Are import duties the same as clearance costs?

No. Import duties are the charge by Customs on the customs value. Clearance costs are the service provider's fee. On the invoice they stand next to each other, not in one amount.

When do you invoice clearance costs?

At the moment the work is done, as a rule at filing of the declaration. Waiting until release lets files in control or with missing papers fall outside the invoice.

What does clearing cost at a forwarder?

That depends on the agreement per client: a base amount per declaration, often plus an amount per extra item line, plus surcharges for controls and special documents. There is no statutory fee.

Can I deduct clearance costs as VAT?

On the forwarder's fee VAT is due under the ordinary rules. The import duties themselves are not a taxed supply by the forwarder. Keep those postings separate on the invoice.

Who pays the clearance costs, the buyer or the seller?

That follows from the Incoterm and the agreement with the forwarder. Under EXW and FOB, clearing at import sits with the buyer. Under DDP it sits with the seller. The forwarder's invoice goes to whoever placed the order.

Clearance costs

Q: What are clearance costs?

The fee the forwarder or declarant charges for drawing up and filing the import declaration and handling the file. They are something other than the import duties and the VAT that go to Customs.

Also known as: clearance fee, clearance tariff

Clearance costs are the fee the forwarder or the declarant charges for filing the import declaration and handling the file. They are something other than the import duties and the VAT you remit to Customs.

What sits in clearance costs, and what does not?

Clearance costs are the fee for the work: reading the papers, drawing up the declaration, filing, following the status and handling a control. They stand on the forwarder's invoice to the client. They do not go to Customs. Beside that fee stand the duties and the VAT. The declarant often advances those and recharges them one for one. That is not a clearance cost. It is an advance. Anyone who puts those two postings on one line makes the invoice unreadable for the client and unusable for their own VAT records. Surcharges do belong with it when the work becomes extra. A documentary check, a physical check, an extra item line, an inspection, terminal handling: those postings arise at other moments than the declaration itself. If they do not hang on the same file, they disappear. That is the most common reason a file has cost work and still has not been invoiced in full.

How is the fee built up in practice?

Most forwarders charge a base amount per declaration, plus an amount per extra item line, plus surcharges for controls and special documents. The base amount covers a file with a limited number of lines. A packing list of fifty lines is different work from an invoice of three lines, and that difference should be visible in the fee. For e-commerce a lower amount per consignment often applies, because the volume is high and the data set is limited. That only works if the master data hold. A batch in which half of the IOSS numbers are invalid costs more per consignment than the fee covers. Fix the fee per client, not per declarant. Two declarants who bill the same work differently produce a dispute with the client and gaps in your own turnover. The rule belongs in the setup, so that the invoice follows from the file and not from what someone still remembered that week.

When may you invoice the costs?

The work is done at the moment of filing, not at the moment of release. A declaration that goes into control has already cost the work, plus the extra work of the control. Anyone who waits until release invoices too late and misses the files that stand open for weeks. Duties and VAT you invoice as soon as they have been advanced, so after acceptance of the declaration. A provisional declaration can get a second settlement. That second posting belongs in the process, with a reference to the same file. A file that was never filed, because the power of attorney was missing or the papers were not complete, has also cost work. Whether you charge for that is an agreement with the client. If you do not record it, you write it off. If you do record it, a line belongs on the file at the moment you close the file without a declaration.

How do you stop clearance costs going missing?

By hanging them on the file at the moment the work happens. The declaration line at the moment of filing. The inspection surcharge at the moment of the request, not three weeks later when the inspection service's invoice comes in. The terminal handling at the moment the container may leave. A loose Excel file, a mailbox and a colleague's memory are not a file. Costs that start there rarely land complete on the invoice. That holds hardest for advanced duties: an amount you have paid to Customs and have not recharged is turnover you never see again, plus a cash leak. A daily list of files without an invoice line is the control. Not monthly, daily. A file from yesterday without a line can still be repaired. A file from last month is a conversation with the client about a posting they no longer recognise.

What is the difference between clearance costs and import duty?

Import duty is a charge by Customs, calculated on the customs value against the rate of the goods code and the origin. Clearance costs are the service provider's fee for the work. The first posting is public law, the second is a private-law agreement. On the invoice to the client they stand next to each other, but they may not disappear into one amount. The client has to treat the VAT on the duties differently from the VAT on your fee, and they have to be able to line the duties up with the declaration. One composite amount makes both impossible. Under article 23 the import VAT shifts to the periodic return. The clearance costs remain simply your fee. Those two things have nothing to do with each other, except that they occur on the same file. Anyone who mixes them up in communication gets questions about an authorisation that does not touch the forwarder's fee.

How does SKAI keep the costs on the file?

In the invoicing module every cost line hangs on the file number. The declaration line arises at filing. An inspection or a documentary check adds a line at the moment it is requested. Advanced duties and VAT sit on a branch of their own, so they are not mixed with the fee. Files without an invoice line are visible as an open item, not as closed work. That is the overview a team lead looks at daily, instead of at the end of the month in an export file. The REST connection can send those lines to an existing WMS, TMS or ERP. The accounts stay where they are. SKAI supplies the substantiation: which file, which act, which amount, and the source in the declaration or the inspection message. Without that substantiation an invoice line is an amount. With that substantiation it is a story the client can check.