Use casesServices

Customs declaration pre-check

Before a declaration is lodged, someone has to check every item's tariff code, origin, value, weight, and permits against the invoice, packing list, and certificates; an error found later costs extra duty and a penalty.

With the systemEvery document read, each declaration item checked against them, the tariff line cited; the customs broker signs.

Who decides
Customs broker

Sent by the importer · 4 November 2026

Commercial invoice · machine parts, four items

Goods packed on two pallets, shipped by road from Hamburg to İstanbul. Delivery terms: FCA Hamburg.

→ freight to the border is not on the invoice; add it from the freight bill

Illustrative The document as it arrives. In red, what the system marks for your expert.

1. The work

Today

  1. GatherThe importer or exporter sends the file by email, courier, or scan: commercial invoice, packing list, transport document (bill of lading, CMR, or air waybill), the origin proof (certificate of origin, A.TR, or EUR.1), and any permit; the broker's staff chase what is missing.
  2. ReadA declaration specialist reads each document and keys the goods into the draft declaration item by item: description, quantity, net and gross weight, value, currency, and the delivery term.
  3. ClassifyFor each item they choose the tariff code (GTİP) from the tariff schedule, its explanatory notes, past declarations, and any binding tariff information the client holds, and look up the duties, permits, and surveillance the code brings.
  4. CheckThey compare the declaration with the documents by hand: origin against its proof, the customs value with freight and insurance added or deducted by the delivery term, quantities and weights against the packing list and the transport document.
  5. DecideThe customs broker reviews the declaration, signs it, and lodges it in BİLGE; an error that a post-clearance control finds later means additional duty, a penalty, and liability for whoever signed.

With the system

  1. GatherThe agent collects the file's documents from your mailbox and document system and the draft declaration from your declaration software, read-only, and lists any document the goods or the delivery term call for that is not in the file.Agentic AI
  2. ReadThe vision-language model reads each scanned document, stamps and handwriting included, and returns its fields: parties, delivery term, goods, quantities, weights, values, currency, freight, and the origin proof's number and items.SLM
  3. ClassifyThe SLM checks each item's tariff code against the current tariff schedule and explanatory notes it retrieves and any binding tariff information on file, confirms the code or proposes another with its reasons cited, and marks every doubt; it never decides the code.SLM
  4. CheckThe agent hands each declaration item to a worker that checks it against the invoice, packing list, transport document, and origin proof; customs value, totals, weights, and currencies are computed by your written checks, run as code.Agentic AI
  5. DecideThe customs broker reads the pre-check sheet, corrects the declaration, decides each tariff line, origin, and value, and signs and lodges it in BİLGE, as before; nothing is lodged by the system.Person decides

What lands on the desk

The broker gets every document already read, each declaration item checked against them, the customs value and totals computed by your own checks, and each tariff line confirmed or questioned with the tariff texts cited. Each finding names its item and document; the broker decides, signs, and lodges.

FIG. 1 · Pre-check sheetIllustrative
Import declaration · four items · file complete 04.11.2026Machine parts, FCA Hamburg

VLM · documents read

  • metCommercial invoice, delivery term FCA
  • metPacking list and CMR
  • metEUR.1 movement certificate
  • metFreight invoice to the border

Agent · each item against the documents

  • metItems one and two match the invoice and packing list
  • flaggedItem three: gross weight differs from the packing listpacking list
  • flaggedItem four claims preferential origin; the EUR.1 does not list itEUR.1
  • Permits the codes call fornone

SLM · tariff line

  • Item twoDeclared as a part of general use; the invoice and drawing show a part made for one machine, so that machine's parts heading is proposed for the broker to decidetariff + explanatory notes
  • OthersDeclared codes agree with the descriptions

Code · value and totals

  • ValueFCA invoice: freight to the border added from the freight invoice
  • InsuranceNo insurance document in the file: marked missing
  • TotalsItem values add up to the invoice total

SLM · pre-check sheet

Four findings, each with its item, field, and document; the declaration stays the broker's to correct and sign.

  • SLM
  • Agent
  • Code

Why a person decidesThe tariff line, the origin, and the value are the customs broker's to decide and sign; nothing is lodged in BİLGE by the system.

DecidesCustoms broker

2. The system

For your technical team — skip it if you like.

How it works

In

  • Commercial invoice and packing list
  • Bill of lading, CMR, or air waybill
  • Certificate of origin, A.TR, or EUR.1
  • Permits, stamps, and signatures

  1. VLM · reads scanned documents

    Document reader

    Fine-tuned to return each trade document's fields

    Reads

    • Everything under In

    Out

    • Parties and the delivery term
    • Goods, quantities, and weights
    • Values, currency, and freight
    • Origin proof number and its items

  2. Agent · acts

    Pre-check agent

    Coordinator and one worker per declaration item; read-only

    Reads

    • The draft declaration
    • The fields of each document

    Out

    • Each item against the documents
    • The documents against each other
    • Origin proof per item
    • Missing documents and permits listed

  3. Code · calculates

    Value and quantity checks

    Your written checks, run as code; no model

    Reads

    • Values, freight, and insurance
    • Quantities, weights, and currencies

    Out

    • Customs value by the delivery term
    • Item values against the invoice total
    • Weights against packing list and transport

  4. SLM · reasons

    Tariff-line reviewer

    SLM with retrieval over the current tariff; writes the sheet

    Reads

    • Each item's goods description
    • Tariff schedule and explanatory notes
    • Binding tariff information on file

    Out

    • Code confirmed, or another proposed
    • Reasons cited to the tariff texts
    • The pre-check sheet, each finding cited
    • Points of doubt marked

  5. Decision

    Customs broker

    Reads

    • The pre-check sheet and the declaration

    Out

    • Decides each tariff line, origin, and value
    • Corrects the declaration
    • Signs and lodges it in BİLGE
How the agent's work is arrangedOrchestrator–workers

Orchestrator–workers

Each declaration brings its own items, and each item has its own tariff line, origin, value, and permits, so a coordinator plans one worker per item and assembles their findings into one sheet.

How the models are trained and tested

Your expert writes the test first. A step the test does not need is skipped, and we say why.

Show the training steps

Small language model (SLM) and vision-language model (VLM)

  1. Test set

    200–400 past declarations with the versions your senior brokers corrected and any post-clearance findings, each error labeled with its item, field, and document; tariff lines graded by the brokers.

  2. Dataset

    Your own past files, declarations, and corrections; importer and exporter data masked in training copies where the test allows.

  3. Continued pre-training (CPT)If needed

    Only if the base model fails the test on tariff and trade vocabulary in Turkish.

  4. Supervised fine-tuning (SFT)

    On reading each document type, stamps and handwriting included, on reasoned tariff classification in your format, and on the pre-check sheet.

  5. Reinforcement learning (RL)If needed

    Only if fine-tuning leaves tariff-line errors on the test; the reward is the code your senior brokers confirmed, which a person can review.

  6. Retrieval

    Retrieval supplies the current tariff schedule, its explanatory notes, your binding tariff information, and the circulars your brokers select, so a tariff change never needs retraining; values and weights come from the code checks, never from the model.

  7. Monitoring

    The broker reviews every sheet; each correction and each post-clearance finding joins the next test.

Where the agentic system stops

The customs broker decides every tariff line, origin, and value, corrects the declaration, and signs and lodges it in BİLGE.

Show its tools, limits, and record
Tools and access
Reads the draft declaration from your declaration software, the documents from the file's mailbox and document management, and your tariff database and binding tariff information records; read-only otherwise; writes only the pre-check sheet.
May not
Lodge, sign, or change a declaration, decide a tariff line, an origin, or a value, send anything to customs or the client, apply for binding tariff information, or grant itself any access.
Who decides and the written limit
Customs brokerThe customs broker decides every tariff line, origin, and value, corrects the declaration, and signs and lodges it in BİLGE. The system never lodges, signs, or changes a declaration, never decides a tariff line, and never sends anything to customs or the client: every finding goes to the broker.
Stops when
A document it cannot read with confidence, an item its origin proof does not cover, a tariff line where two headings compete or the model is unsure, a permit or license the goods need that is not in the file, or goods your policy flags as restricted: the sheet goes to the broker, marked.
Record
Every document and field read, each item check, the tariff texts retrieved with their dates, the code results, the sheet, and who signed and lodged.

How agentic systems stay inside limits

3. Value and conditions

Where the time goes, and what your institution will measure.

Where the value comes from

  1. Errors found before the declaration is lodged, not in a post-clearance control.
  2. Fewer corrections after registration.
  3. Broker hours freed for the hard classifications.

What your institution measures

  • Declarations corrected after registration
  • Findings from post-clearance controls
  • Time from a complete file to lodging
  • Pre-check time per declaration
Published elsewhere
In its 2025 second-check reviews, the Ministry issued additional assessments and penalty decisions totaling 11.8 billion TL on 49,975 customs declarations registered by firms found to have acted contrary to the rules.

Ministry of Trade (Ticaret Bakanlığı), 15 January 2026

Measured in the Decision Blueprint

Today's corrections after registration and pre-check time per declaration, from your own records, set the baseline; your firm sets the target.

Conditions

The rules, the data, and the known error, with its guard.

  • Where the declaration and the inspection or a post-clearance control differ in the tariff elements or in measures such as number and weight, and the duty difference passes the threshold the law sets, a penalty of three times the difference is charged; an undervalued declaration is treated the same way, and the penalty is charged at a tenth when the declarant reports the error before customs finds it (Customs Law 4458 art. 234/1 and 234/3).
  • Customs may check the commercial documents and data after the goods are released and correct the declaration (art. 73); where a brokerage is a company, those who signed are jointly liable with it for a tax loss they knew or should have known of (art. 229/2). The broker signs; the system only prepares.
  • Binding tariff information binds customs only on the tariff position of goods that match it in every respect, and the holder must prove that match (art. 9); the model cites it only for an item it describes, and the broker confirms.
  • No machine-learning model is needed: what a declaration must meet is written in the tariff, the rules, and the documents. Client files stay on your servers.

Start here

We take a month of declarations with your team, collect the corrections made after registration and any post-clearance findings, and test the document reader on your own scanned files before anything is built.

Who builds it Every engagement is led by an engineer who has built machine-learning models that real decisions run on since 2012, and language models and agentic systems in production since 2024. About eqlx

Request a Decision BlueprintWhat the Decision Blueprint covers

Equalize the gap.

Bring work that takes expertise. Leave knowing the first step.

A short description of the work is enough; no confidential records.

  1. You send a short descriptionNo confidential records, credentials, or production data
  2. The engineer checks whether it fits, and what it would needA model, a small language model, an agent, or none
  3. A proposed first step, or an honest “not a fit”A technical conversation with the engineer
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https://eqlx.ai/use-cases/customs-declaration · Printed copy; the website is the current version.