About this site

Robotics companies travel with their products. Trade fairs, customer demos, pilot deployments, field tests. A robot crosses more borders in a year than most products do in their lifetime. And every crossing raises the same question: how do I get this machine through customs without paying import duty on something I'm bringing straight back?

The answer is usually an ATA Carnet. But the official information about carnets is scattered across customs administrations, chambers of commerce and international organisations, written in legal language, and rarely answers the practical questions: where exactly do I go at the airport? What time does that office close? Which form do I print?

This site collects those answers in one place, in plain language, with links to the official sources for everything. That way you can verify every claim yourself and check that hours and fees are still current.

Who's behind this

This site is made by the team behind RobotLife. What we normally do is help robotics companies ship their machines around the world: planning the shipment, sorting out the logistics, connecting you with shipment providers, keeping everyone in the loop, and making sure everything gets packed the way it should be.

Doing that, we talk to a lot of robotics companies, and one thing kept coming up. ATA Carnets are confusing. Really confusing. A lot of the companies we work with get stuck on them, and there just wasn't one good place to go and learn how the whole thing works.

So we made one. We took everything we'd picked up from the companies we work with, then had a few LLMs scour the internet to pull together as much information as we could find. We checked it, cleaned it up, and put it here. It won't do the paperwork for you, but it should give you a solid starting point and save you a lot of head-scratching.

What this site is not

This is an independent informational guide, not an official government or chamber of commerce resource, and not legal or customs advice. Rules change. Before you travel, confirm the details with the linked official sources. Every page tells you when it was last reviewed.

Scope

The guide covers the European Union (with country pages for Germany and France), the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland in depth. More EU countries and Canada are on the way.

Corrections

Spotted something outdated? An office that moved, hours that changed, a broken link? Corrections are very welcome. Email us at hello@robotlife.app.