Has anyone imported and shipped products from overseas to the US?

[Xeon]

I have a batch of products that are being manufactured in Asia, and I need them to be shipped to my fulfillment warehouse in the US. I'm planning to use DHL, but does the US government / customs charge import taxes for this sort of thing?

The whole shipment is about 40 pounds (~20 KG).

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Longinus]

Ask your supplier if they can ship it, it will probably be cheaper for you. If they ship it with DHL or UPS or another express service, you won't have to pay duties.

 

[Xeon]

Ask your supplier if they can ship it, it will probably be cheaper for you. If they ship it with DHL or UPS or another express service, you won't have to pay duties.

Yup, my supplier is the one shipping for me.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

For 20kgs - ship DHL, FedEx, or UPS. Ask supplier to give you prices for as many as possible. Most of the time DHL is cheaper, but occasionally one of those other two is.

If you want to go real cheap, EMS is the way to go but they're less reliable and rarely have tracking.

If they ship it with DHL or UPS or another express service, you won't have to pay duties.

And this is not entirely true.

If you do a significant air shipment via someone like DHL, they'll follow up with a bill for the duties. They won't charge you right away, but two months later you'll get hit with a phone call and an invoice.

If you do a small 20kg shipment then you're fine, but if you scale up to 500kg's+ then expect a bill a couple months later.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Longinus]

And this is not entirely true.

If you do a significant air shipment via someone like DHL, they'll follow up with a bill for the duties. They won't charge you right away, but two months later you'll get hit with a phone call and an invoice.

If you do a small 20kg shipment then you're fine, but if you scale up to 500kg's+ then expect a bill a couple months later.

I'm not sure if my shipments are called express, but each time I got an air shipment (even more than 20 kg), I never received a bill. They claimed it was included in the express (?) price.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

I'm not sure if my shipments are called express, but each time I got an air shipment (even more than 20 kg), I never received a bill. They claimed it was included in the express (?) price.

I've been hit twice. Both times shipments were 3CBM+.

Anything that you import into a country you should pay duties on. Most of the time, however, it's not worth the effort for customs to hit you with duties for a product that's worth very little. However, if the declared value is high, or it's obvious that the value of the shipment is higher than you wrote, then they'll hit you (DHL) with a bill. That bill then gets passed onto you.

 

[Xeon]

I've been hit twice. Both times shipments were 3CBM+.

Anything that you import into a country you should pay duties on. Most of the time, however, it's not worth the effort for customs to hit you with duties for a product that's worth very little. However, if the declared value is high, or it's obvious that the value of the shipment is higher than you wrote, then they'll hit you (DHL) with a bill. That bill then gets passed onto you.

I'm curious, how much are these bills usually? Say, if a shipment is 500 KG, what would the bill be like?
I want to be mentally prepared or else I might get a heart attack.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Longinus]

I'm curious, how much are these bills usually? Say, if a shipment is 500 KG, what would the bill be like?
I want to be mentally prepared or else I might get a heart attack.

Import duties depend on the value and the sort of your goods. The tariff can be found on several websites.

 

[G-Man]

If you do a small 20kg shipment then you're fine, but if you scale up to 500kg's+ then expect a bill a couple months later.

Anything that you import into a country you should pay duties on. Most of the time, however, it's not worth the effort for customs to hit you with duties for a product that's worth very little. However, if the declared value is high, or it's obvious that the value of the shipment is higher than you wrote, then they'll hit you (DHL) with a bill. That bill then gets passed onto you.

^^^ This.

Just call DHL. I've found them to be very knowledgeable. You'll have to get passed around and put on hold a few times to get specific answers to your questions, but listening to hold music for an hour while you check email is totally worth the peace of mind, and potentially avoiding massive bills.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

I'm curious, how much are these bills usually? Say, if a shipment is 500 KG, what would the bill be like?
I want to be mentally prepared or else I might get a heart attack.

Here you go: Harmonized Tariff Schedule Search

Learn how to use that site. It's pretty easy. You just type in your product and go through a handful of categorizations until you find which one your product belongs to. Then you look at the percent tariff on the right. Multiply that percentage on your factory costs (do not include shipping costs).

That's the official US Government site. There's other sites for other countries.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.