Incoterms (an acronym of International Commercial Terms) are used to determine the reciprocal obligations of buyer and seller when drawing up an international commercial contract.

For customs purposes, an Incoterm

• Allocates responsibilities between the buyer and the seller, which has a non-negligible impact on the implementation of the safety and security amendment to the Union Customs Code (UCC) via the ICS and ECS. As part of providing this safety and security data, the Incoterms offer a useful guide to the critical issue of "who does what".
• Plays a role in determining the customs value of the good upon import. To this end, the Incoterm helps optimise customs value rules, and contributes to bolstering the economic performance of firms involved in international trade.
  Depending on the terms selected, some parts of the seller's expenses are already included in the price actually paid or payable, invoiced for the goods, which forms the basis of the transaction value (Article 70 of the UCC).

The new 2010 Incoterms and the former 2000 Incoterms

DAP and DAT are two new Incoterms that came out of the "2010 Incoterm" reform.

The 2000 Incoterms DAF, DES, DEQ and DDU have not be carried over into the new 2010 rules. They may still be employed, but use of the new Incoterms is recommended – DAF, DES and DDU can be replaced by DAP, and DAT can be used in place of DEQ.