BEIJING, CHINA IMPORTANT CUSTOMS INFORMATION Under the Chinese Customs law, you are only allowed to import one air and one sea shipment to Beijing. All shipments must be imported within 6 months of your arrival. As the owner of the goods, you are required to apply for an IMPORT PERMIT prior to the arrival of your shipments in Beijing. Without a valid IMPORT PERMIT, your shipments cannot be customs cleared. Separate shipments are allowed, which means you can have an air shipment first follow by a sea shipment later. However, both shipments must be imported within 6 months of your arrival in Beijing. All-to-be-imported items must be declared at the time of applying for the IMPORT PERMIT. In other words, when you apply for the IMPORT PERMIT you must declare all the items in the air and sea shipment. It is not necessary for you to apply the IMPORT PERMIT in person. Interdean.Interconex will assist you in the application; however, the IMPORT PERMIT must be applied for before the shipment(s) arrive in Beijing. The Beijing Customs do not allow more than one application of Import Permit under one person's name. Therefore it is important to let us know the total number of shipments (air/sea) prior to the application of the IMPORT PERMIT. DOCUMENTS REQUIRED TO APPLY FOR AN IMPORT PERMIT Your Personal and Working Documents: If you are holding a foreign passport, the following documents are required: 1) Passport Must be original. Photocopy is not acceptable. We will collect it from you upon your arrival in Beijing. 2) Residence visa You must have already obtained a valid Residence visa. The Residence visa is usually pasted inside your passport with the heading Residence Permit For Foreigner In The People s Republic Of China. The Residence visa is usually valid for at least six (6) months to one year. 3) Employment Permit You must have already obtained a valid Employment Permit. This is usually issued in a form of a small brown book. 1
Shipping Documents 1) Packing list This will be provided to us by the Origin Office after the packing. As mentioned above, if you have an air & a sea shipment, we need the packing lists for both shipments in order to apply for the Import Permit. 2) Bill of Lading This will be provided to us by the Origin Office Airway Bill 3) Fumigation Certificate Every shipment from EC, USA, Canada, and Japan with wooden packing material needs to be fumigated, and a fumigation certificated is required. If there is no wood packing material in the shipment, the Chinese customs required a declaration for non-wooden packing material. 4) Chinese Customs Forms Interdean.Interconex will prepare and take these customs forms to you for your signature. Information on how to apply for your personal and working documents: The issuance of the Residence Visa and the Employment Permit can be a very lengthy process in China. Your employer in China is responsible to apply these documents for you. For the sake of providing you with a general time-scale of how it works, we outline below the process and timescale for your reference. In general, you must first arrive in Beijing under a valid traveling visa. There are various types of Chinese visa for various types of travelers. The most common one is the F visa, which is a short-term multiply-entry business visa. Your employer in China should immediately arrange for you to undergo a physical medical examination at one of the government-designated hospital. The physical medical examination result will usually be ready in one week. Upon receiving the medical result, your employer should proceed to apply the Employment License for you. The Employment License will usually be approved in 1 2 weeks. Upon receiving the Employment License, your employer should proceed to apply the Employment Permit for you. Again, the process could take 1 2 weeks. Finally, after receiving the Employment Permit, your employer should proceed to apply the final document for you, i.e., the Residence Visa The whole process starting from undergoing the physical medical examination in Beijing up to the issuance of the Residence Visa could take about 3 5 weeks. 2
When to Have Your Shipments Arrive in Beijing? As you can see from the above, we do not recommend the Origin Office to export your shipments immediately after packing. It is not advisable to have your shipments arrive in Beijing while you are still applying and waiting for the Employment Permit & the Residence Visa. It is important that you (or your employer) informed us about the estimated time you think you will receive the Employment Permit and the Residence Visa. We will then inform the Origin Office to make arrangement to export your shipments so that it will arrive in Beijing about the same time when you receive the Employment Permit and the Residence Visa. We suggest that you provide us with the contact name and information of the person in charge in your company here in Beijing as soon as possible so that we could begin liaison immediately. Application of the Import Permit When you have finally received the Employment Permit and the Residence Visa, we will arrange to see you in your office to collect these documents from you. At the same time, we will take with us the Chinese Customs forms for you to sign on it. We will then proceed to apply for the IMPORT PERMIT on your behalf. Depending on the registration status of your company in China, the IMPORT PERMIT usually takes between 3 5 days to be approved. During the application of the IMPORT PERMIT, your passport and the working documents will be kept by the Customs. Note: For returning Chinese citizen (Mainland Chinese passport holders), it is not necessary to apply for the Import Permit. The original passport will be needed for custom clearance upon arrival of the goods-it s important to check with us, prior to packing, on the latest regulations that apply for Chinese passport holder. For Hong Kong passport holders, original Huixiangzhen will also be needed for the application of the import permit. For Taiwan passport holders, original taibaozhen is needed. Customs Clearance & Inspections Once the Import Permit is approved, we will make arrangement for customs clearance immediately (if the ship or flight has arrived). The customs clearance process on the sea shipment takes about 5-6 working days, which includes the picking up of the sea shipment at the seaport, transporting the sea shipment from the seaport to Beijing city, shipment entering the Beijing Customs Warehouse for final customs inspection as well as the Quarantine Inspection. At this point, the goods will be unloaded from the steamship container. Liftvans will be devanned. Customs will randomly select the boxes/packages in the shipment for inspection. Our crew will be present at the Beijing Customs Warehouse to assist in the inspection. It is not necessary for you to be present at the time of the inspection. At this point, the Beijing Customs will also levy the import duty / tax on your shipment. Upon completion of the inspection, we will load the goods into our covered-trucks for the delivery to your residence for unpacking. The customs clearance process on the air shipment is similar to the sea shipment, however the estimate clearance time for an air shipment is about 2-3 working days only. 3
Customs Import Duty/Tax Every shipment is subject to Customs import duty/tax, regardless whether the items are new or used. This is true even if goods have been in your possession for many years and are considered not new. Even returning Chinese national needs to pay Customs import duty/tax on his/her shipment. Any items not declared on the packing list may be confiscated, detained or incur penalties. (This is decided by the Customs). As a general guideline, while all clothes and kitchenware can be imported into China duty free for all first time importers, all electrical items, furniture, bedding items and lamps are subject to duty. The Import Duty/Tax amount is calculated based on Customs Assessed Value. A COPY OF THE ESTIMATED DUTY/TAX TARIFF IS ATTACHED. Only diplomats and military officials goods do not go though inspection and are not subject to duties. Prohibited Items With immediate effect, the following prohibited items are NOT ALLOWED at all in the sea or air shipment for Beijing: Arms, Weapons & Explosives Poisons or illegal drugs Wine / Alcohol All kinds of Food Printed/recorded material deemed detrimental to the political, economic, cultural, or moral atmosphere in China (including all pornographic materials) Overlarge office items, such as large photocopier machine, those are not considered for a family use. Maps (where the Chinese border is not in accordance with Chinese law) All kinds of equipment/tool associated with gambling (such as poker cards, chips, etc) Endangered and rare animals and their products, such as ivory Counterfeit currencies Motorcycles Any other items that are determined by the Beijing Customs to be of non-personal or non-family usage. Please note that the import regulation (as well as the import duty and tax rates charged) in China change often and differ from location to location. Which rules are applied, how strictly regulations are followed and how much duty is charged is largely left to the discretion of the individual Customs officer handing the shipment. China shipments tend to progress quite slowly 4
and frequently encounter problems due to changing Customs practices and the often frequent business travel undertaken by the client which delays application for the various permits. Interdean.Interconex asks for your patience and can assure you that we will do our best to clear shipments as smoothly and quickly as possible. This information was correct at the time of preparation. However, changes in laws and conventions occur frequently and can affect the importation of goods into China. While every effort is made to keep this information as up to date as possible, Interdean.Interconex will not accept any responsibility or liability for any losses or delays incurred as a result of changes in Chinese import or export regulations. 5