On 27 June 2025, the World Customs Organization (WCO) advised that the WCO Council, the governing body of the organisation, comprising the heads of 186 Customs administrations, had formally endorsed the proposal for a project entitled “Enhancing the Harmonized System Framework”. The Harmonized System (HS) has become a universal language for identifying and coding merchandise being traded internationally, with almost all the world’s economies using it as a basis for their Customs tariffs and for the collection of trade statistics. Although the HS is a living document that is updated regularly, WCO members have been discussing the relevance and feasibility of a deeper revision. This project will transform these discussions into a series of practical proposals to improve the clarity and user-friendliness of the HS for both Customs and the business community.
Keeping the HS future fit
The major outcomes of this project are expected to be the development of new tools and procedures for use in the HS review cycles, as well as the submission of proposals for changes to the existing provisions of the HS and its tools to enhance clarity and ease of use. As with all changes to the HS, the HS Contracting Parties, through the Harmonized System Committee (HSC), will consider all proposals and will make the decision on whether these proposals and changes are adopted.
The project originates from the final report of the “Exploratory Study on a Possible Strategic Review of the HS,” which was submitted to the Council for consideration in June 2024. To initiate this process, the WCO Secretariat established a small project team tasked with collecting views and suggestions from stakeholders, studying the health of the system and reporting to the WCO’s members on the possibilities for potential improvements to the HS and its tools.
The project is expected to start in the autumn/fall of 2025 and continue over 30 months, finishing during 2028, to ensure that its work can be considered as part of the HS 2033 review cycle.
The HS
The HSC, and the HS it governs, came into force in 1988 with the intention of providing greater uniformity for the classification of globally traded commodity groups. Since the introduction of the HS, its use has spread globally. As of June 2025, the Convention now has 162 contracting parties following the recent addition of El Salvador.
The HS is currently incorporated in the tariff classification schedules of 212 economies (countries, territories, or Customs or economic unions). It not only determines the classification of goods and applicable Customs duties, but is also used to identify goods for various trade facilitation measures, statistical information, Customs controls, and other trade-related purposes.
Since its inception, the HS has undergone seven amendments to produce new editions, reflecting changes in technology and international trade patterns. However, these amendments have generally focused on the classification of specific classes of goods. At the same time, the system as a whole remains essentially unchanged since its introduction in 1988.
The core elements of the HS, namely the General Interpretative Rules (GIR) and the four-digit heading structure, are as old as when they were taken over, with a few changes, from the predecessor of the HS – the Brussels Nomenclature, which came into force in 1959. Given the changes that have occurred in the global trade environment over this extended period, it is essential to examine the underlying aspects of the HS and its tools more closely, as well as how to keep them future-proof.