CN22 vs CN23: The Complete 2026 Guide to Customs Declaration Forms for E-Commerce Shippers

Somewhere between packing a parcel and handing it to a carrier, most cross-border e-commerce shipments pass through a step that gets almost no attention until it fails: the customs declaration. For any parcel leaving the European Union, or arriving from outside it, that declaration usually takes the form of a CN22 or a CN23, two small pieces of paper that carry more consequence than their size suggests.

Get the form wrong, and the cost is rarely a warning. Customs authorities can fine a shipper up to 100 percent of a parcel's declared value for an inaccurate declaration, on top of the delay, the dispute, and the customer who is now emailing support asking where their order is. Get it right every time, at scale, across multiple carriers with different rules, and it becomes one of the quieter operational advantages a growing e-commerce business can build.

This matters more in 2026 than it did two years ago. The European Union's de minimis exemption is gone, a new per-line customs declaration fee applies to low-value parcels entering the EU, and enforcement has tightened across several member states. Customs paperwork that used to be a formality is now a line item with real financial weight attached to every mistake.

What CN22 and CN23 Actually Are

CN22 and CN23 are standardized customs declaration forms created under the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency that coordinates postal policy between more than 190 member countries. Because the format is standardized internationally, a CN22 filled out in Rotterdam is read the same way by a customs officer in Melbourne or Toronto, which is precisely the point. Both forms exist to answer the same core questions for customs authorities: what is inside this parcel, what is it worth, where did it come from, and who is sending and receiving it.

CN22 vs CN23: Which Form Applies to Your Shipment

The two forms are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one is one of the most common reasons a cross-border parcel gets held at customs.

Weight and Value Thresholds

CN22 is the shorter form, a sticker-sized declaration used for parcels weighing up to 2 kilograms with a declared value up to 425 Swiss francs, an amount most carriers translate to roughly 425 euros depending on the exchange rate applied that month. It asks for a brief content description, weight, value, and an HS code, the six digit international code that classifies what the goods actually are.

CN23 is the longer form, required once a shipment exceeds either threshold, typically parcels between 2 and 20 kilograms or above the value cap. It asks for the same core details as CN22 but in more depth, including a fuller breakdown of contents, itemized values, and often a supporting commercial invoice or CP71 form for anything with genuine commercial value rather than a personal gift.

Postal Carriers vs Commercial Invoice Carriers

The form you need also depends on which carrier is moving the parcel. National postal operators, PostNL, Deutsche Post, Royal Mail, bpost, and Correos among them, still rely on the CN22 and CN23 format directly and typically cap a single declaration at five line items. Commercial carriers such as DPD, DHL, and UPS more commonly work from a commercial invoice instead, which carries the same customs information in a different layout and generally allows up to 99 line items per shipment. A business shipping through multiple carriers, which is now the norm rather than the exception for European e-commerce, effectively needs to produce customs documentation in at least two different formats depending on which carrier picks up which order.

What Happens When a Customs Declaration Is Wrong

An inaccurate CN22 or CN23 rarely fails quietly. Customs authorities can fine the sender up to 100 percent of the goods' actual value for a declaration that misrepresents contents, quantity, or worth, and that is before accounting for the shipment itself sitting in a customs warehouse accruing storage charges while the dispute gets resolved. A vague content description such as gift or goods on a commercial shipment is one of the fastest ways to trigger a manual review. So is a declared value that does not match the actual sale price on record, which customs officers can and do cross reference against payment data, marketplace listings, and prior shipments from the same sender.

The knock-on effects reach further than the fine itself. A held parcel becomes a WISMO ticket in a support queue. A pattern of customs holds on a specific lane quietly degrades that lane's delivery promise at checkout, long before anyone connects the delay back to a paperwork problem rather than a carrier problem.

How to Fill Out a CN22 or CN23 Correctly

Most of the mistakes we see are avoidable, and they tend to repeat themselves across thousands of shipments once a bad template gets used at the source. The details that matter most:

• Content description: write an accurate, specific description. Cotton t-shirt, men's, size L clears customs faster than clothing or merchandise, because it gives an officer nothing to question.
• HS code: assign a correct HS code to every item, not a single catch-all code applied to a mixed parcel. Misclassified goods are one of the leading causes of incorrect duty assessment and post-clearance audits.
• Declared value: match the actual transaction value, in the currency the carrier expects, including shipping cost where the destination country requires it.
• Country of origin: confirm the true country of origin for each item, which is not always the country the parcel ships from, particularly for dropshipped or multi-supplier orders.
• Signature and date: several postal carriers still reject a declaration without a signed, dated form attached, physical or digital.

The New 2026 EU Layer: Per-Line Customs Declaration Fees

As of July 2026, a new per-line customs declaration fee applies to parcels entering the European Union below the 150 euro low-value threshold, charged per line on the declaration rather than per parcel. A CN23 listing four separate products now carries four separate fee lines instead of one flat charge, which quietly changes the math on how many items to consolidate into a single declaration versus splitting across shipments. We broke down what this fee means for margins in our guide to the EU's new per-item import duty, and it is worth reading alongside this one if a meaningful share of your volume ships into the EU under that threshold.

Why Manual Customs Paperwork Stops Scaling

A business shipping twenty cross-border parcels a week can absorb a manual customs process. A business shipping two thousand a week cannot, not without either a dedicated customs team or a rising error rate that eventually shows up as fines, holds, and refunds. The math is simple. Each declaration takes a few minutes to fill out correctly. Multiply that by shipment volume, add the mental overhead of remembering which carrier needs which form and which HS code applies to which SKU, and customs paperwork quietly becomes a full-time job nobody budgeted for. It is the same pattern behind a lot of the manual shipping decisions we have written about, from carrier selection to invoice auditing, with customs sitting quietly in between them.

How Zineps Automates Customs Declarations Across Every Carrier

Zineps was built to remove exactly this kind of repetitive, error-prone paperwork from a shipping team's day. Product-level HS codes, country of origin, and declared values are stored once against a SKU and reused automatically on every shipment, rather than re-entered by hand each time an order ships. When a label is generated, Zineps automatically produces the correct customs documentation for the carrier handling that specific shipment, a CN22 or CN23 for postal operators, a properly formatted commercial invoice for DPD, DHL, or UPS, without a warehouse team needing to memorize which format which carrier expects.

That matters most at the exact moments manual processes tend to break: a peak season volume spike, a new market launch, or a new carrier added to the mix. Because customs data lives in the same operating layer as rate shopping, tracking, and invoice auditing rather than a separate spreadsheet, a missing HS code or an inconsistent declared value gets caught before a label prints, not after a parcel is already sitting in a customs warehouse. It is the same principle behind building Zineps as the operating system for shipments rather than a collection of point tools that each hold a piece of the picture and none of the whole.

A Practical Pre-Shipment Customs Checklist

• Confirm the weight and declared value of the shipment to know whether a CN22 or CN23 applies.
• Verify the HS code for every product in the parcel, not just the highest value item.
• Match the declared value to the actual transaction value, including shipping cost where required.
• Confirm the country of origin per item, especially for multi-supplier or dropshipped orders.
• Check the carrier's line item limit, five for most postal operators, up to 99 for commercial invoice carriers, and split shipments that exceed it.
• Keep a digital record of every declaration filed, since customs authorities can request historical documentation during an audit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a CN22 and a CN23 form?

CN22 is used for lighter, lower-value parcels, generally up to 2 kilograms and 425 Swiss francs in declared value. CN23 is required for heavier or higher-value shipments and asks for more detailed information about contents, itemized values, and origin.

Do I need a commercial invoice as well as a CN22 or CN23?

For shipments with genuine commercial value, most carriers and customs authorities expect a commercial invoice in addition to the CN22 or CN23, particularly for CN23 shipments and for any parcel moving through a commercial invoice carrier rather than a national postal operator.

What happens if a customs declaration is inaccurate?

Customs authorities can fine the sender up to 100 percent of the goods' declared value, hold the parcel for manual review, or return it to sender. Repeated inaccuracies from the same sender tend to trigger closer scrutiny on future parcels as well.

Can customs declarations be automated?

Yes. Platforms such as Zineps store HS codes, country of origin, and declared values against each product once and generate the correct carrier-specific customs documentation automatically at the point a shipping label is created.

Customs Paperwork Is a Small Form With a Large Blast Radius

Customs paperwork will never be the most exciting part of running a cross-border e-commerce operation, but it is one of the few parts where the cost of getting it wrong compounds silently until it shows up as a fine, a delay, or a customer who never orders again. Talk to the Zineps team about how automated customs documentation fits into your specific carrier mix and markets.