ATA Carnet & Travel Logistics

The ATA Carnet feature builds the customs paperwork for an international gear shipment directly from your gear list. When you travel outside the EU customs union with film equipment, an ATA Carnet lets you take it out and bring it back without paying duties or import tax on it.

Key Features

Virtual Cases & Packing: Pack your gear into virtual "Cases" (treated as reusable devices in your library).
Automated Validation: Strict adherence to customs rules (like the German IHK's "Warennämlichkeit"). The system automatically flags missing serial numbers, values, weights, or country of origin.
Auto-fill from owned gear: One button copies weight, HS code, country of origin, value and serial numbers onto the carnet rows from your matching owned-gear records, so you only hand-edit what is genuinely missing.
e-ATA CSV Export: Generates a "General List" (Warenliste) formatted for import into customs web applications (e.g. German IHK e-ATA).
Photo Attachments: Upload photos of your gear to serve as identification for items that lack traditional serial numbers.
Quick-Edit & Exclusions: Use the dedicated Quick-Edit Modal to rapidly correct missing serial numbers, adjust weights, or explicitly exclude certain items from the Carnet without removing them from the project.

How to Create an ATA Carnet

Turn the Carnet tab on for the project. It is off by default and nothing turns it on automatically — not your shooting location, not the countries in your project.
- When creating a project: open "Choose Your Tabs" in the new-project form and tick Carnet.
- For an existing project: open the project's card menu on the Dashboard, where you can "Enable or disable workspace tabs", and tick Carnet.
- Navigating to a disabled tab by URL bounces you back to General, so enable it first.
Setup Your Gear Library:
- Ensure your devices have stockValue, country_of_origin, and weight_g filled out.
- For cases, toggle the isCase flag so they can be used to hold other items.
Pack Your Cases:
- Open the Carnet tab in your Project Workspace.
- Use the CaseManager split-view UI to drag and drop (or select) unassigned gear into specific cases.
Fill the gaps, then validate:
- Click "Auto-fill from owned gear" first — it pulls weight, HS code, origin, value and serial numbers from owned-gear records that match your rows.
- Complete the carnet header (holder, destination, purpose). An incomplete header does not stop you, but it raises an "Export anyway?" confirmation naming the problem — and the export button carries a warning badge and a tooltip until you fix it. Items with IHK validation errors go through the same confirmation.
- Review the CarnetValidationView to spot any remaining warnings.
- Click any flagged item to open the Quick-Edit Modal. This allows you to immediately fix missing serial numbers, adjust values/weights, upload identification photos, or use the "Exclude from Carnet" toggle if an item isn't traveling.

Export, then extract the CSV:

Click "Export Carnet ZIP". A Cancel button is available during the export progress to abort long-running operations.

You get a single carnet_<Project>_<date>.zip containing three documents:

File	What it is
`IHK_Warenliste.csv`	the General List — this is the file you upload to the e-ATA portal
`ATA_Carnet_Full_List.pdf`	the printable full list, one row per item, HS code included
`IHK_Fotos.pdf`	the photo appendix (Nämlichkeitssicherung)

Unzip it and upload IHK_Warenliste.csv — the portal takes the CSV, not the archive.

Photo PDF (Nämlichkeitssicherung):
- IHK_Fotos.pdf is always included in the ZIP.
- It presents equipment photos in portrait orientation with position numbers matching the CSV, descriptions, and serial numbers.
- Items without serial numbers but with attached photos get (Foto anbei) appended to their description in the CSV.

💡 e-ATA Portal: Upload your CSV directly to the IHK e-ATA Portal. See the tooltip in the Carnet tab for detailed IHK import instructions.

What the CSV actually contains

The General List is semicolon-separated with this header row:

ZAHLENFOLGE;STUCKZAHL;Handelsübliche Bezeichnung der Waren;GEWICHT;GEWICHTSEINHEIT;WERT;URSPRUNGSLAND;HS-CODE;;

Two things about the numbers are worth knowing before you check them against your own records:

Weight and value are row totals, not per-unit. Quantity is multiplied in, so 2 × 1.2345 kg is written as one row of 2.469. The quantity stays visible in STUCKZAHL.
Decimal separators are periods (2.469, 99.99), and values carry no currency symbol or thousands separator. If your customs portal expects German-format commas, convert on import — the app does not write commas. (This guide claimed the opposite until v0.773.14.)

Important Customs Rules

Serial Numbers: Serial numbers are the primary way customs officers identify gear. If an item lacks a serial number, you must provide alternative identification (e.g., an attached photo or detailed unique description).
Values: Values are exported as bare numbers with no currency symbol. They are whatever your records hold — the app does not convert currencies for the carnet, so make sure your stockValue figures are already in the currency your customs authority expects (EUR for the German IHK).
Weights: Ensure all items have accurate weights, as customs will weigh the cases at the border to verify the manifest. The CSV writes kg for a row of 1 kg or more and switches to g below that, and says which in GEWICHTSEINHEIT.
Country of Origin: Each item needs a country of origin (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code). The stock library covers nearly all built-in devices — 5,338 of 5,406 carry one as of v0.773.14 — and the 68 that do not will be flagged in validation for you to fill in. The country list in the Carnet Fields Editor supports an expanded set of countries.
HS tariff code: The CSV and the full-list PDF both carry an HS-CODE column, and no built-in device supplies one — every HS code is yours to enter, either by hand or via "Auto-fill from owned gear" if your owned-gear records have them. An empty column is accepted by the portal but your chamber may ask for it.

Not yet documented here: the Carnet tab also carries panels for vehicles, transportation and carts/accessories. They work, they are just not covered in this guide yet.

Last Updated: 2026-09-09 Version: 0.790.2