What it is and who needs it
The EORI identifies your business to every customs authority in the union: importers, exporters and anyone lodging declarations needs one, and freight forwarders ask for it before touching a shipment. One EORI per legal entity, issued by the country of establishment — a Dutch BV holds a Dutch EORI built on its identification number, recognised at every EU border from Rotterdam to the Baltic.
Getting it
The request runs through the Dutch customs administration and lands in days — a genuinely light formality when the entity exists and the activity is described. Non-EU businesses that lodge declarations here obtain an EORI too; groups keep it simple with one number per entity and their forwarders briefed on which entity imports what.
Where it fits in the import stack
The EORI is layer one; the VAT registration is layer two (that timeline); the article 23 licence is the cash-flow layer above (the lever and the application); and warehouse instruments complete the stack for stockholding models: that chapter. Request the EORI in incorporation week and the stack builds on schedule — the first container has never waited for a five-minute number that was requested on time.