Sunday, August 1, 2010

Philippines Customs Tax Calculator


A lot of Pinoy eBayers, including myself, have asked for help from the experts on how to compute for tax/duties for imported products or items delivered from abroad. Based on information from an eBay thread (thanks to katana_hunter, tamed_8souls & v.carter), I created a calculator for this purpose. It's a little crude, but hopefully it becomes handy for those who have items to be delivered to the Philippines.

Disclaimer: This is meant only as a tool to estimate customs fees. This is in no way meant to be an official computation. Please use the calculation as guidance only.

Input fields are in yellow.

For corrections or suggestions for improvement, just leave a comment.


Declared Value
Shipping Cost
Other Costs
Total Taxable

Peso Rate
Amount For Customs Fee Computation

Tariff Rate (get the rate from the Tariff Table. if you're too lazy, just peg it at 10%)
Customs Fee

CDS
IPF
Postal Charge

Total Vatable
VAT (12%)


Total Amount To Pay (sum of green fields)


For those using Express Mail Service (EMS), here's additional information:

EMS office phone numbers at Pasay City (as of August 2010):

854 5257
854 5148
867 8070
854 0084
854 3580
854 4621

Wikimapia map: EMS Location Map

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is the same formula customs gave me.. thanks a lot..

TOS said...

glad it helps.

Edward said...

well its quite hard to make the calculation as the calculated price i had from other sources point me to about 2K php but this calculates me at 60K... for a 8600 yen parcel

TOS said...

i put .53 on peso rate, with an assumption of 10% tariff, and i'm getting P1674 total.

decimal points are tricky to be input... so what i do is type in the numbers first ("53"), then type in the "." last.

hope that works.

Anonymous said...

hotdamn tariff rate for camera is 14%? because my item from fedex 174usd(ship and item) is 2800 pesos wtf

TOS said...

cruel indeed! unless you find cheaper means to bring it to the philippines, i guess that means it's not practical to ship cameras.

Anonymous said...

...so how do I use this?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting; doesn't seem to work in Chrome or Safari but no worries; very helpful.

TOS said...

i already got it to work on IE. i think it should run ok as well with other browsers. sorry about that.

Anonymous said...

Got an item from Taiwan through EMS. Grabe naman pala ka hayok ng tax computation. parang yung tax na binayaran ko same worth sa item na pinadala sakin. Powta nyo taga custom kayo

Anonymous said...

it runs on chrome but the decimal point is not working, so it would give you tens places in thousand ex. 35,000.00, 45,000.00

TOS said...

just a quick fix: type in last the decimal point in the field.

Joel Chua said...

Gee... The government should be using something like this!!

TOS said...

they were enjoying too much with their traditional calculators ;-)

Anonymous said...

what's the tariff rate for clothings?

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much I was enlightened as I almost sue customs for entries I do not understood!

Although I believe "loose, unmounted diamonds" are free of duties, the customs officers still imposed 3% on them. I'm sorry I'm too lazy to look at Tariff Codes:P

TOS said...

better to know before you go there, so you won't get any surprises. and in case they overcharge you, you could say you checked the tariff rates. at least you're not defenseless.

Anonymous said...

i got lost, my item is p3k and my custom duty is estimated at 33k? amazing. I have 7 items with same worth and it means 33k x 7? robbing the people. only if there are people selling items here in philippines with fair price, nobody would buy it anywhere else but within the country. even the law is not fair.

TOS said...

do you mean the calculator gave you 33k for a 3k product? you might have missed the peso rate entry. enter there the correct peso rate relative to the currency. say, to the dollar, 43 should be entered.

Lito said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lito said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lito said...

Hi!

I would like to ask if this is right or wrong. I'm buying/shipping a digital camera from the U.S to the Philippines and right now I'm arguing with Fedex about the calculation.
According to this information taken from your link the tariff rate/custom fee for digital cameras should be 0%

Description:
Digital cameras

Tariff code:
8525.40.30

Rate of duty:
Free

TOS said...

one thing to note, even if you're free of duty, you still have to pay VAT. maybe that's what fedex is giving you?

Lito said...

Yes I understand that, I'm supposed to pay 3.297P Not around 6.000P. Strangely Fedex.com has an online calculator that arrives at the same 3.297P as this calculator does.

Anonymous said...

wanna know how to use the decimal point?

I'm using JPY for peso rate and it is 0.53.

I just typed it .53 extra fast and it went in. haven't tried it for cents though. but atleast I know it works.

TOS said...

hahaha, thanks for input @anonymous :)

Anonymous said...

Glad someone gave this link to me.

^^

Thanks for making the calculator~ It helped me a lot

Anonymous said...

Customs gives a lot of headache. Almost had a heart attack. But thanks a lot for putting this. So thankful that someone kindly posted the link in yahoo.

Anonymous said...

how about for a digital player with declared value of US$30... should i still pay for tax?

Anonymous said...

very helpful to prepare for argument with corrupted custom officers.

Anonymous said...

June Corral

FEDEX Was bunch of bullshit they charged me for PHP 25,474 for my RC Remote that cost only $400.

I called to them then ask why,they can't explain,but keep on saying " taxes and duties."

WTF Fedex! Better not to use them.

DM said...

Hi, I wanted to know if an item that was bought in the Philippines, carried by the first owner to the US, and then sold back to me would still be required to pay customs duties or taxes, etc? I can get the receipt for when the laptop was bought here in the Philippines. Could I use that to present my case as to why it shouldn't be taxed or pay duties at all?

TOS said...

hmmm, tricky scenario... but i think you're idea of showing the original receipt would fly.

still, ask the experts at this thread... they might provide you with more insight.

http://forums.ebay.ph/thread.jspa?threadID=600000275&start=640

Gleziel said...

matagal ko na gamit tong calculator na 'to.. meron pa po ako isang ginagamit...

share ko lang...

http://app.jamesbanogon.com/import-tax-calculator/

entelechy said...

Hello,

THank you so much for this blog post. It has helped so many people already :)

My situation is... I bought some clothes from UK and it's only for personal use. the total cost of the goods was PhP7800.
YEsterday I got a call from RAF International Forwarding Company and they told me that I have to pay the customs tax (P3948) + storage fee (P500).
They said if I confirm by replying to a text message they sent earlier, they can stop holding it and release it.

They said they can deliver it to my door and I can pay the customs tax by Cash ON DELIVERY. Is this right?

I thought I need to pay the customs fee by picking it up from the customs office or something?

Thanks for your help!

Anonymous said...

I've ordered a product from Hongkong but i had a customs charge of 1,322.60php.

Using the formula you've provided, it only amounts to 757php.

Is there any additional charge if the courier is not EMS? (ex. DHL..)

Thanks.

TOS said...

try to compare the actual receipt and the ones coming out of this calculator, see where the difference is. not sure if they changed something in the computation, but it would've been better if you printed out your sample calculation so you could compare on the spot.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous
HI!

Im from baguio at na-claim ko parcel ko kanina at 40php lang ang binayad ko my declared value is below $50.

May gusto lang po ko itanong, lahat po ba ng mga packages ay pinapadala sa mga local post office? Or may possibility na kunwari taga dito ka sa Baguio at papapuntahin ka nila sa pasay para i-claim ang packages mo?