Retail notice now enough to order tobacco excise stamps

Tobacco excise stamps are ordered from and issued by the Maksu- ja Tolliamet when any one of four standing conditions holds: the person holds a valid excise-warehouse or registered-consignee operating licence; an importer files a business notice carrying tobacco-import data; the person is registered as a certified consignee; or the person files a business notice for wholesale or retail sale of tobacco productsEmta. The unchanged financial conditions still apply on top: no tax debt including rescheduled debt, reimbursement of stamp-printing costs owed on returned or uncollected stamps, an accepted security, and a notified stamping place.

Two groups gain access. Certified consignees now qualify in their own rightEmta: registration as a certified consignee is a standalone ground for orderingEmta, where previously ordering stood open to warehouse keepers, registered consignees, third-country importers and commercial receivers filing an advance written notice of receipt intentEmta. Retail traders gain access tooEmta: a business notice for retail sale now sufficesEmta, where the old wording demanded a wholesale noticeEmta. The advance written notice of the intention to receive excise goods before their dispatch from another Member State drops out of the ordering conditions.

Ordering runs through the MAIS stamp databaseEmta, with a first-time order announced in advance by email to aktsiisid@emta.ee naming the orderer and its registry code; stamps are issued in Tallinn at Lõõtsa 8a. The stamp is affixed within 90 calendar days of receipt with a single 90-day extension on the recipient's request, unattached stamps may not be transferred, and every stamp movement is reported in MAIS. Ten stamp types exist, from cigarettes and smoking tobacco A and B through cigars G, cigarillos D, liquids C and H, solid substitute E and other alternative product K.

The traceability section is cleaned up. The duty to mark sales packaging with a unique identifier and register movements now reads as applying to tobacco products within the meaning of the tobacco act (tubakaseaduse mõistes). The phase-in sentence stating that the identification and tracking system applied to cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco first and to other tobacco products only from 20 May 2024 is deleted as spent: that date has passed and the system covers the full range.

Stamps are ordered under the maksumärkide tellimise kord of the Alkoholi ja tubakatoodete maksumärkide määrus and reported in MAIS.