World Customs Organization

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World Customs Organization

Abbreviation	WCO
Formation	26 January 1953; 71 years ago (1953-01-26)[1]
Type	Intergovernmental organization
Location	Brussels, Belgium
Membership	186 customs administrations
Official language	English and French
Secretary General	Ian Saunders (January 2024 - present)
Website	www.wcoomd.org

The World Customs Organization (WCO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The WCO works on customs-related matters including the development of international conventions, instruments, and tools on topics such as commodity classification, valuation, rules of origin, collection of customs revenue, supply chain security, international trade facilitation, customs enforcement activities, combating counterfeiting in support of intellectual property rights (IPR), illegal drug enforcement, combating counterfeiting of medicinal drugs,^[2] illegal weapons trading, integrity promotion, and delivering sustainable capacity building to assist with customs reforms and modernization. The WCO maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) goods nomenclature, and administers the technical aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Customs Valuation and Rules of Origin.^[3][4]