Am I banned from flying from Hamburg Airport for not paying custom duties?

Question

I live in Netherlands. Last summer I flew from outside of Europe to Hamburg, Germany. Upon my arrival I had two boxes of cigarettes in my suitcase. The custom officer confiscated one of the boxes and asked me to pay for custom duties. No payment option was possible for me at that time, therefore the officer gave me some documents and asked me to pay when I got to Netherlands.

I lost the piece of paper, although it was written in German I couldn’t understand all of it - I think something about if I do not pay, the amount will be withdrawn from my bank account through “Dutch Tax Authorities”. I think it also said something about being banned from flying or even entering Germany if I do not pay the duties, but I’m not sure.

I couldn’t pay the duties because the bank account information written in the documents were for local payment and I needed IBAN, Swift etc. information to be able to pay the duties. I called them, but they said that they cannot provide anything more than what was included in the initial documents and I should either have paid the amount back then or I should find a way to pay it now.

It has been almost a year and I have lost the documents. I tried to contact customs authorities at Hamburg Airport, but they say they need the reference number written in the document that I lost. And they claim that they can not tell me whether I am prohibited from flying or even entering Germany or not.

Extra details:
I did not know that you are only allowed to have one box in your suitcase. I asked the custom officer whether I could just throw the cigarettes in a trash can, but he said I wasn’t allowed to.
I did not get any letter/mail from Hamburg Customs after I lost the initial documents.
Dutch Tax Authorities have not asked me to do or pay anything.

Edit:
I am not a permanent resident of EU, I study in EU.
I did not know that I could convert the bank account number into an IBAN etc., and now I do not have those informations anymore.
The amount that was due to pay I think was around 78 euro.
I don't know the right term, but what I mean is that I had two separate boxes that contained multiple packs of cigarette. I do not remember the exact amount.

Answer 1

You are most certainly not banned from flying into Hamburg airport specifically; if anything, you are banned from entering Germany as a whole. However, the relevant law to determine an entry ban or a rejection, the Aufenthaltsgesetz (law concerning the presence in the Federal Republic, rough translation), names only one reason for an entry ban (assuming your documents are in order): namely previously being removed from Germany due to certain crimes. Not paying customs duties is not listed, it would require some kind of additional court conviction.

However, you are most likely still required to pay the customs duties you owe and interest and fees may have been added since your original infraction. How this is handled may or may not depend on the mood of the customs officer handling your case on your next entry into Germany and there may or may not be a flag popping up on the screen of the immigration officer when they scan your passport. So I would expect you to be charged when you return.

For the record, I would assume that customs does not have access to any type of immigration ban lists. This is because there are two different agencies in Germany: customs (Zoll or Bundeszollverwaltung in the long form) which handles goods inspections and the federal police (Bundespolizei, formerly Bundesgrenzschutz) which performs immigration inspections; quite unlike the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which performs both duties. I strongly expect German customs to have no access whatsoever to the databases of the federal police except where it explicitly concerns their jobs.

Further answers may be able to provide additional elaboration.

Answer 2

For future reference, you can check allowances at www.zoll.de.

In general there will be no criminal prosecution for smuggling if it is "accidental" and the duties on your goods would've been less than 250 EUR (§32 ZollVG). In that case you'll basically be fined by paying up to double the normal duties.

Theoretically you could be banned for smuggling or other crimes, but this will only happen if you're a professional smuggler and/or repeat offender. Also, the ban will include immediate removal from the country, and you would certainly know if that happened to you.

So, you are almost certainly not banned from entering Germany. You technically still owe the fine, though. It is highly unlikely that anybody even cared, though.

As has been said, the customes inspection (Zoll) and immigration (Bundespolizei) are different entities, and it is highly unlikely that the customs offices would go to the trouble of contacting immigrations over a missing 70-something Euros.

Thus, it's unlikely that you'll be flagged at immigration. If you are inspected by the customs office again (very rare on intra-EU flights), there is a chance that the unpaid fine could pop up - in which case they'd ask you to pay again. Also, if they catch you smuggling again, they're almost certain to check your history in more detail.

The most likely scenario is that they're not keeping track of the whole thing. Also, if you're arriving from the Netherlands, you won't go through immigration in the first place and customs very rarely checks travelers on intra-EU flights.

Answer 3

The German term is Karton or Stange, which is 10 packets.

The text implies that you gave your Bank information and that the dutch tax office would book it from your account if no payment arrived.

Generally older Account numbers are the base of the iban number, with an added country and bank information. So the Dutch tax office will know how to book it if they truly wanted to.

If it has not been done by now, it may have been 'lost' somewhere inside/inbetween the (very deep) realms of the corresponding buroracicies, so either it will never turn up or it will suddenly turn up in 10 years.

Not paying a customs duty is not a crime (Verbrechen: 12 minimal months jail without suspension or money fine), but a misdemeanor (Vergehen) .

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Strafgesetzbuch (StGB)

• § 12(1) Verbrechen
  • minimal punishment defined as 1 year
  • French equivalent: crime
• § 12(2) Vergehen
  • minimal punishment less than 1 year or fine
  • French equivalent: drélit
• § 56(1) Bewährungstrafe
  • conviction of not more than 1 year

Note: Durring my (Reserve) Police training, I remember it so that if a suspension (Bewährungsstrafe) was definded inmn the StGB, it was also considered a Vergehen.

Looking this up now, I could not find a conformation for such a claim.

Misdemeanor (US law) seems to be definded as 1 year or less

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misdemeanor--

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It is such small fee, that in general such things are forgotten or are determined not worth the effort (Verhältnismäßigkeit der Mittel).

If you are very unlucky a bored Official, driven crazy by his over eager apprentice says : 'work through that dusty pile of unfinished offenses'. Then, of course, you are sunk since the apprentice will wish to prove himself.

It is possible that after sending it to the Dutch, it was promply forgotten by German customs and 'lost' by the Dutch, since for them there is no gain.

Don't let it bother you, sleeping well is more important than worrying about this affair.