Cost of importing goods from China via Air
February 21, 2015 / by Marco / Categories : Business
The costs of importing goods from China can be costly. I recently imported a box of electronic goods via Air and it wasn’t cheap. The reason why we decided to go with Air instead of Sea was because we needed the goods urgently. The goods were sent on the 17th of February 2015 and it landed in Australia on the 19th February 2015.
To give you an idea of how much it costed to send a parcel that is 124x26x96cm and weighing 55kg here’s the breakdown:
COST BREAKDOWN
Export Broker and Shipping via Air costs and export costs = AU$470.00 (HK$2849.95) – this included all the documentation, logistics charges by the broker in china
Import Document Fee = AU$46.00
Import Terminal Handling Fee = AU$40.00
Agency Fee for custom clearance = AU$105 (since the value of the goods was less than $1k then the agency fee is roughly $105. If the goods were more than $1k then the cost is AU$160).
Merchant Service Fee (for custom broker) = AU$2.24 (since I paid using Credit Card there was a surcharge of 1.95% + GST
TOTAL COST = $833.00
What is astonishing is that the value of the goods is less than the import costs.
NOTE If the value of your goods is more than $1k you will have to pay import tax which is 10% of the value of the goods.

Image Source: Flickr Rod
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