Curated by Vinod Kumar Jain & Amit Jain · All Frontier Global · free, no login
Authorised Economic Operator status — the customs “trusted trader” mark under the WCO SAFE Framework, covering India’s CBIC AEO T1–T3, the EU’s AEOC/AEOS and their mutual-recognition partners — is assessed on a few real pillars: compliance history, records management, financial solvency, competence and security. Score yourself honestly against them below. Everything runs in your browser, and the result is a self-assessment, not a determination.
What the criteria actually are
Customs compliance — no serious or repeated infringements of customs and tax rules (authorities typically look back around three years), and no serious criminal offences tied to the business.
Records management — a satisfactory system for managing commercial and, where relevant, transport records, giving customs an audit trail.
Financial solvency — proven ability to meet commitments: no insolvency, sound accounts.
Practical competence — practical standards of competence or professional qualification in customs matters (an EU AEOC criterion; India looks for equivalent capability).
Security & safety — appropriate standards for premises, cargo, personnel and business partners, required for security-type authorisations such as EU AEOS and India AEO-T2/T3/LO.
What this score is not
It is a self-assessment, not a customs determination. Nobody here audits anything. You answer, the browser adds it up. AEO status is granted only after the customs authority’s own audit of your premises, systems and records.
The scoring is ours, and it is crude on purpose — Yes = 1, Partly = 0.5, No = 0, ten items, equal weights. Real assessments do not weight equally and do not average: a single serious compliance failure can end an application that scores well everywhere else.
The tiers differ by country. India runs T1, T2, T3 and Logistics Operator; the EU splits AEOC (customs simplifications) from AEOS (security). The criteria that matter, and the evidence demanded, vary between them.
A high score here means you are ready to prepare an application — not that you would pass one.
Sources
The criteria summarised above come from the official programmes, which govern: WCO SAFE Framework package · EU AEO programme · India AEO portal (CBIC). The ten statements and the banding are our own plain-English rendering for self-review; nothing you enter leaves the page or is stored.