When a shipment is charged duties and taxes, this may also be charged additional clearance fees as sanctioned by the courier. These fees cover the specialized services provided by our partner courier's customs brokers to expedite the clearance of your shipment.
By default, our partner couriers contract their own in house or partner customs brokers to faciliate the clearance of your shipment. This helps save our customers from the inconvenience of self-clearing a shipment, which requires various permits and or licenses, as well as in depth expertise in brokerage.
The most common clearance fees you may find on your Duty and Tax invoice are as follows:
Additional Line Items
Our partner courier can clear shipments with mutliple commodities. However, at times there may be a limit to the number or type of items that Customs can clear with no additional cost. This can occur when multiple similar items being shipped have originated from more than one country, or when more than 5 types of items are declared on your form.
Storage Fees
When a shipment is held at customs, storage fees may apply after a certain date. If there are any outstanding documents Customs have requested from you, it is important that these be provided immediately to avoid the shipment being held for storage.
It is for this reason that we advise the importance of researching any needed documentation for customs clearance, ahead of your order being shipped.
Disbursement Fees
It is standard practice that when a shipment is owed duty and tax, these are usually held from delivery until such charges are settled. Traditionally, the payment of such charges take time to be processed and acknowledged by the relevant Customs agency in the country you are shipping to.
To expedite this process, our partner couriers often have such charges billed to their account first, with a disbursement fee charged on your duty and tax invoice. Whilst this is only a small percentage of the duty and tax charged, this helps ensure that your shipment is released in a timely manner.
Customs charges are issued by the relevant customs authority and are the responsibility of the customer. They are not associated with Sherpr nor does Sherpr have any influence over their application.