Goods - Lithuania

Updated 11/2010

Legal requirements

Free movement of goods is regulated by the following main legal acts:

Law on Product Safety
Regulations for the Removal of Obstacles to Free Movement of Goods
Regulations for the Designation and Notification of Testing Laboratories and Certification and Control Bodies
Regulations for the Free Movement of Goods and Exchange of Information about National Measures
Regulations for the Exchange of Information on Standards, Technical Regulations and Conformity Assessment Procedures
Law on the Conformity Assessment

The Ministry of Economy coordinates the implementation of EU internal market policy in Lithuania.

Ministry of Economy

Restrictions

Goods being sold in Lithuania must be labelled in accordance with the procedure provided in legal acts.

Regulations for the Labelling and Indication of Price of Items (Goods) Being Sold in the Republic of Lithuania

Food sector

The State Food and Veterinary Service (SFVS) performs control to ensure that the food being supplied to the country's market is safe, properly labelled, and meets food safety, quality, labelling, and other requirements set in EU and Lithuanian legal acts.

SFVS also inspects to ensure that food being exported meets the requirements of Lithuania and the importing state, and promotes trust in food produced in Lithuania by Lithuanian and foreign consumers.

Food safety and quality

Non-food sector

The State Non-Food Products Inspectorate under the Ministry of Economy is charged by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and other legal acts to oversee the non-food products and monitors if non-food products placed on the market meet the requirements of legal acts regulating the safety, quality and labeling of non-food products.

State Non-Food Products Inspectorate

The Weaponry Fund of the Republic of Lithuania under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania is responsible for the field of regulation of firearms, explosives and ammunition.

Weaponry Fund of the Republic of Lithuania

The Lithuanian Metrology Inspectorate is responsible for the control of compliance of measurement instruments, product quantities, measuring vessels to metrology related legal acts and the related market surveillance.

Lithuanian Metrology Inspectorate

The Lithuanian Maritime Safety Administration is responsible for the supervision of the market for marine equipment, supplied to ships registered in the Register of Seagoing Ships of the Republic of Lithuania, the supervision of the market for pleasure boats and private boats and their components.

Lithuanian Maritime Safety Administration

The Radiation Protection Centre is responsible for the surveillance and control of radiation protection.

Radiation Protection Centre

The Communications Regulatory Authority is responsible for the surveillance of radio equipment and terminal equipment.

Communications Regulatory Authority

The State Health Care Accreditation Agency under the Ministry of Health is responsible for the supervision of the market of medical devices.

State Health Care Accreditation Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency - pursues the state control of the management of chemical substances and preparations.

Environmental Protection Agency

The State Public Health Service under the Ministry of Health carries out the state public health safety control of the services in health care, health education, housing, beauty services, solariums etc., and the production of cosmetics and the products that can be in contact with food.

State Public Health Service

The State Medicines Control Agency under the Ministry of Health is responsible for

the control of activities of drug manufacturers,

wholesale distribution companies and pharmacies in Lithuania;

the performance of clinical trials

and the legal circulation of narcotic and psychotropic drugs.

State Medicines Control Agency

The State Railway Inspectorate under the Ministry of Transport and Communications carries out the function of market surveillance of the components of interaction in the various complexes of railway transport infrastructure, rolling-stock system and operating systems.

State Railway Inspectorate

The State Road Transport Inspectorate under the Ministry of Transport and Communications carries out the market supervision of the motor vehicles, trailers and the components of these motor vehicles.

State Road Transport Inspectorate

The State Labour Inspectorate inspects, if work equipment in use, workplaces, technological processes, working conditions meet the requirements of laws or normative acts.

State Labour Inspectorate

Excise duty

Excise duty is usually levied on ethanol and alcoholic beverages, processed tobacco, energy products, electricity.

The payer of excise duty is usually the owner of a warehouse with goods on which excise duty is levied, a registered receiver of goods on which excise duty is levied.

Law on Excise Duty
Information about excise duty

Trade licensing requirements

The Ministry of Economy, being the competent institution in the implementation of EU trade policy with third countries, issues the following:

import licences for the import of steel and its products, potassium chloride;
surveillance documents for the import of textile goods and steel and its products;
up-front authorisations for economic outward processing in third countries of textile goods;
export licenses for the export of dual-use goods.
European Union trade regime
Control on the export of dual-use goods

Appealing against trade barriers

Unfounded requirements of state institutions, which restrict the free movement of goods, may be appealed directly to the market surveillance authorities establishing such requirements. In case of a failure to find a joint resolution, entrepreneurs can appeal to the SOLVATE centre operating under the wing of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania, which deals with complaints of misapplication of the European Union law by public authorities without legal proceedings. It is also possible to seek help and advice in the administrative court under the Law on Administrative Proceedings (see section on Disputes).

SOLVIT centre

Administrative procedures

Permits and licences

Trade in alcohol and tobacco products is a licensed activity.

Licences for retail trade in alcohol and tobacco products are issued by the executive institutions of the municipalities.

Licenses for wholesale trade in alcohol and tobacco products are issued by the State Tobacco and Alcohol Control Authority under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania.

Regulations for the Licensing of Wholesale and Retail Trade in Alcohol Products
Regulations for the Licensing of Retail Trade in Tobacco Products
Regulations for the Licensing of Wholesale Trade in Tobacco Products
State Tobacco and Alcohol Control Authority under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

International VAT number

Persons resident outside the territory of the European Communities shall be registered as VAT payers through their subdivision in Lithuania or, if they do not have such subdivision, through a fiscal agent appointed in the Republic of Lithuania.

The requirement to appoint a fiscal agent is not applicable to persons of EU Member States. Such persons may choose to register as a VAT payer directly or through an appointed fiscal agent.

Legal entities wishing to register as VAT payers must fill out form FR0388.

Natural persons must fill out form FR0389.

Registration of entities of a foreign state as payers of value added tax in Lithuania
Forms

Invoicing requirements

If a seller is a payer of VAT, then the sales of goods and provision of services is usually documented by issuing a VAT invoice.

Mandatory requisites of VAT invoices are provided in Article 80 of the Law on Value Added Tax.

Law on Value Added Tax

A VAT invoice usually must be issued immediately after the delivery of goods or provision of services.

If the fact of the delivery of goods (or provision of services) is documented not with a VAT invoice, but with a cash register receipt, then a VAT invoice is usually only issued if the buyer (or client) so requests.

Information on VAT invoices

Declaring sales of goods

The procedure for completing the Single Administrative Document (SAD), which can be used as a proof that the goods have the customs status of Community goods, is regulated by the order of the Director General of the Customs Department:

Instruction for completing the Single Administrative Document

Submitting statistics

Persons registered as VAT payers in Lithuania who are conducting sales transactions with EU states must submit Intrastat reports every month.

Intrastat reports
The rules on the filling, submission and acceptance of Intrastat reports

VAT payers who have not exceeded Intrastat thresholds are relieved of the duty to submit Intrastat reports.

Orders on the determination of Intrastat thresholds

A VAT payer may submit an Intrastat report electronically or in a written form.

Electronic submission of Intrastat reports

Intrastat reports are to be submitted to the Statistics Analysis Division of a territorial customs after the end of the reference month by the 10th business day of the next month.

Forms for Intrastat reports
Regulations for the Completion, Submission and Acceptance of Reports on the Trade of a Lithuanian VAT Payer with EU States

Suspension of tariffs or access to new tariff quotas

In order to strengthen the potential of the EU industry, to facilitate the competition of manufacturers with third countries and to help EU companies access raw materials, semi-finished products or components not available or available in insufficient amounts in the EU, the European Commission provides the possibility to suspend import duties on specific products imported from third countries or to obtain a tariff quota.

In order to have duty suspended or obtain quota tariff on industrial goods (sections V-XXI of the Combined Nomenclature) company should complete by 15 February (for the request to take effect from 1 January of the next year) or by 15 August (for the request to take effect from 1 July of the next year)

the request for duty suspension or quota

and send it to the Trade Policy Division of the External Economic Relations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The request must include a detailed description of the product, the technical parameters of the product, the reasoning why the duty suspension or tariff quota is required. Requests must meet the requirements of the European Commission Communication concerning autonomous tariff suspensions and quotas.

Request form and additional information - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Sections V-XXI of the Combined Nomenclature

International transport document

Railway transport

For international rail freight transport in the space of the Organisation for Co-operation between Railways (OSJD) SMGS waybill is mainly used (Annex 12 of the Agreement on the International Freight Traffic (SMGS). For international freight transport between the members of the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) CIM waybill is used. For international freight transport between the spaces of OSJD and COTIF CIM/SMGS waybill can be used (Annex 22 of the Agreement on the International Freight Traffic (SMGS).

Uniform Rules Concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail (CIM) [90 KB]

Road transport

For carriage of goods by road a CMR waybill is required, the use of which is

regulated by the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR).

Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR)

Water transport

Article 14 of the Maritime Shipping Law of the Republic of Lithuania provides that the existence of the contract of carriage of goods by sea and its content is approved by a bill of lading or other document. The goods are transported by sea in accordance with the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading of 1924 (Hague Rules) and the protocols amending this Convention.

In general sense a bill of lading in the national law of the Republic of Lithuania is defined in the Article 1.106 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania.

Apart from the bill of lading, marine waybill is also used, which is defined in Item 4 of the General Rules for Sea Freight as the document issued by a ship operator to the consignor confirming the fact of the cargo reception and proving the existence of shipment contract.

Maritime Shipping Law of the Republic of Lithuania
Hague Rules
Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania
General Rules for Sea Freight

Air transport

To engage in air transportation, the certificate of carrier and the license to engage in air carriage are required. Certificate of carrier is issued by the Civil Aviation Administration, in accordance with the description of procedure for issuing civil aviation operator's certificate; license to engage in air carriage - by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, in accordance with the regulations on licensing for air transport and the provisions of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules for the operation of air services in the Community.

Description of Procedure for Issuing Civil Aviation Operator's Certificate
Regulations on Licensing for Air Transport
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Common Rules for the Operation of Air Services in the Community [54 KB]
Civil Aviation Administration
Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania

Disputes

You may consult an administrative court for help and advice in accordance with the Law on Administrative Proceedings if you think that EU internal market legal acts infringe on your vested interests, or they are not being correctly implemented in relation to them.

Administrative courts
Law on Administrative Proceedings
SOLVIT - extrajudicial dispute resolution

Resources

Information for businesspeople about export and business in Lithuania
Central Public Procurement Information System: public procurement announcements, information on public procurement, implementation of public procurement procedures

Check also the legislation on this topic in:

Goods - Lithuania