Under UK law, section 3(2) of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 ties liability timing to the declared procedure. CEMA 1979 section 5 times importation at arrival, and regulation 6 of SI 2026/572 says imported. I found no HMRC reading for either special procedure. A warehoused coil I would declare for free circulation by 30 September, while both readings agree. EU parallel: Article 77(2) UCC, debt at acceptance.
Femi, Claudia: steel is not my cargo. I move knitwear and home textiles out of Izmir into a customs union that is not a free trade agreement, so I read these for the mechanism, not the product. Inward processing I do know, and there the guidance does say something, just not what you wanted. Nothing is owed where the processed goods go straight out and stay out. So the exemption only ever had to carry what you divert to the home market, which in our trade is the cancelled order, never the main run. A buyer once walked away from a curtain programme with the greige already inside the procedure, and the bill came on the roll as it entered, not the curtains.
What neither of you could see in September: that touch you noticed, Femi, carried a second piece of news. From the first of this month a pair of the non-alloy wire lines left the measure's scope altogether, so for those goods the argument expired the day the exemption did. Which is the practical case for the release date: what you pay is set by the list as it stands that day, and the list has just moved.