Intrastat commodity codes: how to find the right one for each product

Anyone who prepares Intrastat already knows the drill: every line of the return needs an eight-digit code saying what the goods are, and that code is not on the invoice, not on the delivery note and often not on the product record either. It has to be looked up. This post explains exactly which code it is, where to check it without paying, how to decide when a product fits in two places and what to do so the search is not repeated every month. If what you need is to know who must file and what data the return asks for, that is in Intrastat: who must file and how.

There is no "Intrastat code": it is the Combined Nomenclature code

There is no list of codes specific to Intrastat. What the return asks for is the code of the goods in the Combined Nomenclature (CN), the European Union's tariff and statistical classification. It is the same code used to declare an export at customs, so it is valid across the EU: the one a German supplier uses for its own Intrastat is the one you have to use too.

The code is built in layers, and it helps to know this because it explains where the digits come from:

• The first two are the chapter: 84 is machinery, 61 is knitted clothing, 30 is pharmaceutical products.
• The first four are the heading and the first six the subheading of the Harmonized System, the World Customs Organization classification shared by more than two hundred countries. Up to this point a code is the same in Europe, China or Mexico.
• The eight digits are the Combined Nomenclature, which adds two EU-specific digits. This is the level Intrastat requires.
• The ten digits are TARIC, used only for imports from outside the Union. If the code you have has ten digits because it comes from an import declaration, for Intrastat you keep the first eight.

Each code carries, besides the net mass in kilograms that always has to be declared, a possible supplementary unit: litres, pairs, square metres, number of items. Not all codes have one; when the code requires it, the return asks for it.

It changes every January

The Combined Nomenclature is revised every year. At the end of October the Commission publishes a regulation with the following year's version, which applies from 1 January. The 2026 version is in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1926, published on 31 October 2025. The 2027 version has just come out: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2163, published in the Official Journal on 30 October 2026.

In practice most codes carry over from one year to the next, but some are split, merged or removed. The code that counts is the one in force in the month being declared: the December 2026 return uses the 2026 nomenclature and the January 2027 return uses the new one. That is why every January the stored codes have to be checked to confirm they still exist. For each year the Spanish Tax Agency publishes the full structure as a spreadsheet and a table with the correspondence of the codes that changed against the previous year. That table is the first thing to look at every January.

Where to look up the code, for free

Before opening any search tool, check whether the code already exists somewhere:

• The product record in your ERP. Some have a field for the tariff code. If it is filled in with eight digits, you are done. If it has ten, take the first eight.
• The supplier's documents. Invoices and packing lists from exporting suppliers often carry the Harmonized System code or the full tariff code. If the supplier is in the EU, its eight-digit code is valid as is; if it is outside, the first six digits are reliable and the next two have to be checked against the European nomenclature.
• The import declaration, if the product was previously imported from outside the EU: the ten-digit TARIC code is there.

If it is in none of those, these are the official tools:

• The Spanish Tax Agency's TARIC consultation (procedure DD09 on its e-office). It lets you browse by chapter and heading and search by text. It returns the code with its description, its supplementary units and the applicable measures.
• The year's nomenclature as a spreadsheet, on the Tax Agency page cited above. For anyone with many references it is more convenient than the search tool: download it once and filter in the sheet.
• The European Commission's TARIC and Access2Markets, the Commission's portal for businesses: it lets you start from the product description and drill down to the code.
• CLASS, the Commission's tariff classification information system. It gathers in one place the nomenclature, its explanatory notes, the classification regulations, the conclusions of the Customs Code Committee and the rulings of the Court of Justice. The Spanish Tax Agency recommends it as the starting point for doubtful cases.
• The EBTI database, where all binding classification rulings issued in the EU can be consulted. If another company already requested a ruling for a product like yours, it is there, with the reasoning.

What you should not do is copy the code from a competitor's website or from an undated list: it may be from another year or simply wrong.

How to decide when a product fits in two places

Almost nothing is found by its commercial name. The nomenclature classifies by what the goods are: their material, their function, how they are presented. A "tablet stand" does not appear as such; it appears according to whether it is plastic, metal or an accessory for an automatic data-processing machine. So the procedure is to go from the general to the particular:

1. Choose the chapter and heading by the nature of the product and read the section and chapter notes. Many doubts are settled there, because the notes say what each chapter includes and excludes.
2. Go down to the subheading comparing texts at the same level. You do not compare a six-digit subheading with an eight-digit one; first decide the six, then the eight.
3. Apply the general rules of interpretation when two headings seem possible. There are six and they are in the text of the nomenclature itself. The ones most used in practice: the more specific heading prevails over the more general one; a composite product or a set is classified by the component that gives it its essential character; and if there is still a tie, it goes under the heading that occurs last in numerical order. An incomplete or unassembled article is classified as the complete article if it already has its essential characteristics.
4. Check EBTI and the classification regulations for a precedent. For new or hybrid products (a device that is both a lamp and a speaker, a kit with several parts) there usually is one.

Frequent mistakes we see in returns: classifying a spare part as the machine it belongs to, when the nomenclature has its own headings for "parts"; classifying by the use the customer gives it rather than by the nature of the product; and carrying over a ten-digit code or one from the previous year.

If the doubt is serious: Binding Tariff Information

For a product you move a lot and whose code is unclear, there is Binding Tariff Information (BTI). It is a customs decision that fixes the code for that specific product. It is valid for three years, binds all EU customs authorities and the holder, and is published in EBTI. In Spain it is requested through the Tax Agency's e-office (procedure DD02), describing the product in detail and attaching technical sheets or photos.

It is not for the whole catalogue: it is for the products where getting it wrong has consequences, because of volume or because the code decides a duty or a licence. For the rest, a well-done and documented search is enough.

The real problem: doing it every month

Finding a code takes between two minutes and half an hour, depending on the product. The problem is not that time: it is that in many companies it is repeated. The person preparing Intrastat looks up a product's code in March, writes it in a spreadsheet, and in April the spreadsheet is somewhere else, the product has a different name on an invoice or someone else is doing it. And every January everything has to be checked against the new nomenclature.

For a medical-sector distributor that works with Holded we built a tool that solves exactly that. It reads invoices and packing lists, recognises each product even when the description varies from one document to another and remembers its code, its weight and its units: the first time it asks, the second time it does not. It takes the code from the product record if the ERP has it, and if not, it stores it when someone enters it. Each return asks less than the previous one, and when the nomenclature changes it flags the codes that no longer exist.

The ERP does not have to be Holded. What is needed is for product data to live in one place and be reused, instead of being searched for every month. If your company prepares Intrastat by hand, we explain it in more detail in dashboards and tools your ERP does not have and, if you work with Holded, in Holded developments and integrations.

We will update this post if the Tax Agency publishes the 2027 correspondence table at a different address or if the consultation tools change.