Customs Consulting

Permits and controls: a purchasing question, not a border one

Permit requirements attach to the commodity code, not to the trade name, which is why "the same product" from a different supplier can suddenly need a document it did not need last year. Before the order is placed we establish three things: whether the goods fall under licensing or under sanitary, veterinary, phytosanitary or radiological control; who physically obtains each document; and the moment by which it has to exist.

The roles are not symmetrical, and that is the part usually underestimated. Some documents can be obtained only by the seller and only in the country of departure: a phytosanitary certificate will not be issued once the goods have left, so the obligation to provide it belongs in the contract rather than in a later request. Others the importer prepares personally, and prepares early: registrations and applications have to be closed before the cargo arrives. Hence the conversation at the purchasing stage, while the supplier can still be chosen for what they are able to issue.

Why choose Black Port?

The advice comes from our own licensed customs brokers, not from outside advisers: they file the declarations, correspond with customs and answer its queries themselves. That is why it rests on how a rule is applied at the border rather than only on how it reads — and why we do not give an opinion we would not be prepared to stand behind when the entry is filed.

And if you decide to move the goods once the numbers are in, nothing has to be handed to anybody: the vehicles and the brokers are ours. The choice of customs regime and place of clearance is part of the clearance itself, and it is covered on the customs clearance page.

What's included

• Verification of the supplier's code against the technical description and specification
• Full landed cost before you ship: duty, VAT, excise and additional duties
• Free trade agreement preference analysis and proof-of-origin requirements
• Permit, licensing and certification requirements for your commodity
• Review of the delivery term and of the contract and invoice wording before signature
• Ongoing regulatory updates for your commodity

When to ask before you ship

Not every shipment needs this. These are the cases worth raising before anything moves:

• The commodity is new to you — or the supplier is, or the country of origin.
• The code came from your supplier — taken from a foreign nomenclature and written for their export declaration, not your import.
• The contract is unsigned: at this point the delivery term and the invoice wording cost one email rather than a reissued document set.
• You need a full landed cost — for a tender, a budget or a shelf price.
• The goods may fall under licensing, or under one of the state controls applied at the border.
• Customs has already disputed your classification or your declared value.

What the import will actually cost

Charges are not calculated from the invoice total: the base is wider than the price of the goods, and VAT is assessed on top of the duty — how that base is built up is set out on the customs clearance page. What matters for a decision taken before you ship is the consequence: a classification error lands twice, first in the duty, then in the VAT base, and the more valuable the consignment, the wider the gap between two readings of the same code.

The second thing that drops out of an early estimate is that the tariff rate is not always the final word. Anti-dumping or special duties apply to particular goods of particular origin, and excisable groups add excise on a base of its own. Pulling the other way is a free trade agreement preference — but that depends on the origin of the goods, not on the country they were shipped from.

And a third point, purely about money: for a VAT-registered importer, import VAT is not a cost but working capital tied up, since it goes to input credit afterwards. It is still paid at the border, in full and at once, so the budget for a shipment has to carry it on a line of its own, apart from the price of the goods.

Delivery terms: what an Incoterm settles, and what it does not

An Incoterms 2020 rule divides three things between seller and buyer — carriage, risk and customs clearance — and stops there: when title passes and when payment falls due remain matters for the contract. The choice of term also moves the charges through customs value; how it does that is on the customs clearance page. The misunderstandings we see most often in contracts:

• EXW leaves the buyer responsible for export clearance in the seller's country, which a non-resident often cannot legally do.
• FCA has the seller hand the goods over already cleared for export — the safer substitute for EXW in most import contracts.
• CIF applies to sea and inland waterway transport only, and it is not door delivery: risk passes back at the port of loading, and its minimum insurance cover is narrower than under CIP.
• Under DDP the seller carries import duty and VAT, which is close to unworkable for a non-resident in Ukraine; DAP leaves import clearance with the buyer.
• A term without its named place means next to nothing: FCA at the seller's works and FCA at the port of loading are different costs, different risk and different documents.

Contract and invoice: what customs actually reads

The invoice needs a description that matches the code rather than a trade name alone; quantity in units of measure; unit price and total; currency; the delivery term with its named place; contract number and date; country of origin; weight and package count. Samples and goods handed over free of charge need a stated value too — customs requires one even where no money changes hands.

The rest is the contract. Everything the seller has to do for your clearance works only if it was written down before signature: proof of origin, if you are counting on a preferential rate; a description in the documents that matches the classification to come; the right to a corrected document without reopening the price. Once the goods have shipped, none of that is an obligation any more — it is a favour.

Where to start

Classification rests on what the goods are, not on what the price list calls them, so a first answer needs the technical description or the specification. A draft contract or a proforma invoice is worth showing before signature: the term and the wording are corrected by email while the document is unsigned. Details of the shipment itself follow the list on the contact page.