The Ministry of Finance approved the automatic dispatching of DT: how the new order of 45h will work
The Russian Ministry of Finance has issued a large-scale update of the rules for registration and distribution of customs declarations, approving Order No. 45n dated April 8, 2025. The document is based on the norms of Federal Law No. 289-FZ and establishes a single procedure according to which operations related to the routing of declarations of goods (DT) in electronic form are performed by the information system of customs authorities without the participation of officials. In fact, this transfers the key area of administration to the EAIS contour, reducing contact with the inspector and balancing the load between posts.
The basic rule is as follows: customs posts — electronic declaration centers (EEDC) are authorized to register DT in electronic form. With regard to paper declarations, all posts are authorized to register, with the exception of the CED and specialized departments. The order lays out in detail which categories of documents are accepted and where: from transit declarations and PTD for personal use to TT for express cargo, vehicles, ATA carnets and documents used as declarations under international agreements. The authority to process documents related to military shipments and international mail is also indicated separately.
The key innovation was the automatic dispatch algorithm. First, the system checks whether specific posts have special competence, established by acts adopted on the basis of part 4 of Article 253 of Law No. 289-FZ. If the competence is set, the DT leaves for the appropriate post. If not, the EAEU focuses on the type of transport and the region of movement: sea and river shipments are sent to the specialized CES (Baltic to NWTU, Novorossiysk to Utah, Vladivostok to DVTU), aviation to the aviation CED of Sheremetyevo customs. Then the logic of the declarant's tax accounting comes into force: the system distributes tax receipts to the regional CEDs of the Central, Northwestern, Southern, Volga, Ural, Siberian, Far Eastern, North Caucasian districts, as well as to the Moscow and Kaliningrad CEDs, depending on the place of registration or the actual location of the goods.
Additional flexibility is provided for authorized economic operators (AEO) of the 2nd and 3rd types. If there is no special competence, the EAEU sends their declarations to the CED of the department or customs in whose region the goods are placed, provided that the data is submitted to this particular post. If the data is submitted to another post, the general routing algorithm for transport and tax accounting is enabled.
To eliminate "bottlenecks", the order introduces a mechanism for load control and redundancy. For each "main" data center, a "duplicate" one is defined from the appendix to the order. The system compares the number of days of work per employee, takes into account the type of procedure, the volume of goods in the declaration and measures to minimize risks, and also checks the technical availability and working hours of the post. If the load is higher, there is a failure of more than 30 minutes, or the DT has arrived outside the working hours of the main EAIS post, it will automatically redirect it to the assigned backup data center. If a backup post is unavailable, a reallocation cycle is activated according to the previous rules, which reduces the likelihood of downtime.
The document separately lists cases when the registration of DTS is assigned to certain posts: goods requiring special permits for military-technical cooperation; re-export without placing under procedures; special procedures under Article 253 of the EAEU Labor Code; a free customs zone and a free warehouse with paper DTS and a set of permits; supplies under the Sakhalin-1/2 projects, Skolkovo and the international medical cluster; cooperative lists in the defense industry complex and materials for the production of medical products confirmed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade; incomplete supplies under Article 117 of the EAEU Labor Code; registration of supplies (including according to standard carrier documents); as well as competencies under agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Thus, special geography and industry regimes retain addressable powers.
The order also conducts a "regulatory audit": it invalidates a number of previous acts of the Ministry of Finance, including Orders No. 223h (2019), No. 51h (2021 — in part), No. 71h (2021), No. 18h (2022), No. 123h (2022), as well as certain paragraphs of the amendments of 2023-2024, those thereby eliminating duplication and discrepancies. The document will enter into force 30 days after its official publication, but not earlier than December 1, 2025. This creates a window for businesses to adapt systems, update regulations, and configure IT circuits for applicants and operators.
Together, the decisions of the Ministry of Finance transfer the routing of DT to the "rails" of the predictable logic of the EAEU: uniform rules for distribution, control of the synchronicity of the CED and the technological mechanism of redundancy. Foreign economic activity companies will receive more transparent release SLAs, reduce the risks of delays due to local overloads, and be able to plan logistics and document flow in conjunction with real customs schedules. For the FCS, this is a step towards further digitalization, load balancing and speeding up the passage of declarative traffic without increasing the number of inspectors.
