The single most useful customs document in international production freight.

An ATA Carnet is an international customs document that allows the temporary importation of professional equipment — cameras, lenses, lighting, staging, musical instruments — without paying import duties or taxes. It's essentially a passport for your gear: it enters a country, does its job, and leaves, and no duty is owed as long as it leaves within the Carnet's validity period.

The system is administered by local chambers of commerce and guaranteed by national associations. BTS works with the US Council for International Business (USCIB) for US-originating Carnets and has relationships with issuing bodies in the UK and across Europe.

What equipment qualifies?

ATA Carnets cover professional equipment — gear used in a professional context and not intended for sale. For film and television productions, this means camera bodies, lenses, lighting equipment, sound packages, editing systems, and related professional tools. For music tours, it covers instruments, amplifiers, effects units, and staging equipment.

Equipment that does NOT qualify includes consumables (tapes, batteries intended to be left in-country), items intended for sale (merchandise), and cargo that won't be re-exported.

What can go wrong

Carnets are precise documents. Every item listed must match the physical cargo at every border crossing — serial numbers, descriptions, quantities. A discrepancy — even a transposed digit on a serial number — can hold an entire load at customs. In a production context, a held load can mean a missed first day of shooting.

Common problems: items added to the cargo after the Carnet was issued; items left behind in-country (sold, lost, or given away); items that return on a different flight than documented; Carnet paperwork not presented at every border crossing, including transits. BTS manages the Carnet documentation process end-to-end to prevent all of these.

BTS manages the whole process

We prepare the Carnet, ensure equipment lists are accurate, manage the paperwork at each border crossing, track re-exportation deadlines, and handle the post-tour reconciliation. If there's a discrepancy at customs, we're on the phone with the customs officer — not the production coordinator. That's the difference between a specialist and a general freight forwarder.