News
Customs formalities were completed in an average of one hour for marine cargo imported to Japan by sea, according to a survey the Ministry of Finance (MOF)’s Customs and Tariff Bureau conducted from March 11 to March 17. It was notably improved from the last time the bureau carried out a similar survey in 2018. Excluding small-lot cargo, for which customs formalities are completed in relatively shorter periods of time, 1.6 hours were spent on average from when import declarations were made to when permits were issued. For airfreight, customs procedures were done in an average of 0.3 hours, which remained nearly unchanged.
Small-lot cargo is, for example, e-commerce products, those to which the tax exemption for inexpensive items that are valued at taxable prices of ¥10,000 (US$62.3) or lower is applied and those do not require to be certified or confirmed in other rules or regulations. From import declarations, it is difficult to judge if certain products are for e-commerce or not. As such, the bureau only picked out what they had judged as e-commerce products from individual hearings from operators. It was not, for this reason, that all small-lot cargo impacts were eliminated.
For shipments for which importers holding an authorized economic operator (AEO) status can make special declarations, or post-delivery declarations, customs formalities were carried out in an average of close to zero hour for both maritime cargo and airfreight.
Customs procedures were performed in averages of 1.2 hours for marine cargo and 0.2 hours for air cargo for which import declarations were made under the new system introduced in October 2017 to allow AEOs to make export and import declarations with custom houses other than those governing the places for holding relevant export and import cargo.
