[1985Darkkid85]

Petrol-heads,

I need to order an C.P.A.P machine (Breathing machine) from USA for a health condition called Sleep apnea.

Please open this Website Link here


Will i have to pay customs on this?

• The product is being shipped by U.S.A priority shipping called USPS International Priority, which cost 90$ extra.
• Once product is shipped to India, who will ship the product to Bangalore? is it India post or FedEx or DHL?

Kindly do assist, as this is my 1st big ticket purchase abroad.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Will i have to pay customs on this?

Getting charged for customs is pure luck-based IMHO. So there is no guarantee whether that package will pass through or not.

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Once product is shipped to India, who will ship the product to Bangalore? is it India post or FedEx or DHL?

India Post. That guy will hand you the receipt in case there is any duty charged by the customs officer.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Petrol-heads,

I need to order an C.P.A.P machine (Breathing machine) from USA for a health condition called Sleep apnea.

Please open this Website Link here


Will i have to pay customs on this?

• The product is being shipped by U.S.A priority shipping called USPS International Priority, which cost 90$ extra.
• Once product is shipped to India, who will ship the product to Bangalore? is it India post or FedEx or DHL?

Kindly do assist, as this is my 1st big ticket purchase abroad.

Ive ordered a couple of items from abroad recently. You can refer to this and this (The Riding Gear thread) for timelines and customs duty imposed on each. When I asked the local postman, he said everything that is coming through is getting slapped with the correct customs duty. Maybe it has something to do with enhanced revenue collection targets.

To my understanding, if your product is getting shipped by Fedex or DHL through their priority services, they will be responsible for customs clearance and getting it to you. Thats why you pay the premium. You can refer to a TBHPians experience with DHL on my Continental GT ownership thread. Its on the next page of the first link I shared.

If your product is getting shipped by their local mail services (example Royal Mail in the UK) or by regular DHL to reach India, it is then handed off to the Indian Postal Service and you can track your product seamlessly. Either way, just account for the customs duty to be imposed on your product.

[1985Darkkid85]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

If your product is getting shipped by their local mail services (example Royal Mail in the UK) or by regular DHL to reach India, it is then handed off to the Indian Postal Service and you can track your product seamlessly. Either way, just account for the customs duty to be imposed on your product.

Hi Neil, i read through your narrative and the other persons as well on the above linked pages.
Does it mean that it is always best to get it shipped by the government post office?

I am getting it shipped from USA, should i ask them to ship it via US postal services (similar to Royal mail of U.K)?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

I am getting it shipped from USA, should i ask them to ship it via US postal services

Depends.

Benefit of DHL / UPS and similar is "predictability". I.e. you know in advance how much time it will take end-to-end, how much will you have to pay as Customs + IGST + Service charges.

In most cases, it takes few minutes to clear customs (Customs clears it while item is about to land in India). This is because of the processes in DHL/ UPS where they identify proper category codes and present complete documentation to customs.

Downside is cost.

You should expect to pay around 60k INR for a 500 USD product. Customs is applied on the "landed cost" I.e. cost includes product plus shipment cost.

Rough costs :

Total tax rate seems to be 32%



1. Product price + shipping : 600 USD , 45k INR
2. 32% Duty + Cess : 14k
3. Service charges : 3k

Total : 62k

With services that hand over the item to India post, downside is :

1. Duty depends on judgement of customs (CPAP machine can be interpreted as a medical equipment, breathing apparatus and two other HS codes)
2. Clearance can take 1 to 4 weeks.

Upside is cost. Handling charges are only a few hundred rupees.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Hi Neil, i read through your narrative and the other persons as well on the above linked pages.
Does it mean that it is always best to get it shipped by the government post office?

I am getting it shipped from USA, should i ask them to ship it via US postal services (similar to Royal mail of U.K)?

NetfreakBombay has explained it well. If the item isnt urgently required, just take the regular mail option and save some cash. If you need it ASAP, pay more and get it through priority shipping.

[Thad E Ginathom]

DHL and all are quicker, and probably more secure, but do not come without potential problems.

Every DHL package is assessed by customs. They have a partnership with customs. No doubt this is quick and efficient compared to waiting for customs to wade through huge quantities of post, but it has seemed to me that dealing with DHL is actually worse than dealing with customs themselves! The insist on KYC: proof of identity and address. They insist on perfect match for these documents which you will have to upload.

I have had big problems with them on name order being different, short-form name being used, and typo/truncation of words in address. It is stuff that gets sorted out in the end, but it is also stressful.

How to avoid it...

Make sure your name and address that you give the supplier for delivery exactly match your PAN, Aadhaar, etc. card that you will use for ID and address proof.

[whencut86]

From my experience it is much easier to deal with Indian custom officials and you get a quick response from them. You will get a letter stating that your parcel is stuck at customs and requesting more details to clear that. Have seen that in multiple orders which were stuck and were released immediately post providing the bills or required details. They are even okay with bill value in mails received from online sites.

One can get the customs mail ID for each location from the government sites and in most cities they pretty much respond to our mails within the same day or at the max the next day. I am saying this from my experiences in the past few years.

Earlier there used to be more cases of receiving the package from India Post with zero customs but of late, there is more scrutiny and have paid customs in all orders recently. Just got to make sure the deal is very good even with the customs duty involved. If it is a bigger package, the postman asks you to come to the post office and collect the parcel. If it is a smaller one, the post man hands it over to you at home. Having said that it all takes anywhere between 1-4 weeks of the package reaching Indian shores and so have to be patient since there are lakhs of packages reaching customs everyday.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

They insist on perfect match for these documents which you will have to upload.

Yes, they will insist on this from receiver. Similarly, they will insist on "exact" documentation like HS code from shipper.

Benefit of this documentation is 0-minute clearance in vast majority of cases. Unless everything is exactly correct, someone will have to manually clear it and that takes few days at best.

[1985Darkkid85]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

NetfreakBombay has explained it well. If the item isnt urgently required, just take the regular mail option and save some cash. If you need it ASAP, pay more and get it through priority shipping.

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Depends.

Benefit of DHL / UPS and similar is "predictability". I.e. you know in advance how much time it will take end-to-end, how much will you have to pay as Customs + IGST + Service charges.

In most cases, it takes few minutes to clear customs (Customs clears it while item is about to land in India). This is because of the processes in DHL/ UPS where they identify proper category codes and present complete documentation to customs.

Downside is cost.

You should expect to pay around 60k INR for a 500 USD product. Customs is applied on the "landed cost" I.e. cost includes product plus shipment cost.

Rough costs :

Total tax rate seems to be 32%

Attachment 2152416

1. Product price + shipping : 600 USD , 45k INR
2. 32% Duty + Cess : 14k
3. Service charges : 3k

Total : 62k

With services that hand over the item to India post, downside is :

1. Duty depends on judgement of customs (CPAP machine can be interpreted as a medical equipment, breathing apparatus and two other HS codes)
2. Clearance can take 1 to 4 weeks.

Upside is cost. Handling charges are only a few hundred rupees.

I'd like to quote you both & advise i have filed an RTI on this, to hear from the "horse's mouth" so to speak of.
With the current pandemic raging, it is anybody's guess when the PIO will deem it suitable to reply.
I will post the reply of the CPIO once i hear back from them.

Original RTI was posted to the GST/Customs department but has since been transferred to the directorate of foreign trade.
The kind of hoops we Indians have to jump to get information

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by whencut86

One can get the customs mail ID for each location from the government sites and in most cities they pretty much respond to our mails within the same day or at the max the next day. I am saying this from my experiences in the past few years.

Thanks for sharing this. One of my deliveries from aliexpress has been held up at one of the customs offices and I checked their website for the list of confiscated packages but my name wasnt on that. I never thought of sending them an email. Let me try that and see if it can be released.

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

I'd like to quote you both & advise i have filed an RTI on this, to hear from the "horse's mouth" so to speak of.

Let us know if you get a response.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Original RTI was posted to the GST/Customs department but has since been transferred to the directorate of foreign trade.

This might eventually be routed to CBDT ( https://www.cbic.gov.in/ )

I hope this works for you, I fear :

1. RTI will be replied appropriately
2. RTI will not make any difference to officials on-field
3. On-field, almost anything can be questioned. E.g.: shipper did not pick appropriate form for declaring value or if code for "Medical Device" was selected.
4. Legally, officials will be correct in holding the shipment till a satisfactory response has been provided.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by 1985Darkkid85

Original RTI was posted to the GST/Customs department but has since been transferred to the directorate of foreign trade.
The kind of hoops we Indians have to jump to get information

Kudos to you for trying to get this info from the source. It would definitely be helpful for many.

Just a small note, I would not have used words like "grey area" or "genius". You never know what can tick off the govt. servants. Best is to just state the facts and ask the question in plain language.

Hoping they reply soon as the query is about oxygen concentrator.

[1985Darkkid85]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Kudos to you for trying to get this info from the source. It would definitely be helpful for many.

Just a small note, I would not have used words like "grey area" or "genius". You never know what can tick off the govt. servants. Best is to just state the facts and ask the question in plain language.

Hoping they reply soon as the query is about oxygen concentrator.

Thanks mate

The RTI was filed with a slightly condescending (albeit humorous) tone, to wake them up from their deep slumber and reply urgently.
As someone who files RTI's very frequently, I know the trials n tribulations that I have to go through to get them (PIO) to answer properly. Most replies if given are extremely vague or not at all in some cases.

The question is about a a cpap machine which I used for my acute Sleep apnea condition.
This is however not exactly equivalent to an Oxygen cylinder or a ventilator, it is just a machine which pumps Air into throat/airways in order to keep it from collapsing.

I will update the thread with the reply, once i hear back from them.

[Ranger747]

All,

Hope someone can throw some light on the situation I am in. I recently bought some guitar gear from Singapore. The whole thing including shipping cost me about 500USD. But I ended up paying 34K INR as tax. This seems too much to me. Anyone knows what all the below things means here? This is my first time buying something directly from abroad. ( probably last too given the tax that got added )

CUSTOMS DUTY (REIMBURSEMENT OF COST) (DT) : 15,171.00
IGST (REIMBURSEMENT OF COST) (L1) : 16,809.00
S W SURCHARGE(REIMBURSEMENT OF COST) (L2) : 1,517.00
996719-DISBURSEMENT FEE (AV) : 750

CGST @ 9% (TX) : 67.5
SGST @ 9% (TX) : 67.5


This came by DHL express. I am seeking some explanation from them, but not sure when I will get any ( if at all )

Thank you!