The export declaration is required by the responsible customs office (office of export) for goods shipped to countries outside of the EU. It acts as a customs document for export controls, a document of registration with the export trade statistics and if necessary as proof of exemption from value added tax. In Germany a written export declaration must be submitted for any shipment with a value which exceeds the statistical threshold of € 1000. Since 1 July 2009 export declarations can only be submitted electronically using the ATLAS export procedure.