importing a laptop?

For those people not buying from Amazon.

There are two types of tax during importation. Duty and VAT.

Duty is only charged on items that are also made here in the Philippines. For example there is no duty on computers.

VAT Value Added Tax 12% charged on everything over 10K PHP.

Customs has the following limits:

$10K PHP = $200 USD value of goods + shipping
No VAT tax no duty
de minimis too small or insignificant to be of importance.

50K PHP = 1,000 USD value of goods + shipping
Informal entry limit. Importation license not required.
Expect to pay VAT + Duty on value + shipping cost

Over 50K PHP Importation license required.
You can ask in writing for a waiver of this at the time of importation.
Expect to pay VAT + Duty on value + shipping cost

I doubt this applies to Amazon customers because Amazon will pay the VAT + duty taxes.

 

In case anybody wants to look up the actual tariff rate for something - the whole catalogue is online at http://www.tariffcommission.gov.ph/tariff-book.

Also important:

- duty is calculated based on the total value of the shipment including the actual shipping cost
- there are various additional fees from the customs office and DHL/UPS for handling the process for you. Only once it happened to me that I got to deal with a customs officer myself, that was with a regular package that I had to pick up at the DGT post office.
- VAT (12%) is added on top of everything so you pay VAT on the goods plus duties

All this knowledge however won't help you much if they simply calculate your duties wrong. With a recent shipment I got via DHL someone messed up and started with a value of over USD 400 instead of the 249 stated on the included invoice. So I ended up paying a lot more than it should have been.

In this case I even got a call beforehand from DHL informing me of the amount to be paid upon delivery so I could have objected - but having no idea what the correct amount would be I just accepted the amount they said. I only noticed the error when examining the customs documentation. Customs fees (not the actual duty) in this case were PHP 730, DHL fees little over PHP 1000. Next time I'll at least ask what shipment value the calculation is based on to make sure that is correct.

 

Customs decide on the value they want to apply - they might choose to ignore the invoice if they decide (in their infinite wisdom) that something is (in their view) undervalued.

 

It was a rain jacket. They must be smoking pretty tough stuff if they think 249usd is still not enough :/

 

We got whacked heavy customs duty when we sent a new laptop to us here. I think the Philippines has decided that the Customs department is a new revenue center. Never used to be this bad....

 

Boys Adidas soccer shoes from amazon. $50 shoes, $50. Shipping

 

Yep. I imported one, paid duty (lots). Had to return it for warranty repair. When it came back, more duty (lots). No point in complaining or refusing to pay, it would just result in non-delivery.

Next time I'll just get a Thinkpad from Lazada.