Extract data from import and export licenses
Some goods cannot cross a border on a commercial invoice alone. Controlled items, dual-use technology, chemicals, defence-related parts, need a licence from a government authority before they ship, and that licence is a document with a life of its own: a number, an issue date, an expiry date, a status, and a defined scope of goods, parties, and destinations it permits. An exporter, a freight forwarder, and a customs broker all check it before booking, because shipping outside the licence's terms stops the consignment.
What a licence authorises is narrow and coded. It names the exporter and the consignee with their EORI identifiers, fixes the country of dispatch and the country of destination, and lists the goods by Combined Nomenclature code, sometimes with a CUS number for a regulated chemical substance. A dual-use item references the EU control-list entry it falls under. The validity window matters as much as the scope: a licence issued 2026-06-15 and expiring 2027-06-14 covers shipments only inside that range, and the declared value in one ISO 4217 currency and the net mass bound what may move under it.
Talonic reads the licence and returns its identifiers, parties, goods, and validity as structured fields. An export licence issued to Teltow Präzisionselektronik GmbH, consignee Meridian Controls Pte Ltd in Singapore, from the German authority BAFA and numbered BAFA-EX-2026-114879, covering programmable logic controllers bound for destination code SG under commodity code 8542.31.90 with a CUS number, returns the exporter and consignee EORI numbers, the 85,000 EUR declared value, and the expiry date, so a forwarder confirms scope before the goods leave.
What gets extracted from import and export licenses
How extraction works for import and export licenses
Import and export licences are issued by trade-control authorities and arrive as authority PDFs, portal exports, and scans, structured on the EU Customs Data Model but laid out per authority. Talonic classifies the licence and binds it to the customs schema in the Field Registry, which holds the licence number, the issue and expiry dates, the declaration type, the parties with their EORI numbers, the issuing authority, and the status as discrete fields. Goods are captured per item with a Combined Nomenclature code, a country of origin, and a CUS number where a chemical is listed, and the declared value and net mass are typed for reconciliation against the shipment. The validity window is parsed to ISO 8601 so an expired licence is obvious at a glance. Field-level confidence and pixel-region provenance follow DIN SPEC 91491, letting a compliance officer verify scope against the source. The extraction structures the licence and does not determine whether a shipment is licensable.
Sample extraction
A dual-use export licence for controlled electronics
{
"document_number": "BAFA-EX-2026-114879",
"document_date": "2026-06-15",
"expiration_date": "2027-06-14",
"declaration_type": "EX",
"exporter": "Teltow Präzisionselektronik GmbH, Teltow, DE",
"exporter_identification_no": "DE9876543210987",
"consignee": "Meridian Controls Pte Ltd, Singapore",
"importer_identification_no": "SG-UEN-201812345K",
"issuing_authority": "Bundesamt für Wirtschaft und Ausfuhrkontrolle (BAFA)",
"license_status": "valid",
"incoterms": "FCA Hamburg",
"commodity_code": "8542.31.90",
"country_of_origin": "DE",
"country_of_dispatch_export": "DE",
"country_of_destination": "SG",
"declared_value": 85000,
"currency": "EUR",
"net_mass": 320,
"cus_code": "0042831-6",
"goods_items": [
{
"commodity_code": "8542.31.90",
"product_description": "Programmable logic controllers, dual-use listed",
"country_of_origin": "DE",
"cus_code": "0042831-6",
"valuation_method": "transaction value",
"declared_value": 85000,
"currency": "EUR",
"net_mass": 320,
"number_of_packages": 8
}
]
}Frequently asked
Does it capture the validity window?
Yes. The issue date and the expiry date are parsed to ISO 8601 and the licence status is read as stated, so a forwarder can tell at a glance whether a licence is still valid for a booking date.
How are the parties and their EORI numbers handled?
The exporter, the consignee, the declarant, and any representative are captured separately, each with its EORI or identification number, so the licensed parties can be matched against the ones on the shipment.
What are dual-use goods, and how does the licence identify them?
Dual-use goods are items with a civil purpose that can also serve a military or security one, so they need an authorisation from a trade-control authority before they ship. The licence identifies them by Combined Nomenclature code and by the EU control-list entry the item falls under, as with the programmable logic controllers under 8542.31.90 that BAFA cleared for destination code SG. Each goods item keeps its Combined Nomenclature code and, where the licence lists one, its CUS number for a regulated chemical substance, so the controlled scope is captured per line rather than as a single description.
Does it decide whether goods need a licence?
No. The extraction returns what the licence document states: its number, scope, parties, and validity. Whether a given shipment requires a licence is a determination the exporter and the authority make, not the extraction.
What fields are extracted from import and export licenses?
Talonic returns import and export licenses as schema-validated, typed fields. Common fields include Licence Number, Issue Date, Expiry Date, Declaration Type, and more, each normalized (dates to ISO 8601, amounts as numbers) and mapped to a stable key so the output shape stays the same across layouts.
How accurate is extraction from import and export licenses, and how is confidence reported?
Every extracted cell carries a confidence score from 0.0 to 1.0 and a provenance pointer back to the source page and region, so low-confidence values can be reviewed against the original before the data is trusted downstream. There is no single accuracy number: confidence is reported per field so you can gate on it.
Can I use import and export licenses extraction in production?
Yes. The same engine behind this guide is available as a production REST API and Node SDK with sync, async, and streaming modes, schema versioning, signed webhooks, and EU-resident processing. Start free with an API key, then scale on usage-based pricing.
What does it cost to extract data from import and export licenses?
There is a free tier for prototyping and agent evaluation with no credit card. Paid usage is credit-based at 1,000 credits per euro: page ingestion is 100 credits per page and registry-resolved queries are free. See talonic.com/pricing for current rates.
Ready to extract from your own import and export licenses?
- GDPR
- HIPAA
- ISO 27001 / 42001 aligned
- DIN SPEC 91491 co-author
- EU-resident infrastructure
Author note
Reviewed by Talonic engineering · last reviewed 2026-07-06