Background: the Asia — European Union rail corridor
The rail border crossings between Poland and Belarus are one of the main gateways for overland container traffic between China and the European Union. Rail and logistics operators, carriers, transhipment terminals, customs agencies and freight forwarders work there, providing thousands of jobs in a region that largely lives from handling this traffic.
The goods arrive in sealed containers under a rail consignment note. The information on the contents comes from the consignor in a third country. At the terminal in Poland, the declarations required by law are lodged, and the goods are then usually placed under the Union transit procedure (T1) to a customs office in another Member State, where they are released for free circulation.
What happened
According to the findings of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), in some of the shipments from 2021 the goods were described in the documents as something other than what they actually were, in a way that made it possible to avoid high anti-dumping and countervailing duties. According to those findings, the transit was then discharged in another EU Member State without a physical inspection of the goods.
On the basis of the OLAF reports, the Polish customs and tax authorities have since the end of 2025 been conducting proceedings and issuing decisions determining customs debt. These cover customs duty, anti-dumping duty, countervailing duty and import VAT, plus interest calculated from 2021.
Why this concerns Polish logistics companies
The decisions also name as jointly and severally liable debtors entities that lodged declarations or handled the consignments at the border within the transport chain, including rail operators and carriers, customs agencies and freight forwarders. Joint and several liability means that the authority may demand the full amount from each of them.
The businesses stress that they had no legal or practical means of checking the contents of the sealed containers, relied on the consignor's documents, and did not themselves benefit from the underpayment of duties. The amounts demanded in individual cases exceed many times over the revenue the company earned from handling the consignment concerned.
Typical course of the proceedings
- requests to submit transport and commercial documents;
- notification of the intention to issue a decision and a deadline for stating a position;
- a demand to provide security for the amounts due;
- a first-instance decision determining the customs debt and VAT, with a short payment deadline;
- an appeal to the second-instance authority and, if necessary, a complaint to the administrative court;
- in parallel: pre-enforcement and enforcement measures, which may threaten the company's liquidity even before the dispute is resolved.
Facts, positions and forecasts: how we distinguish them
On the portal we indicate whether a piece of information is an established fact (e.g. the issuing of a decision), a position of the authority, a position of businesses, a legally disputed issue, or a forecast of consequences. A first-instance decision does not mean that the amount due is finally settled: the cases are pending, and their resolution is a matter for the appeal authorities and the courts.