Customs, Duties and Taxes

OCS clears your shipments through foreign customs, by performing an appropriate type of customs procedure, depending on the nature and value of the goods, the mode of transport, and the import regulations of the destination country.

All OCS courier services and most OCS freight services include automatic, free customs clearance at the overseas port of entry, for documents, printed matter, and most non-document (dutiable) shipments. This clearance process is invisible to the shipping customer, and, unless there are duties or taxes to be paid overseas, also invisible to the recipient. It is inclusive in our door-to-door service.

The primary responsibilities of customs are to apply and enforce the laws of their country, to monitor and control applicable trade quotas, to enforce trade embargoes, to ensure the adherence to applicable trade agreements (e.g. NAFTA) and to assess customs duties and taxes on non-document commodities.

Typically, a country will have established dollar value thresholds which determine whether or not duties and/or taxes will apply to a specific shipment, and these standards may vary by commodity. Rates of duty will also vary by commodity.

With few exceptions, document shipments are cleared informally, meaning that, although OCS is required to declare them to customs, they are assumed to have no value for customs. Therefore, documents and certain other types of printed matter are usually duty-free. For non-document shipments, the customs evaluation is more extensive. In all cases, OCS works with customs to clear your shipments as quickly as possible.

Exceptions to duty and tax assessments must be directed to the customs officials at the time of entry. For example, for short-term, temporary-import bond, A.T.A. Carnet, or return-goods imports, the appropriate bond, carnet, or re-import documentation must be presented to customs at the time of import in order to be registered and to enable a duty-free entry to be performed. Therefore, you need to notify OCS about such special shipments in advance of shipping.

Upon approving your non-document shipment for import, customs assesses applicable duties and taxes, and requires either direct payment or bond collateral. Because OCS has posted bond with all key customs overseas, we do not have to wait for a currency transaction, enabling quick release of your dutiable shipments from customs. In this way, OCS acts on behalf of the importer (your recipient) to satisfy the customs requirement of immediate payment. If a bond is not on file, OCS can make payment on behalf of the recipient or require the recipient to make payment of duties and taxes in advance of receiving the shipment.

Duties and taxes, if applicable, are normally charged to the overseas recipient. Free Domicile shipments, in which these charges are billed back to the shipper, are acceptable to selected OCS destinations. Call 1-877-2222-OCS to enquire about your particular shipment.