Faxing customs: how to release a held parcel

Short answer: when a customs office holds a shipment, it almost never asks for "paperwork" in general — it asks for three specific documents: the commercial invoice or proof of value (invoice, screenshot of the order, bank statement), evidence of the nature of the goods (product sheet, instruction leaflet, composition) and, if the carrier or a declarant is acting on your behalf, a signed customs representation mandate. These documents are sent to the office concerned, by email in most cases, by fax when that is the number shown on the notice — and many detention notices still carry a fax number. The essential point fits in one line: repeat the case or declaration number on every page, otherwise your submission will not be matched to the right parcel. And keep the transmission report: it is your only proof that you replied within the allotted time.

Why a shipment gets held

A parcel is not held out of spite. It is held because the accompanying declaration does not give the service enough to make a decision. The most frequent cases, in order:

• Unsubstantiated value. The declaration states €15 for an item that is clearly not worth €15. The office asks for proof of the price paid.
• Vague description of the goods. "Sample", "gift", "accessories": impossible to classify for tariff purposes, therefore impossible to tax.
• Goods subject to a specific formality. Food supplements, cosmetics, radio equipment, car spare parts, foodstuffs, products of animal origin, items made of wood or leather, suspected counterfeits, products covered by the CITES convention.
• Unidentified recipient or incomplete address.
• Unpaid or disputed duties and taxes.

In each of these cases, you receive a notice of detention — by post, from the carrier, or through the tracking portal — with a deadline for replying. That deadline is short: often 10 to 30 days depending on the nature of the hold and the carrier. Once it has passed, the shipment may be returned to the sender, placed in storage with daily warehousing charges, or even destroyed if the goods are prohibited.

Fax, still? Yes, for three reasons

French customs has gone largely digital: Delta for declarations, SOPRANO for authorisation requests, the Douane.gouv.fr platform for online services. But dealings with a private individual whose parcel is stuck still go through the physical office nearest the clearance warehouse, and those offices work with the contact details they publish: a postal address, a phone number, and often a fax number.

Three situations where fax remains the right answer:

1. The notice you received shows a fax number and no email address. This is common on detention notices issued by postal clearance centres.
2. Your attachments are too large or your message is blocked by a government spam filter, and you get no response at all.
3. You want time-stamped proof of sending on the last day of the deadline, without relying on a read receipt nobody is going to send you.

In every other case, email is simpler. Fax is not a dogma: it is a fallback channel that leaves a trace. As for what that trace is worth against a public authority, we set out the reasoning in does a fax have evidential value before a judge?.

The documents to gather before sending

1. Proof of value

This is the key document. The service wants to know how much you paid, not how much the sender declared.

A printed screenshot of your customer account does the job perfectly well — provided the seller's name, the date, the amount and the description of the item are legible. Remember to include the shipping costs, which form part of the customs value.

2. The actual description of the goods

Attach the product sheet printed from the retailer's website, or the instruction leaflet. For food supplements or cosmetics, the list of ingredients is often required. For electronic equipment, the CE declaration of conformity or, failing that, the manufacturer's page stating the radio frequencies and power output.

If the parcel contains several items, draw up a numbered inventory matching the invoice line by line. A single legible handwritten sheet is enough, but an A4 lined writing pad and an opaque black ink pen give a far cleaner result once scanned — the pale grey of a pencil disappears in transmission.

3. The customs representation mandate

This is the document that holds up the most cases. Whenever a carrier, a freight agent or a customs clearance company completes the formalities on your behalf, the Union Customs Code (EU Regulation 952/2013, Article 18) requires a written mandate. There are two forms:

• direct representation: the representative acts in the name of and on behalf of the recipient, who remains the declarant;
• indirect representation: the representative acts in their own name but on behalf of the recipient, and becomes jointly liable for the duties.

The carrier usually sends you its own form. You fill it in, you sign it, you attach proof of identity and, for a company, a Kbis extract less than three months old proving that the signatory can bind the company. It is this trio — mandate, identity, Kbis — that must go out together.

4. Additional documents depending on the case

• EORI number for a company (mandatory for any commercial operation).
• Certificate of origin or declaration of origin on the invoice if you are claiming preferential tariff treatment.
• Health or phytosanitary authorisation for foodstuffs and plants.
• Import licence for dual-use goods.
• Proof of payment of duties if you are disputing a reminder.

Assembling the fax: the order that saves three days

The order of the pages is not cosmetic. An officer who receives ten pages out of order sets them aside. Here is the arrangement that gets through:

1. Cover sheet: recipient (exact name of the office), sender, case number / declaration number / parcel tracking number, total number of pages, and a subject line such as "Reply to detention notice dated 12 October 2026".
2. Covering letter of half a page: who you are, what the parcel contains, what you are enclosing, and a clear request ("I request that you proceed with customs clearance").
3. The detention notice you received, copied as is.
4. Invoice / proof of value.
5. Product sheet.
6. Signed mandate + proof of identity (+ Kbis).

Write the case number at the top of every page, by hand if necessary. It is trivial, and it is what stops a mislaid page from becoming an orphan page. Our fax cover sheet generator produces that first page directly, with a "case reference" field.

On image quality: customs officers read figures. A fax is threshold black and white — no greyscale. An invoice printed in light grey, or a hastily cropped phone photo, comes out illegible. If your documents only exist on your phone, print them in solid black or go over the key figures. For households that no longer own a printer, a compact monochrome laser printer remains the most reliable way to produce crisp originals, and its cost per page is trivial next to a day of warehousing billed by a carrier.

Finding and checking the right number

First rule: the right office is not the one where you live, it is the one named on the notice — generally the clearance office attached to the hub where the parcel is being held (Roissy, Chilly-Mazarin, Lille, Lyon Saint-Exupéry, Marseille, and so on).

Second rule: check before you send. The contact details of customs units change with every reorganisation, and a number copied from a forum stands a good chance of having been dead for three years. The sources to rely on:

• the detention notice itself, which is authoritative;
• the directory of services of the Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects on douane.gouv.fr;
• Infos Douane Service, the administration's telephone information service, which will confirm a number in two minutes;
• our own directory of official fax numbers, which lists the contact details published by French public authorities.

One tip that costs nothing: call first. Say that you are going to fax such-and-such a document for such-and-such a case, and ask them to confirm the number. Sometimes you will learn that the service prefers email — which will save you a day.

Deadlines: what is running and what is not

What matters in practice is the date of transmission shown on your transmission report: time, number dialled, number of pages, result "OK". Keep it together with a complete copy of the pages sent, in the same file. We explain how long to keep these documents in archiving your fax transmission receipts. A lever arch file with dividers is more than enough for an import file you may have to reopen two years later.

The five mistakes that send you back to square one

Faxing without a case number. The morning pile holds twenty faxes; with no reference, yours will be matched to nothing.

Sending a screenshot from a phone. Grey background, reflections, cropped edges: illegible after conversion. Print the page to PDF first, then send the PDF.

Forgetting shipping costs in the declared value. The customs value includes transport and insurance up to the Union's border. An invoice without shipping triggers a fresh request for documents.

Signing a mandate without checking the type of representation. Under indirect representation, the representative is jointly liable: that changes who bears the risk if the assessment is revised.

Declaring a purchase as a "gift". The allowance applying to shipments between private individuals is strictly defined; a false declaration turns a simple delay into enforcement proceedings. The customs administration publishes the thresholds in force on douane.gouv.fr — those are authoritative, not the claims of a foreign seller.

What if the parcel is a commercial shipment?

For a company, the scale changes but the principle does not. You need an EORI number, a declarant (in-house or an approved agent), and documentary traceability becomes a permanent requirement: invoice, packing list, transport documents (AWB, CMR, bill of lading), certificates of origin. Keeping a physical file per shipment remains the safest practice, and transparent punched pockets stop the bundle falling apart between two inspections.

If you depend on a freight forwarder and your legacy fax line vanished with the switch-off of the copper network, first check what your installation still allows: we reviewed the subject in sending a fax with your Free, Orange, SFR or Bouygues box. A corded telephone headset with a noise-cancelling microphone is no luxury either when you have to hold out for twenty minutes on an automated phone system while reading a screen.

Frequently asked questions

Does customs officially accept documents by fax?

There is no general text requiring or prohibiting it. In practice, the office accepts the channel it publishes. If the notice mentions a fax number, fax is a valid means of transmission. For declaration procedures proper, however, everything goes through the online services (Delta, SOPRANO): fax is for correspondence and supporting documents, not for lodging a declaration.

How many pages can I send?

Technically there is no strict limit, but beyond fifteen to twenty pages the risk of interruption rises and reading becomes a chore for the officer. Better to send the essentials, state on the cover sheet that further documents are available on request, and offer an email address for large volumes.

Do I need to post the originals after faxing?

Not as a matter of course. Keep them and wait to be asked. That said, never destroy the original of a signed mandate or a purchase invoice until the operation is closed and the duties paid.

My parcel has been held for three weeks and I have heard nothing — what should I do?

Follow up in writing, restating the date of your first submission and enclosing the transmission report. If the silence continues, contact Infos Douane Service and then, if necessary, the economic action unit of the regional directorate. Where a dispute over the assessment persists, a reasoned claim to the office opens the way to a formal challenge.

Can I send a fax to customs from my phone?

Yes. You need no equipment at all: sending from a computer or a phone to the office's fax number produces the same document and the same transmission report as a fax machine. That is precisely what this site is for, and you will find the practical answers in the FAQ.

In summary

• A shipment is held for a specific reason: value, nature of the goods, a missing formality or an absent mandate. Read the notice before putting the file together.
• The three documents that release most cases are proof of value, the actual product description and the signed customs representation mandate, together with proof of identity (and a Kbis for a company).
• The case number must appear on every page. It is the most common and most expensive mistake.
• Check the fax number on the notice, on douane.gouv.fr or with Infos Douane Service — and call before you send.
• Keep the transmission report together with a complete copy of the pages: it is your proof that you replied within the deadline.
• For large volumes or colour documents, email remains the better fit; fax is the channel that leaves a trace when you have a date to meet.