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Aliexpress restrictions on the value of the order. Aliexpress - customs limits and duties

Every day, new people register on the aliexpress trading platform: some search for a long time and carefully necessary thing, others are fond of virtual shopping, making several orders a week. The low cost of goods and attractive delivery conditions have already been appreciated and Russian entrepreneurs who began to buy goods in aliexpress in large quantities. Few people know that in some situations, the buyer must pay additional customs fees. In order not to be in an uncomfortable position at the post office, unexpectedly receiving a receipt for payment of the duty along with the parcel, you need to know in what cases customs clearance of goods for aliexpress occurs.

In what cases are customs duties imposed on goods with aliexpress?

On aliexpress, the seller usually offers several transport companies through which he can send the goods. You can choose how free option delivery and commercial services. At the same time, no matter which company you choose, any order passes through the Russian customs, which imposes uniform requirements on all parcels. Even if you buy things on aliexpress only for yourself and your family, without commercial benefit, the customs can issue you a receipt for paying the duty:

general material value parcels received by you for 31 calendar days exceeded 1000 Euro (30% of the difference in the cost of the parcel and the named limit is paid);
the weight of all shipments for the same period exceeded 31 kg (the fee is 4 Euro per 1 kg exceeding the norm).

These rules are valid in all countries of the Customs Union. In Belarus, customs requirements are even more strict: if the limit of 1000 Euros is exceeded, the recipient of the parcels must pay 60% of the difference. Minimum cost the parcel, which is subject to the payment of duty, is equal to 120 Euro.

These requirements need to be known, first of all, to participants in small and medium-sized businesses. Most customers on aliexpress are limited to small orders that are placed in small packages. The desire to order in bulk arises when stores offer goods at an attractive price, but in bulk.

To get a discount, someone unites for a joint order, others plan to give away the excess among acquaintances and friends. However, at customs, such a parcel can be identified as commercial and be required to clear it. Knowing the rules, Chinese sellers can send an order in several parcels to one address.

How to avoid customs clearance of goods with aliexpress

When ordering equipment or expensive gadgets on aliexpress, you can stumble upon unforeseen expenses. If the customs officers will issue customs duty, you will not be able to receive your order in the mail without paying taxes. The following tips can help you avoid this situation:

keep a record of the cost and weight of your purchases for each month, see the amount upon receipt on the parcel;
when dividing an order into several shipments, they must be sent sequentially so that the parcels do not end up at the customs point at the same time;
a large order of more than 5 identical products can be distributed to different addresses, such as relatives or friends;
when buying equipment, phones, laptops, ask sellers to indicate the real cost of the goods. In case of a suspiciously low value, customs officers may indicate a different value, the average market value;
when ordering more than 5 identical products, arrange with the store to send in several parcels.

If, nevertheless, customs imposed a duty on your parcel, you have the right not to pay it and refuse the goods. After that, open a dispute on aliexpress with a detailed description of the situation. If you have documents confirming your refusal of the parcel and sending it back to China, attach their scan to the sender. These situations will usually be settled in favor of the buyer, but you will most likely be required to pay the seller's shipping costs.

In addition to requiring the payment of duties, customs officers can also bring the recipient to administrative responsibility. Before ordering any unusual product, check the list of prohibited items. On aliexpress you can find pens with built-in cameras and other tricky gadgets: similar items customs inspector may be classified as special technical means for "secret information". Let the slogan of aliexpress "Buy smarter" become your life motto.

And finally, one special category - indivisible goods- these are goods weighing more than 35 kg, which cannot be divided into smaller parts (furniture, electronics, etc.). Paying for these items "Total customs fee» — duty + excise + VAT.

For example, let's take a sofa - weight 50 kg, customs value - 400 euros.

In the calculations, we will need to determine the product code in accordance with the TNVED - you can find these codes on the website of the Eurasian Economic Commission - www.eurasiancommission.org

In accordance with TNVED, the duty for our sofa is 15% of its customs value, but not less than 0.519 euros per 1 kg. Plus excise for sofa = 0 and VAT = 18%.

Duty = 400 * 15% = 60 euros. I did not calculate the amount of the duty for excess weight, since it will definitely be less.

VAT = (400 + 60) * 18% = 82.8 euros

Total = 60 + 82.8 = 142.8 euros

As you can see, quite a lot has dripped. So if you find some cheap furniture on Aliexpress, do not be lazy to calculate how much you will have to pay in addition to its cost. The savings may not be that significant.

If you only order goods on Aliexpress from time to time, then you should not worry about customs limits and duties.

Most site buyers AliExpress China is perceived as a distant and not very clear country in which inexpensive goods are produced in titanic quantities. At the same time, even from a low price, as experience shows, you can get a discount, and quite a serious one thanks to various coupons, promotional codes, and sometimes simply by skillfully bargaining with the seller.

The main source of these bounties can be considered a certain price margin at which the sale remains profitable, but this is not the only thing. To understand the reason for this complicity, one should go a little deeper into the taxation system adopted in the PRC and which has a number of similarities with the Russian one. In particular, you will find out if there is VAT in China and under what conditions taxation takes place.

The lowering of the duty-free threshold is not the only bad news for those who are used to buying in foreign stores.

AKIT, which includes the largest retailers (Ozon.ru, re:Store, KupiVIP, Lamoda, M.Video, Eldorado and others), is actively lobbying for another measure, which, in its opinion, will allow supplying foreign and Russian retailers on equal terms and at the same time give additional income to the budget, namely, to force foreign companies, sending goods to Russians, pay VAT.

The necessary amendments to the Tax Code have already been prepared. But that's not all. The websites of those stores that refuse to do this may be blocked by Roskomnadzor by a court decision, AKIT participants suggest.

Such measures will additionally hit the consumer's wallet. Since foreign retailers are unlikely to want to lose profits, they will simply include VAT in the final price, Alexander Ivanov, head of the National Distance Selling Association, commented earlier.

In addition, this will significantly reduce the range of goods supplied to our country, says Ilya Kretov, CEO of eBay in Russia and emerging markets in Europe. If economic pressure increases, some of them may stop working in Russia altogether.

Do I need to pay tax on parcels from China?

According to the Kommersant newspaper, according to the proposal of the Russian Post, the current threshold of duty-free online purchases of €1,000 will be reduced to €200 from 2019, to €100 from 2020 and to €50 from 2021 . At the same time, it is proposed to automatically collect duties on purchases in online stores, which will reduce costs. You can test this option on purchases at AliExpress.com.

In general, taking into account the fact that “20 euros”, albeit due to some technical error, got into the draft Russian budget, it can almost be assumed with a high degree of probability that the purchase threshold for foreign online stores will be lowered. Moreover, the Ministry of Finance considers this approach fair.

“The issue of reducing the duty-free import of goods by individuals is being discussed in order to create equal conditions for Russian and foreign retailers. The former pay VAT and other taxes in Russia, while the latter pay nothing, which creates unequal competitive conditions,” the department notes.

Tax on parcels with aliexpress

In project federal budget for 2019-2020, it is planned to reduce the rate of duty-free importation of goods for personal use by individuals, including through international mail (IGO), from the current 1,000 euros to €500 in 2019 and €200 in 2020.

At the same time, the total weight of imported goods will remain unchanged - 31 kg. The threshold is reduced in accordance with the Customs Code of the EAEU (Eurasian economic union Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan), which comes into force on January 1, 2019.

As explained to Gazeta.Ru by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC, an organ of the EAEU), “now in no country of the union there is a “threshold” for duty-free import of goods exceeding 1,000 euros.” So, in Kazakhstan, as well as in Russia, it is €1,000, in Armenia - 200,000 drams (about €350), in Belarus - €22.

How to avoid duty

Let's say you decide to buy two expensive tablets or laptops for yourself and your half (anyway, they are much cheaper on Aliexpress than in Russian stores). Exceeding the norm of 1000 euros, you doom yourself to additional costs. Even if the order is issued with an interval of 1 month (April 1 and May 1), there is still no guarantee that IGOs with the order will not arrive at customs at the same time, due to the terrible work of Chinese transport companies. And no one will deal with customs when you ordered equipment - they will charge you a fee.

There is only one way out: splitting the order into several pieces (2-3, depending on the situation) and issuing some of them to relatives or friends who did not purchase in recent times goods abroad (so that they also do not charge a fee).

Stages of customs clearance of goods from China

Customs clearance consists of the following stages:

Evaluation of a package of documents. At this stage, customs officers check the availability of accompanying documentation (declaration for goods, packing list, certificates, and so on).
Verification of documents. Customs officers check the conformity of the goods with the documents provided to confirm the legality of the import. At the end, customs officers independently calculate the cost of the cargo based on the documents provided by the importer.
Currency control and verification of the foreign trade contract. Compliance with the rules of currency control is checked (since all trading operations carried out in foreign currency are subject to currency regulation), foreign trade contract purchase and sale, as well as the fact that the importer generally has the right to engage in foreign economic activity(you need to submit the statutory documents of the legal entity).
Checking customs payments. At this stage, not only the fact of payment of the necessary customs payments is checked, but also their correctness. For example, the importer may violate the deadlines for filing a declaration or delay payment - in this case customs authorities he will have to pay a fine. Calculation of interest on customs payments here.
Actual product inspection. At this stage, the actual compliance of the goods with the cargo is checked. If all documents are drawn up correctly, the cargo is allowed to pass.
At the end of the procedure The customs officer signs and stamps all submitted documents.

For any goods that cross the border of Russia, it is necessary to issue a cargo customs declaration (CCD). This document is issued on a special type of form, which has several degrees of protection against counterfeiting.

Freight customs declaration contains information about the imported goods:

name of the parties to the transaction,
the name of the company that produced the product,
brief information about the structure of the cargo and so on.

How much does customs clearance of goods from China cost?

Customs clearance of goods is not cheap:

All cargo owners will have to pay import customs duty. Its size directly depends on the type of goods, however, for most goods from China, there is a single customs rate, which is 20% of the value of the goods.
Also, the structure of the cargo, its dimensions, weight and other parameters are of particular importance.
The owner of the cargo needs to pay VAT in the amount of 10 or 20% of the value of the goods (depending on the tax regime). It should also be remembered that VAT is charged not on the value of the goods, but on the value of the goods + the cost of customs clearance.
In some cases, you will have to pay an additional customs fee (however, it is quite small and amounts to about 0.5%).
For some goods (for example, cars), an additional excise duty may be set, which increases the cost of customs clearance even more.
If the product is too small, then it can be exempt from paying all duties and taxes, but in a full-fledged foreign trade activity, such a scenario is very rare.
The full cost of customs clearance can be calculated by your broker. You can also use the calculator for customs clearance of goods from China.

Customs clearance options for cargo from China to Russia

When the goods cross the border, you will need to complete the customs clearance procedure. To do this, you need to provide the customs authorities with the goods and documentation for it, as well as go through all the necessary procedures.

Customs clearance is of two types

By simplified scheme . This method is applied if individual imports goods for personal use only, and this method is not used for importing goods for sale. Of course, the importer can transport the cargo in small portions, indicating in the documentation that the imported goods are things for personal use, but this approach is fraught with problems with the law and loss of cargo.
By general scheme . This method is used if the physical or entity imports a lot of goods for sale.

VAT refund in China

Since the tax on parcels from China will obviously be introduced in 2019, the issue of VAT refunds is probably of interest to many, since this measure will be able to compensate for the increased costs of buyers to a certain extent. You should immediately warn of manifestations of excessive optimism: not all sellers on AliExpress have the ability to reduce the price due to the amount received from the state as VAT compensation for exports.

This tax is reimbursed only to payers operating under the full scheme (17%), and "simplified" with a turnover considered small (less than 500 thousand yuan for manufacturers and 800 thousand for trading firms) pay 3% of turnover. Naturally, in order for VAT to be returned, it must first be transferred in full. The following conditions are also required.

VAT refund requirements

Registration of an enterprise in the territory of the PRC, excluding the special economic zones of Macau and Xianggang (Hong Kong) and the presence of a permit for import and export activities. Companies with foreign investments enjoy a privilege in this matter, they automatically have this right.
The company must not operate under the simplified taxation scheme. This means that it pays VAT at the maximum rate of 17%, and not at preferential rates.

It should be noted that the PRC has a flexible policy on the issue of value added taxation, expressed in a variety of conditions depending on the priority of the industry. The preferential VAT rate can be set below 17% - 15, 13, 9, 5%, even up to a complete exemption from its payment. So, out of all this diversity, only those enterprises that pay it to the maximum, that is, in the amount of 17%, have the right to a full refund of this tax when exporting products.

Any new firm initially receives the status of an enterprise with a small turnover until its turnover exceeds the amount of 800 thousand yuan or it enters into large contracts with other companies in the PRC. Accordingly, during this period, the return of VAT is out of the question. But this is not enough, more is required:

Office lease agreement for a year or more;
Hiring employees with a full benefits package.

However, enough about the intricacies of Chinese taxation - it is still impossible to outline them in one article, even when applied only to added value. Most ordinary people it’s more interesting how you can return VAT from Aliexpress. After all, this trading floor also carries out export operations.

Return procedure

To begin with, about the essence of this action. An enterprise that exports goods made in the PRC and at the same time is a taxpayer in full form has the right to return the “input” VAT (that is, deductions to the budget made at the time of purchasing everything necessary for the production of this product or itself, if it is engaged in resale) . At the same time, the sale takes place at prices that include 17% of the total amount.

This means that by selling the product at the maximum price, the Chinese company will receive, along with the VAT refund, an excess profit in the form of "real money". To do this, it is enough for an enterprise to submit a package of documents to the fiscal authorities of the PRC, including:

An invoice indicating the amount of input VAT issued by the seller to the exporter;
Customs declaration for the same product (under the same name);
An extract from the bank on the transfer of funds from the buyer to the current account, that is, foreign exchange earnings;
Passport for an export transaction;
Other supporting materials that may be required by the tax office.

The VAT refund process in China is quite lengthy and, together with the checks, can take up to three months, but in most cases it will be successful.

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The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation may reduce the duty-free threshold to €100 for goods purchased in foreign online stores

From 2019, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation may reduce the duty-free threshold for parcels from foreign online trading platforms to €100 for each mailing, said the head of the department of tax and customs policy of the Ministry of Finance Alexei Sazanov, whose words are quoted by TASS.

According to him, various variations of changes are currently being studied, however, from July 1, it is proposed to set a threshold at €500 per 1 calendar month, then from January 1, or from July 1 next year, reduce it to €200. In addition, the option is not excluded, in which duty-free importation of goods into the country will be possible only if the value of the parcel is not more than €100.

It is worth noting that today there are still rules under which duty-free importation of goods into the Russian Federation, purchased at foreign online shopping stores such as Amazon, AliExpress and the like, is possible subject to the cost of parcels up to €1 thousand and 31 kg of weight per 1 calendar month. And in case of excess statutory limit, a tax of 30% is charged.

It is reported that Russia and the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) have already reached an agreement to gradually lower the maximum threshold - to €500 in 2019, and to €200 already from 2020 for the EAEU, and for Russia - to €500 from July 1 this year, and up to €200 from January 1 next year for each postal item.

But the FCS offers the most. In their opinion, the tax should be levied on all parcels from foreign online trading platforms, regardless of cost. And so that this does not greatly affect the pockets of citizens, it is considered sufficient to reduce flat rate from 30 to 20%, as well as the introduction of a single tariff, for example, in the amount of €1 per kg of weight.

FCS employees believe that such tough conditions will help domestic online trading platforms compete with foreign ones. His vision regarding the new tax legislation in this matter Customs Service has already reported to the Ministry of Finance, having sent the relevant amendments. Sazanov, in the comments, noted that in general they are not against such changes, however, it will be possible to implement these proposals only from 2021, subject to the conditions for readiness information systems customs service.

But the Ministry of Trade and Trade is sure that such amendments will only lead to a narrowing of the choice for buyers, and at the same time will not affect the stimulation of production. Russian goods. The Ministry of Industry and Trade asks to take into account that there is a big difference between the payment of VAT from foreign sellers and the collection of these duties from the population. They stressed that taxing each parcel is nothing more than taxing only the final consumer.

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Per month.

Often, users have a question about how much you can order with Aliexpress per month? It is especially important to know this for those who decide to build a business with China. Let's take a look at this question.

How many parcels can be ordered from Aliexpress per month?

Customs does not set special restrictions on the number of parcels, which means that you can buy as much as you like. However, there are some features that are important to know.

Each delivery country has its own restrictions and limits on orders with Aliexpress and any other sites. Let's figure out which ones.

Russia and Kazakhstan

Post office

For one calendar month total cost goods must not exceed 1,000 euros, and Weight Limit is 31 kg. Otherwise, you will have to pay a customs duty in the amount of 30% of the amount of the exceeded limit or 4 euros for each extra kilogram.

Ukraine

In this country, the duty-free limit is 150 euros and the weight limit is 50 kg. If these indicators are exceeded, the buyer must pay 10% of the amount in excess of the limit and an additional 20% VAT on the amount received.

Belarus

There are stricter rules here and the limit is only 22 euros, so be careful and try not to order too much.

What should I do if the amount of orders from Aliexpress exceeds the limits?

Paying customs duty is sometimes quite expensive and sometimes it can even exceed half the cost of the purchase itself. How to avoid a big overpayment?

If you already see for yourself that the amount is about to exceed the allowable limit, then it is better to place an order for a relative or friend. The only drawback is that only the person for whom it was ordered can pick up the goods from the post office.
If the order contains several items that exceed the weight limit, then ask the seller to send it in parts.
If you are a buyer from Belarus or Ukraine and your order significantly exceeds the limits, then if you have a relative in Russia, you can ask him to receive and resend the order.

By the way, some sellers indicate an underestimated value on the parcel so that they do not have to pay a fee. Of course, this is good, but customs officers sometimes open packages if they doubt the reality of the value. If the fraud is exposed, it can lead to more serious problems, such as confiscation. So it's better to ask the seller to indicate the real price of the goods.

Although, if you are an ordinary buyer, then you are unlikely to break out of the limits, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure once again.