Businesses highly appreciated the work of customs. But not perfectly
22 April 2025 09:42
The integral score of the Customs Index has increased to 3.40 points out of 5 possible, which is the highest in the history of the survey (3.24 points in 2023). These are the results of the new wave of the relevant survey for 2024, conducted by the European Business Association and DHL Express in Ukraine, informs
At the same time, the EBA clarified that despite the growth, the Index remains in a neutral plane: two of the three components of the Index showed improvement – the quality of customs services and the level of corruption. At the same time, the assessment of the Single Window system at the customs has slightly deteriorated.
How good is the work of customs
The assessment of the quality of customs services and the professionalism of customs officials remains the lowest among the index components – 3.08 points (2.76 points in 2023). The majority of respondents (60%) consider the quality of customs services to be satisfactory.
At the same time, the number of dissatisfied respondents has decreased: 14% of respondents consider the quality of services and professionalism to be low, and 2% very low (last year, the number was 25% and 6%, respectively). At the same time, 22% consider the quality of services to be high, and 2% – very high.
Is there any reason to talk about corruption at customs?
The corruption score was 3.53 points (3.20 points in 2023). While 53% believe that the level of corruption has remained unchanged, 23% have reason to believe that it has decreased somewhat, and 18% believe that it has decreased significantly.
Only 6% believe that corruption at customs has increased (14% last year).
What are the pros and cons of the organization of customs control?
The assessment of the Single Window system has traditionally remained the highest among all components of the index, despite a slight decrease this year – to 3.59 points (3.77 points in 2023). Thus, 45% rate the system’s performance as good, and 12% as very good. Another 33% consider it satisfactory. Negative assessments of the system were given by 10% of this year’s respondents.
The most criticism from businesses during customs clearance was received from the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection and interaction with the customs value department. Currently, 60% of respondents reported having a problem with customs value adjustment. The number of companies reporting this problem is growing every year – in 2023, the number was 46%, in 2022 – 37%.
In addition, 39% of the surveyed companies face additional customs control, 34% face delays without clear reasons, and 22% face physical inspection and full unloading of goods.
Over the past year, 30% of the surveyed companies have changed the place of customs clearance, however, in 71% of cases it was not due to problems with customs clearance.
As a reminder, the Customs Index has been determined by the European Business Association since 2010. The integral indicator of the index consists of three components: assessment of the level of corruption, quality of customs services, and the work of the Single Window. The index is measured once a year. A score of 3 is considered neutral, with a maximum score of 5.
The survey was conducted for the period of 2024, and 50 customs experts from EBA member companies took part in it. The survey was conducted from March 17 to March 31, 2025.
Queues at the border remain the main problem for business
According to exporters and importers, queues are on the 1st place in the list of problems in the work of customs. This is one of the conclusions of the annual survey of Ukrainian exporters and importers conducted by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
However, it should be noted that the importance of the problem of queues at customs has decreased compared to 2023 – from 67.7% to 48.8%. This indicates that measures to resolve queues at the border, including the introduction of the E-Checkpoint, have had a positive result.
Insufficient transparency of customs authorities has become the second most important problem (43.8%), having risen from 4th place in 2023 (36.4%).
The third place is occupied by “imperfect customs legislation” – 37.6% of respondents mentioned it. Businesses associate this “imperfection” with inconsistencies with EU standards, uneven application of rules, and the possibility of subjective interpretation.
The problem of corruption at customs dropped to fourth place in this rating: 30.3% in 2024 compared to 38.4% in 2023, gradually returning to the pre-war level of 24.7% in 2021. The insufficient capacity of checkpoints has also decreased in importance: from 39.3% in 2023 to 28.5 in 2024.
