A Guide to Mexico Customs Clearance

Most Chinese businessmen in Mexico should have experienced various troublesome customs clearance issues. Here, we popularize some basic customs clearance procedures, hoping to help everyone.

Start with exporting from China.

The first step in exporting is to find a freight forwarder, determine the shipping company and reserve the position. Then there must be an export company (owned or entrusted by itself) to go through the export-related procedures. If you do not need to do tax rebates, you can generally entrust a freight forwarding company to handle all export procedures, and the freight forwarding company will find an export agency company to pay for the export. All these procedures, for Mexico customs clearance, the most important is the bill of lading, other operations, including domestic customs declaration prices, etc., are limited to domestic use, Chinese customs will not open data to Mexican customs. On the bill of lading, the key information is the consignor (export company), the consignee (import company) and the number of pieces. These information cannot be wrong and must be consistent with the actual situation.

After the container is loaded, it can be officially shipped within 3-7 days, and the bill of lading can generally be issued within a week after the ship sails. The bill of lading should be released by telegram as much as possible. It is not recommended to take the original bill of lading. The original bill of lading needs to be sent, and there is a risk of loss. Once lost, the problem is more serious, and a complicated and long legal process is required to make up the bill of lading, which will result in high detention fees.

Of course, before loading the container, you need to confirm the import company (consignee) in Mexico. Many Chinese businessmen do wholesale business in the central area and may not have their own import companies. At this time, they need to entrust a third-party import company to import. In fact, most of the so-called customs clearance agents contacted by Chinese wholesale traders are actually import agents, not real customs agents (customs agents generally do not provide agent import business). The agent importing company is also the legal owner of the goods, so please choose carefully. If you have your own import company, you can directly contact the customs agent (Patente) for import procedures. At this time, you need to have some customs knowledge. The customs agent (Patente) generally only transfers and submits documents. For specific customs declaration advice, you need to be familiar with relevant laws and regulations, apply for certification, health licenses and commercial invoices (approved customs declaration prices) by yourself, and then entrust a customs agent (Patente) to declare customs.

After the container is shipped, it usually takes 18-25 days to arrive at the Mexican port. For containers from China, the main destination port is generally Manzanillo, and some go to Lazaro Cardenas, but it is generally recommended to choose Manzanillo (when ordering containers in China, confirm with the freight forwarder). If your cargo destination is Mexico City, you can choose train or Truck transportation, in view of the current safety situation of railway lines, it is generally recommended to choose truck transportation as much as possible. Judging from the situation in recent years, truck transportation is more secure in terms of safety.

If you choose truck transportation, customs declaration operations are completed at the Manzanillo port customs. If you choose train transportation, you can declare at the Manzanillo port, or you can wait until it is shipped to Mexico City and declare at the Pantaco customs. It is generally recommended to declare customs at Manzanillo port as much as possible. Pantaco customs throughput is relatively small, and the probability of being inspected and having problems is relatively high. Basically, large-scale customs agents declare customs at the port, and rarely declare at Pantaco. The customs brokers are small in scale and their operations are not standardized. Of course, there are also advantages. Pantaco may be relatively more convenient when carrying out some irregular operations.

Generally, when the container arrives at the port, the customs agent (Patente) needs to pre-check the goods. This operation comes from the special legal provisions of Mexico. The Mexican customs law stipulates that if the import company makes a false declaration, the customs agent (Patente) and the import company need to bear the same legal responsibility (even criminal responsibility). Therefore, in order to protect themselves, the customs agent will Goods are pre-screened to ensure that all shipments comply with customs legal requirements. Pre-inspection may cause cargo damage and slow down the entire customs clearance process for about 2-5 working days. In order to avoid such problems, we have adopted the method of pre-inspection of container loading in China. Through our China office or the entrusted third-party inspection agency, we will do pre-inspection and data collection during container loading in China, thus avoiding the need for Unpacking pre-check in Mexico.

Generally, the customs agent will start to check the customs declaration information, classify the products, determine the customs code, and determine the taxes and fees according to the commercial invoice after the pre-inspection is completed. This process generally takes 2-5 working days. After the classification of taxes and fees is completed, the customs system will be used to declare and pay taxes. After declaring and paying taxes, you need to apply to the customs for customs clearance. At this time, the customs system will automatically conduct random inspections on all containers. In addition, sometimes the customs will also conduct additional special inspections. The random inspection of the cabinet is the so-called red light inspection. The container will be pulled to the designated red light inspection position, and the customs will unload all the goods and inspect them one by one according to the customs declaration documents. The inspection items are generally whether the customs code classification is accurate, whether there are counterfeit products, whether there is NOM certification, and whether the customs declaration price is low. The red light inspection will generally cause the cabinet to be delayed for 2-7 working days. If there is a problem in the inspection, it will be delayed for a longer time, even several months. There are generally two customs declaration methods: A1 and A4. A1 is the conventional way, A4 is the bonded import way. If the A4 method is used for customs declaration, it will not be checked whether the customs declaration price is low during the red light inspection link. In addition, for A4 customs declaration, taxes and fees are not paid at the time of customs declaration. After the container is cleared from customs, it must first enter the bonded warehouse, and then pay the corresponding taxes and fees when the bonded warehouse leaves the customs.

If the customs inspection goes well, the customs will be officially cleared. For the A1 customs declaration cabinet, it can be sent directly to the customer warehouse. For the A4 customs declaration cabinet, it needs to enter the bonded warehouse, and then from the bonded warehouse to the customer warehouse.

Mexico Customs has perfect laws and regulations and strict inspections. When doing business in Mexico, please be sure to learn as much about customs as possible, and try to import in accordance with the requirements of laws and regulations. In many cases, customs penalties may not be severe, the biggest issue is time. Mexico Customs is inefficient, and various inspections and problem handling often take several months. At this time, a lot of detention costs will be incurred. There are two main demurrage fees, one is the port storage fee, and the other is the demurrage fee charged by the shipping company. The total cost of the two costs is about 200-260 US dollars a day.

Mexico Customs Clearance FAQs:

Q: What are the types of Mexican certificates?

A: There are mainly "Normas Oficiales Mexicanas (NOM)" and "Normas Mexicanas (NMX)". NOM is a technical regulation and NMX is a voluntary standard. Products sold in Mexico must comply with Mexico's technical product regulations.

Q: What is the specific standard of NOM?

A: The MXNOM logo is one of the product safety signs in Mexico, which is required for most electronic products.

Q: What does the NOM technical standard label include?

A: Generic Label for Consumer Products (NOM-050-SCFI-1994)

     Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverage Labeling (NOM-051-SCFI-1994)

     Alcoholic Beverage Labels (NOM-142-SSA1-1995)

     Textiles, Clothing and Accessories Labels (NOM-004-SCFI-1994)

     Labels for leather or man-made materials of similar appearance, footwear, and goods made of these materials (NOM-020-SCFI-1997)

     Labeling of Electrical and Electronic Products and Household Appliances (NOM-024-SCFI-1998)

     Labels for paints, varnishes and similar goods (NOM-003-SSA1-1993) etc.

Q: How to apply for NOM certification?

A: Our importer qualifications have the vast majority of NOM import certification qualifications, but some special labels require separate certification by the shipper, and we will provide certification channels and fees.

Q: Which products are more strictly restricted in Mexico?

A: Medical products (such as thermometers, blood pressure monitors);

     Toys and supplies for children aged 3 and under;

     Data information processing equipment (computers, mobile phones, scanner guns);

     Electronic products with a working voltage higher than 24V;

     Textile;

     Leather shoes (customs will consider high value)

Q: Are there any restrictions on the head of the individual report?

A: No, but separate customs declaration will be charged separately.

Q: Where is the separate customs declaration port and how to fill in it?

A: If the goods are received and exported from Shenzhen, the customs declaration port recommends that the customer fill in Shenzhen Customs 5300.

Q: How to inquire about the certificates required for products imported in Mexico?

A: When querying the tariff through the HS code (usually the first 6 digits can be queried), the certification number starting with NOM (such as NOM-001-SCFI-1993) will be displayed below. Among them, the three certificates of NOM-001-SCFI-1993, NOM-003-SCFI-2014 and NOM-019-SCFI-1998 have higher requirements. If you do not need these three certificates, it is relatively easy to clear customs.

Q: How to check whether the brand is registered with Mexican customs?

A: It can be inquired at the Mexican customs brand record. Products of well-known brands must have the authorization of the corresponding brand (some products with famous cartoon images may also be considered to be infringing).

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