Customs clearance and CHA services

Export clearance

Shipping bill filing, classification under the Customs Tariff, valuation support, and scheme documentation for drawback, RoDTEP, Advance Authorisation and EPCG. Examination coordination at the gateway and follow-through to the let-export order.

Import clearance

Bill of entry filing, duty computation, and coordination with the participating agencies — FSSAI, Plant Quarantine, Animal Quarantine, Drug Controller, WPC and BIS — where the commodity requires it. We identify which of these apply at the quotation stage, not on the day the container lands.

Classification and valuation

The HS code decides the duty, the restrictions and often the paperwork. Getting it wrong is expensive in both directions: an over-declared duty is money given away, an under-declared one is a penalty and a delay. We classify against the destination tariff as well as the Indian one, because they are not always aligned.

What a customs clearance agent actually does for you

A customs broker — a CHA, in the older language still used everywhere in Indian trade — is licensed to file with Customs on your behalf. The filing itself is the small part. The work that decides whether a consignment clears in a day or sits for a week is what happens before it: the HS classification, the valuation basis, and whether the invoice, packing list, bill of lading and shipping bill actually agree with one another.

We check those against each other before anything is filed. A description that differs between the invoice and the shipping bill, a unit of measure that does not match the HS code, an AD code not registered at that port — each of these is a query, and a query costs days that no amount of following up recovers.

Export side, that means the shipping bill, e-Sanchit uploads, and the scheme documentation for RoDTEP or drawback where you are claiming it. Import side, the bill of entry, duty computation, and the IGST refund trail. Both sides, the same desk that quoted your freight, so nobody can tell you the delay belongs to another department.

What customs clearance charges are made of

A clearance bill is not one number. It is a stack of separate items, and knowing which is which is the difference between comparing quotations properly and comparing them on the only line you recognise.

Statutory amounts are the duty, cess and IGST assessed on the consignment. These are set by the tariff and the valuation, not by your agent, and every agent pays the same. Terminal and depot charges — handling, ground rent, de-stuffing, labour — belong to the port, the ICD or the CFS, and are set by that facility. Carrier charges — delivery order fees, detention on the box — belong to the shipping line. Agency charges are the only part that is genuinely ours: a fee for the document set and the filing, plus any out-of-pocket amounts we have paid on your behalf and pass on at cost.

Then there are the conditional items that only appear if the consignment triggers them: examination charges, fumigation, palletisation, weighment, testing, a certification fee, or amendment fees where a document has to be corrected after filing. These are the ones that make a bill look higher than the quotation, and they are usually predictable at booking if somebody looks at the commodity properly first.

The line worth watching is not the agency fee. It is the storage and detention, which is set by how fast the file moves rather than by any rate card — see demurrage and detention for how those clocks run. An agent whose filings attract queries costs you far more in slab-rate storage than the difference in any fee. Rates, free days and statutory levies all change, so treat any figure you are quoted as valid for that shipment and confirm the current position for the next one.