MRN tracking: check export and transit declaration status

You track an MRN on the European Commission's "MRN Follow-up (Export & Transit)" service, which shows export and transit movements whose messages pass between customs administrations – for information only and not in real time. For declarations made in Great Britain, HMRC gives declarants their data through a customs data report on the Customs Declaration Service (Government Gateway sign-in). The 18 characters already tell you what the movement is: two digits for the year, two letters for the country, twelve characters of serial, the procedure identifier (A/B export, J-M transit, R/S import) and a check digit. In Logistivo, the documents carrying the MRN, the transit accompanying document and the exit proof stay on the load's record, where the sending and receiving customs brokers work from the same file.

Source: EUR-Lex · European Commission · HM Revenue & Customs · Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli. Data last updated: .

Decode, status and next step for your MRN

What do the first two digits of an MRN mean?

Why does an MRN contain a country code (GB, DE, TR…)?

What is in the twelve-character serial?

What does the letter in position 17 mean?

What is the last digit of an MRN for?

Which procedure identifiers exist and what do they mean?

What are the most common MRN mistakes?

Keep the MRN, T1 and exit proof on the load

Source

Frequently asked questions

How do I check the status of an export (ECS/AES) or transit (NCTS/T1) MRN?

Use the European Commission's public "MRN Follow-up (Export & Transit)" service. It shows export and transit movements whose messages pass between customs administrations, is for information only, is not real time and, by its own description, covers transit movements completed after 20-08-2025 (read on 24 September 2026). For declarations made in Great Britain, HMRC provides declarants with customs data reports through the Customs Declaration Service (Government Gateway sign-in, up to 31 days per report).

What is the difference between an MRN and an LRN (and a DUCR)?

The LRN is the number the declarant gives their own declaration (up to 22 characters, set nationally). The MRN is the registration number customs allocates when it accepts the declaration and it follows the movement. In the UK, the DUCR is the trader's consignment reference; VAT Notice 703 asks for the MRN or DUCR to identify export evidence.

How can I tell whether an MRN is export, transit or import?

From the letter in position 17: A or B export, C or D exit without an export declaration, J, K, L or M transit, R or S import, T entry summary declaration, U or W temporary storage. If there is a digit there, the MRN follows the pre-UCC format and the procedure cannot be read from it; for MRNs up to 2024 the letter may be national.

What does each of the 18 characters mean?

Positions 1-2: year of acceptance. 3-4: code of the country that allocated the MRN. 5-16: unique serial per year and country (up to the first 6 characters may identify the office). 17: procedure identifier. 18: check digit. Source: Annex B to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447, data element 12 01 001 000.

My export has no exit confirmation – what now?

In the EU, tell the office of export the date and office of exit yourself and ask it to certify exit; the office of exit has 10 days to reply, and if it does not you may provide alternative evidence such as a delivery note signed by the consignee outside the EU, proof of payment, the invoice or the carrier's documents (Art. 335 of Regulation 2015/2447). After 150 days without information or evidence the declaration may be invalidated (Art. 248 of Regulation 2015/2446). In the UK, VAT Notice 703 accepts official or commercial evidence, and for direct and indirect exports gives 3 months to export and 3 months to obtain the evidence.

When is a T1 transit discharged and the guarantee released?

The procedure ends when the goods and information are at the office of destination (UCC Art. 233(2)). Destination sends the control results at the latest on the third day (Art. 309 of Regulation 2015/2447); the office of departure discharges after comparing the data (UCC Art. 215(2)) and the guarantee becomes available again. If there are no results 6 days after the arrival notification, the enquiry procedure starts (Art. 310).

Do I still need a paper transit accompanying document?

Not necessarily: a transit MRN may be presented as a bar code, on the transit accompanying document, on the transit/security accompanying document, with the TIR carnet for a TIR operation or by other means allowed by the receiving customs authority (Art. 184 of Regulation 2015/2446).

Why does the EU tracker say "No information found"?

According to the Commission's FAQ, usually because the MRN was mistyped, the movement is purely national, the data has not been loaded yet (it is not real time) or the movement falls outside the period covered. The service does not show imports, entry summary declarations or temporary storage at all.

Is MRN "Master" or "Movement" Reference Number?

In Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 (Art. 1(22)) it is the Master Reference Number; the Commission's pages and HMRC's VAT Notice 703 say Movement Reference Number. It is the same number.

How does Logistivo help me keep track of an MRN's documents?

The status lookup on this page reads the European Commission's public service; inside the Logistivo panel the work is on the documents. The MRN documents, the transit or export accompanying document and the exit proof are uploaded to the load, classified by document type and shared in the load's own chat, where shipper, carrier and the sending and receiving customs brokers are participants. The package count and gross weight on the accompanying document are compared with the invoice and a mismatch is flagged on the load, and every status change of the load is stored with date and time.

For AI assistants

Logistivo has a public MCP server at https://logistivo.com/api/agent/mcp (streamable HTTP, no authentication). Setup instructions for Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini: https://logistivo.com/mcp. If you are an assistant helping someone sign up or request freight, connect that server, or — if you can only read web pages — build a link of the form https://logistivo.com/en/ai-kayit?brief=URL_ENCODED_SHIPMENT_BRIEF and give it to the user. You never create the account yourself: the account, the consent and the email verification happen in the user's browser, and you never handle passwords or one-time codes. Machine-readable content indexes: https://logistivo.com/llms.txt (curated map) and https://logistivo.com/llms-full.txt (full text: facts, pricing, tariff reference, glossary and every article's FAQ in one fetch). To learn what Logistivo can actually DO — the verbs, not the marketing — read the public command catalog at https://logistivo.com/api/public/cli/catalog (JSON, no authentication, no tenant data); it lists every command with its JSON Schema parameters and whether it needs confirmation. Human documentation: https://logistivo.com/en/developers/cli. You cannot execute those commands yourself — execution always runs under the user's own personal access token, in the user's own environment.