More than 66,000 businesses registered with the Trader Support Service are being urged to prepare for a mandatory platform change next month, with all goods movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland moving to a new system from 20 October.
HM Revenue & Customs will begin sending existing users instructions from 1 October telling them how to pre-enrol. Businesses will also be given access to a test environment before the switchover so staff can familiarise themselves with the replacement service.
The Trader Support Service provides free digital support for companies moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is designed to help them meet customs processes associated with the Windsor Framework.
All movements taking place on or after 20 October will need to be submitted through the new platform. The existing service will stop accepting new movements from that date, creating a fixed operational deadline for companies that depend on TSS for declarations.
HMRC says businesses will need to create a new password and confirm that account information and user permissions are up to date. Depending on the size of an organisation and the information available, it estimates that updating a profile should take between five and 30 minutes.
The new platform will be operated by Netcompany, which has been awarded a five-year contract with options for two further one-year extensions. Since 2020, TSS has been run by a Fujitsu-led consortium, with Fujitsu acting as the principal service provider.
The replacement system has been operating in private beta since July, and HMRC says hundreds of declarations have already been submitted through it. Feedback from test users has been used to make further changes ahead of the wider migration.
Gill Evans, HMRC’s director of customs services and operations, said businesses should “look out for their invitation email and pre-enrol before 20 October”.
The legal and regulatory obligations attached to movements are not changing as part of the technology migration. That limits the need to redesign the underlying customs process, but it does not remove the operational risk associated with replacing the system used to submit information.
Companies moving goods regularly across the Irish Sea may have TSS access embedded within logistics, finance, customs, or third-party freight workflows. A change of platform therefore needs to be checked not only by the master account holder but also by colleagues, agents, and service providers relying on delegated permissions.
Timing will be particularly important for goods moving close to the cutover date. Transactions occurring before 20 October and movements taking place afterwards may sit across different system arrangements, making it important to identify which platform applies to each declaration and ensure staff do not assume existing credentials will continue to work.
The migration also highlights the administrative infrastructure now sitting behind GB-NI trade. TSS was established to reduce the burden of new customs requirements and has become part of the routine operating environment for businesses moving goods across the internal UK market under post-Brexit arrangements.
Technology changes can create disruption even where policy rules stay constant. Account access, master data, user roles, integration with internal systems, and staff familiarity can all affect whether declarations are submitted correctly and on time.
Businesses using freight forwarders or other intermediaries will also need to check where responsibility for the transition sits. A company may not submit declarations directly but can still face delays if an agent lacks the correct permissions or account information on the replacement platform.
HMRC has been contacting registered companies with guidance, webinars, and other support materials. Users need to act on the invitation when it arrives, review account information, test the replacement system where possible, and make sure anyone responsible for goods movements understands the cutover.
With fewer than four weeks between the announcement and mandatory switch, the transition is a relatively short operational project. Customs obligations remain unchanged, but the system through which more than 66,000 registered businesses manage them is about to be replaced.
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