigated because your products ended up in Russia
Exporting dual-use items to Russia is prohibited, directly or indirectly, and since 20 March 2024 anyone selling products listed in the sensitive annexes to other non-EU countries must contractually prohibit their re-export to Russia (article 12g of Regulation 833/2014). Your defence is built on your contracts, the end-use statements and the checks you carried out.
You cannot get rare earths from China or a mining permit
China requires a licence to export seven rare earths and SmCo magnets and NdFeB magnets containing terbium or dysprosium (Announcement 18/2025), and only the Chinese exporter can apply to MOFCOM (China's Ministry of Commerce): we prepare the end-user certificate that you sign and, if supply fails, the claim under your contract. In Spain we challenge the refusal of an exploration permit for rare earths or lithium, or oppose one within 15 days of its publication in the BOE (Spain's official gazette), and prepare strategic project applications (the Critical Raw Materials Act and Royal Decree 731/2026).
How we work on it
The starting point is to fix the dates, because in this area almost everything is won or lost on a deadline: one month to challenge an assessment, 10 working days to object to destruction, 15 days to respond in smuggling penalty proceedings. We then obtain the file and check the limits: the three years under article 103 of the Union Customs Code, the four-year limitation period for administrative smuggling infringements and the lapse of the proceedings. Only then do we argue the merits (classification, value, origin, the licence or the product's conformity) with the evidence that decides each case: certificates, contracts, technical data sheets and laboratory analyses. If you have to pay while the dispute runs, we apply for suspension against a guarantee or with the guarantee waived. Against customs, the route is an appeal for reconsideration or a claim before the TEAR or the TEAC (the regional and central economic-administrative tribunals) and then the administrative chamber of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court) or the Audiencia Nacional; against the Secretaría de Estado de Comercio, the Audiencia Nacional; against a SOIVRE non-compliance finding, an administrative appeal (recurso de alzada) within one month and then the administrative courts. The customs declaration is lodged by your company or by a registered customs representative; we prepare everything that supports it and, under your authorisation, sign the submissions, appeals and claims. If a case becomes a criminal offence, Managora does not handle the criminal defence.
Your matter is quoted after the consultation, because every case is different.
Frequently asked questions
Do you lodge the customs declaration for my company?
No. The customs declaration (the H1 import declaration, the export declaration or transit) can only be lodged by the operator itself or by a customs representative registered with the AEAT (the Spanish Tax Agency, which runs customs), and a company lodges it itself, electronically, through its directors or permanent employees (Royal Decree 335/2010). We prepare everything that supports it and, if customs issues an assessment, a penalty or a detention, we file the submissions, appeals and claims on your behalf, for which your authorisation is enough.
Customs is claiming on imports from years ago. Can it do that?
Customs duties cannot be notified more than three years after the debt arose; that period is suspended while an appeal or the prior hearing runs, and rises to between five and ten years where the facts could amount to a criminal offence (article 103 of the Customs Code). Import VAT has four years (article 66 of the General Tax Act). And the TEAC, in its decision of 16 December 2025, holds that duties that can no longer be claimed because of the three-year limit do not form part of the VAT base, contrary to the position customs published in 2023.
I export outside the EU. How do I know whether I need a licence?
It depends on three things: the product's technical characteristics (Annex I of Regulation 2021/821); its end use, because an unlisted item needs a licence if the authority informs you that it may be intended for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or for military end use in a country under an arms embargo; and the destination, sanctions included. The tariff code alone does not tell you. Before the first licence you must register in the REOCE (Spain's special register of foreign trade operators for defence and dual-use goods), which is decided within 60 working days, and licences are decided within six months.
My Chinese supplier cannot get the licence. Can I claim against it?
It depends on the contract. Under Spanish law, no one is liable for events that could not be foreseen or which, if foreseen, were unavoidable, unless the law or the contract provides otherwise (article 1105 of the Spanish Civil Code), and an export control announced before you signed is hard to present as unforeseeable. We review your contract, the governing law and the agreed forum, and prepare the end-user certificate that MOFCOM requires; MOFCOM decides, in principle, within 45 working days. In the contracts you sign from now on, it pays to agree what happens if the licence does not come through.
Law firm guides on this area
The dispute explained: what action lies, what deadline is running and what has to be proved.
- Spanish customs post-clearance demand for duties and import VAT on goods already cleared
- Your tariff preference cancelled over an invalid certificate of origin
- Smuggling penalty proceedings opened against you: fine, confiscation and defence
- Your goods detained at Spanish customs as suspected counterfeits
- EU anti-dumping duties claimed on imports already cleared through customs
- Dual-use export licence or REOCE registration refused in Spain
- EU Russia sanctions export investigation: your products ended up in Russia
- Food consignment rejected at Spanish border control
- SOIVRE non-conformity: your product is blocked at Spanish customs
- Your Chinese supplier fails to deliver, saying it cannot get the export licence
- Mining permit refused in Spain? Appeal it, or oppose someone else's