Attached to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the General Directorate of Customs and Excise is in touch with contemporary issues: accelerated trade, new technologies, new threats.
The customs function is fundamentally regalian.
Customs is responsible for maintaining borders, whether they are land, sea, physical or digital, in order to protect the territory.
- It handles the flow of goods across borders with constantly evolving resources to adapt to new challenges;
- it has an international presence;
- it is a border guard and as such participates fully in the mission of migratory control at border crossing points;
- it invests in the digital border in order to meet the challenges of e-commerce, which is in full development.
Customs is also the administration of goods, responsible for controlling them to protect the population, the economy and the environment.
- It fights against trafficking, organized crime and the financing of terrorism through the use of new technologies;
- it is responsible for controlling the conformity of goods to the standards required on the territory of the EU;
- it is present alongside companies by accompanying them in their customs operations to secure their logistical circuits;
- it ensures the regulation of the specific sectors of indirect taxation and viticulture by securing the production and circulation of their products.
As the first civil administration at sea in charge of the surveillance and protection of the maritime border, the Customs Coast Guard carries out a wide variety of offshore and semi-offshore missions. It devotes a large part of its activity to the fight against illicit trafficking at sea (smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, illegal immigration, etc.), and ensures compliance with tax legislation (taxation of pleasure boats, foreign trade control measures, etc.). It also ensures all the other missions of the State's action at sea, such as the protection of people and property, the protection of the environment and marine heritage, or maritime security.