New version of the announcements on end-use certificate and sample
With the announcements of 31 October 2024, which were published in the Federal Gazette on 9 December and come into force today, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) has revised and updated the previous announcements of 1 August 2017. The old announcements are no longer legally valid.
Compared to the previously valid notices, the requirements for signatures and the retention of end-use certificates in particular have been updated. The following two forms of signature by the end user are accepted by BAFA:
- handwritten signature or
- use of an advanced electronic signature within the meaning of Art. 26 of the eIDAS Regulation (Regulation (EU) No. 910/2014).
It is also no longer necessary to submit the original end-user certificate as part of the application. In future, it will be sufficient to submit a digital copy of the end-user certificate to BAFA as part of the application. This digital copy must be kept for at least 5 years.
In principle, no new end-user certificate is required for pending applications that have not yet been decided. If you have already requested end-use declarations from your customers using the previous templates, you do not need to ask your customer for a new end-use declaration.
In addition, the templates of Annexes C 6 and C 7 for direct and indirect exports of goods to Russia or for use in Russia, insofar as these are listed in the Annexes to Regulation (EU) No. 833/2014 (Annex C 6) and for direct and indirect exports of listed dual-use goods to Russia or for use in Russia (Annex C 7 in deviation from Annex C 1) have been added.
The announcements, the two new samples C 6 and C 7 and further information can be found on the BAFA website under Foreign Trade / Export Control / Application / End-use documents (German).
BAFA has also updated the information sheet on end-use documents accordingly. You can find the information sheet here (German).
Source: Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA)
