Explanation of China Customs New Policy on Entry-Exit Personal Postal Articles

New Policy on Entry-Exit Personal Postal Articles

■ According to the previous regulations, for personal articles mailed from China's Hong Kong and Macao regions, exemption shall apply if the duty payable is no more than CNY 400; and for personal articles mailed from any other countries and regions, exemption shall apply if the duty payable is no more than CNY 500.

As of September 1, 2010, the distinctive administration between China's Hong Kong & Macao regions and other countries & regions will be cancelled. Exemption shall apply as long as the import duty payable is no more than CNY 50, and the exceeding amount shall be subject to import duties.

■ The limit value of entry-exit personal postal articles remain unchanged, that is "For personal articles mailed to or from China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions, the limit value shall be CNY 800 each time; and for those to or from any other countries and regions, the limit value shall be CNY 1,000 each time."

In the case that there is only one inseparable article in the postal parcel, though exceeding the limit value, it may go through customs clearance as personal articles if confirmed by China Customs authorities as for personal use indeed, there is no need to tackle the formalities by the mode of imports and exports.

As of September 1, 2010, China Customs authorities will reduce the exemption standards on entry-exit personal postal articles. This move aims to combat commercial smugglings by splitting the goods in the name of mailing personal articles to evade State's control and Customs duties.

How to understand "CNY 50 exemption"?

Notably, the "CNY 50 exemption" does not mean as widely believed that "import duty shall apply to incoming commodities with a value of CNY 50".

In fact, the "CNY 50 exemption" refers to "duty payable", with respect to the calculation of the duty payable for relevant articles, please refer to the List of Duty-Paid Value of Incoming Passengers' Luggage and Personal Postal Articles (hereinafter referred to as the List) from the China Customs. The existing List is the revised version by the General Administration of Customs of P. R. China in June 2007. The policy adjustment on September 1, 2010 involves the revision of this List.
The List provides a "duty-paid value" and a corresponding "duty rate" for each commodity.

For example, the "duty-paid value" of "a bottle of perfume" in the List is CNY 100 (all in CNY), and the "duty rate" is 50%. It means that for any variety of perfume mailed to China, no matter what the brand is, China Customs authorities will calculate the import duty as CNY 100 per bottle, and multiply by the duty rate of 50%, thus the "duty payable" shall be CNY 50.

According to the previous regulations, exemption shall be still applicable to mailing 10 bottles at a time. However, after the implementation of new regulations, only one bottle can be mailed for the sake of duty exemption.

As per China Customs officials, the revision of the regulations aims to take care of the reasonable needs of recipients/senders while standardizing postal import.

How to collect import duties?

As of September 1, 2010, the import duty exemption shall be reduced to the minimum amount of CNY 50 from previous CNY 400. People asking overseas relatives and friends to mail incoming articles shall be aware of the reduction since the import duty goes directly to the recipients.

As learned, according to the cooperation agreement between the General Administration of Customs of P. R. China and the State Post Bureau of P. R. China, where entry mails shall be subject to import duties, China Customs authorities shall issue duty bills to the recipients, which shall be collected by post offices on behalf of such authorities. Domestic international express delivery enterprises also adopt similar operations.

To inquire and calculate the duty payable of the mailed articles, please log onto the website of Guangzhou Customs of China (http://guangzhou.customs.gov.cn), enter "list of duty-paid value" in the search bar, and thus have access to the Announcement of the General Administration of Customs of P. R. China, No. 25, 2007 (On the Revision of the Tariff Classification of Import Duties of Incoming Passengers' Luggage and Personal Postal Articles and List of Duty-Paid Value of Incoming Passengers' Luggage and Personal Postal Articles) and the 2 attached forms.