Importing and exporting works of art: What nobody tells you about deadlines, certificates and the real pitfalls

---

01Before crossing the border: understanding what you are actually exporting

The first mistake that collectors and galleries make — even experienced ones — is treating the export of a work of art the way they would treat sending an ordinary parcel. It is a costly mistake. Every country has built, over decades, a regulatory arsenal that classifies works into categories according to their age, value, material and heritage status.

Within the European Union, the reference regulation is now Regulation (EU) 2019/880, which entered fully into force in 2025. It replaces Regulation (EEC) No. 3911/92 of 1992 and introduces considerably stricter due diligence requirements, particularly for cultural goods imported from third countries. The text distinguishes several categories by age and value: to leave the EU, an export licence is required, for example, for a painting more than 50 years old above 150,000 euros, a watercolour above 30,000 euros or a drawing above 15,000 euros (Regulation (EC) No 116/2009, Annex I). An archaeological sculpture more than 100 years old, regardless of price, falls into an even more sensitive category.

In post-Brexit United Kingdom, the framework of the Waverley Criteria — established in 1952 by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art — remains in force. It assesses three criteria: connection to national history, aesthetic importance, and value for research. The Export Licensing Unit of Arts Council England can temporarily block an export if a British institution is able to match the proposed price. This mechanism has saved, among other things, Gainsborough's The Blue Boy, which had left the United Kingdom in 1921 for the Huntington Library in California, and an equivalent work today could not leave without a review period.

---

02The certificate of free circulation is not a blank cheque

In France, the system is particularly sophisticated — and formidably unknown to first-time exporters. Since the law of 31 December 1992, cultural goods above age and value thresholds set per category require an export certificate issued by the Ministry of Culture; since decree No 2020-1718, in force on 1 January 2021, the threshold is for example 300,000 euros for a painting more than 50 years old and 100,000 euros for a sculpture (procedure on douane.gouv.fr). This certificate can take two forms: either a certificate of free circulation (the item is not considered a national treasure), or a refusal accompanied by a proposal for the State to purchase it.

It is this second scenario that makes dealers uneasy. When the State refuses the certificate, it has thirty months to raise funds and purchase the work at the estimated price. Throughout this period, the owner exists in a strange legal limbo: they possess their property, but cannot freely dispose of it. La Danse by Matisse, which has hung in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg since 1909, nearly became the subject of a similar procedure in 2007 when a preparatory canvas came close to leaving French territory.

The Service des musées de France and the Commission nationale des trésors nationaux examine submitted files. Instruction periods vary considerably: between three and six months for a certificate granted without difficulty, but potentially much longer for a sensitive item. Galleries participating in international fairs such as Paris+ par Art Basel — which replaced FIAC in 2022 — must anticipate these timelines by preparing their files months in advance, not at the last minute in September.

---

03The ATA Carnet: the indispensable tool that few galleries truly master

For temporary exports — loans to foreign museums, participation in fairs, gallery exhibitions abroad — the ATA Carnet is the pivotal document. Administered in France by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it allows goods to circulate across more than 87 signatory countries without paying customs duties or VAT, on condition that the works return to the country of origin within the allotted period (generally one year, renewable).

In practice, the ATA Carnet functions like a passport for objects. Every border crossing is stamped by local customs. Upon expiry, if the works have not returned, the guaranteeing chamber of commerce must pay the duties that would have been owed — which can represent considerable sums for high-value works. Galleries such as Thaddaeus Ropac, which operates spaces in Paris, Salzburg, London and Seoul, or Hauser & Wirth with its nine locations worldwide, have dedicated logistics teams whose sole function is managing ATA Carnets in continuous rotation, synchronised with exhibition schedules.

What less structured galleries often discover to their cost: an ATA Carnet incorrectly completed can be refused at the border. A description error, a value that does not match the commercial invoice, a missing entry in the goods table — and the work is held in customs while the problem is resolved. In the best case, a few hours' delay. In the worst, an opening night installation proceeds without its centrepiece works.

---

04The materials that complicate everything: CITES, ivory and exotic timber

One area where even seasoned professionals are caught off guard: the materials from which works are made. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which binds more than 180 states and which the EU applies through Regulation (EC) No 338/97, applies fully to the art market.

A Louis XV bureau with tortoiseshell inlays, a Japanese netsuke in walrus ivory, an African sculpture incorporating parrot feathers: all these objects fall under CITES. Export requires a specific permit issued by the competent national authority — in France, the CITES Secretariat at the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Timelines run from two to four months, and refusal is possible if the legal origin of the materials cannot be proven.

Ivory is the most sensitive case. Since the regulatory tightening of the 2010s, proving that an object contains ivory is no longer sufficient: one must demonstrate that the ivory predates 1947 (so-called "antique" ivory), or falls within one of the rare permitted exceptions. DNA testing and carbon-14 dating are now routinely used by auction houses such as Sotheby's and Drouot to certify their objects before submitting them for export.

---

05Brexit, sanctions and new geographies of risk

The United Kingdom's departure from the European Customs Union on 1 January 2021 redrawn the logistical map of the art market in ways that its participants are still absorbing. Before Brexit, a painting bought at Frieze London could join a Brussels or Parisian collection without any particular customs formality. Today, an export declaration must be filed on the British side, then an import declaration on the European side, with potential VAT liability on entry into the EU (unless specific statuses apply), along with strengthened provenance documentation.

The Art Basel/UBS Report of 2022 highlighted a contraction in transaction volumes between the United Kingdom and the EU, attributable in part to this new administrative friction. Established London galleries have opened outposts in Paris or Amsterdam — White Cube has strengthened its Paris presence, Victoria Miro has developed relationships with continental partners — partly to ease these exchanges.

The sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine created another abrupt rupture. Since March 2022, European regulations explicitly prohibit the export of cultural goods to Russia. TEFAF Maastricht, which had included several Russian dealers and numerous loans from Russian collections, was forced to entirely reconfigure certain of its sections. Works promised on loan for months by Russian museums remained blocked. Sales contracts legally concluded before 24 February 2022 had to be cancelled or placed in escrow.

---

06The real timelines: what experts don't tell you upfront

Here is what no official brochure states: the timelines given by administrations are theoretical timelines. The reality on the ground is different.

For an export certificate application in France, the legal instruction period is three months. In practice, for an uncontested work by a living contemporary artist valued below 300,000 euros, you will often receive a response within four to six weeks if the file is complete. For a nineteenth-century work whose classification as a "national treasure" is uncertain, allow six to nine months — or more if the national commission requests additional expert assessment.

For CITES permits, the two-to-four-month guideline is generally met, but only if supporting documents are assembled from the outset. Incomplete applications go back to the start of the queue. Specialist carriers such as Hasenkamp in Germany, Momart in the United Kingdom or Crozier in the United States know these timelines better than anyone and build them into their schedules from the moment an order is taken.

US Customs and Border Protection adds a further layer for antiquity imports: since 2023, strengthened documentary requirements arising from bilateral cultural protection agreements (signed with more than 25 countries including Italy, Greece and China) require the provision of ownership documentation predating 1970 — the date of the UNESCO Convention — for any object classified as a cultural good. Without this documentation, the object may be held indefinitely, or even seized.

---

07What freeports don't actually solve

The use of freeports — those duty-free storage zones such as the Geneva Free Ports, the Singapore Freeport or the Luxembourg Freeport — is often presented as an elegant solution allowing customs and tax formalities to be deferred. This is accurate in a very specific sense: as long as a work remains within a freeport, it is technically neither imported nor exported, and no VAT or customs duties are owed.

But this solution has its structural limits. First, it does nothing to resolve the question of export licences from the country of origin: if a work has left France without an export certificate, its entry into a Swiss freeport does not retroactively regularise the situation. Furthermore, the EU has progressively hardened its position on freeports in the context of combating money laundering through the art market — the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (2018) and the 6th (2020) impose reporting obligations on freeport operators holding high-value cultural goods.

The European Commission launched a consultation in 2023 on transparency in transactions within free zones, suggesting stricter regulation in the years ahead. Auction houses and major galleries advising their clients on freeport storage must now frame it within a comprehensive compliance strategy, rather than treating it as a simple tax optimisation tool.

---

08What professionals do differently

The market participants who navigate these procedures without incident share one characteristic: they treat regulatory compliance as an integral part of the artistic and commercial process, not as a last-minute constraint.

A gallery such as Kamel Mennour, which regularly lends works to international institutions, or Nathalie Obadia, whose programme circulates between Paris and Brussels, maintains ongoing relationships with lawyers specialised in art law — Pierre Valentin in the United Kingdom, firms such as Fromantin-Beaumont in France — and with customs agents accredited for cultural goods.

Provenance documentation is assembled early, from the moment a work is acquired: invoices, certificates of authenticity, exhibition history, correspondence with the artist or their estate. This file, kept up to date, is what allows a customs request to be answered promptly, pre-1970 ownership to be demonstrated for an archaeological piece, or the absence of CITES materials to be proven in a complex sculpture.

The real lesson of the Salvator Mundi — beyond the speculation about its authenticity and its whereabouts — may be precisely this: even at 450 million dollars, a work can disappear into administrative fog if the documentation is not watertight. For more modest collections, the consequences of a poorly handled file are even more immediate: delays, customs storage fees, and possible seizure. The art market is global, but its rules remain obstinately local.