China import duty and tax on parcels and e-commerce orders

First, work out which regime applies

The same product can face three different tax bills on its way into China. The bill depends on who is importing it and why.

• A person receiving goods for their own use clears a personal parcel.
• A consumer buying from an overseas seller on an e-commerce platform clears a cross-border e-commerce order.
• A company bringing in stock to sell clears general trade cargo.

Customs decides which one fits. Declaring commercial goods as a personal parcel does not change the answer. It gets the parcel returned or held.

Personal parcels

China overhauled the tax on inbound personal articles on December 1, 2024. The current rules for mailed and couriered parcels:

• Value limit: RMB 2,000 per parcel. A single item that cannot be divided may exceed the limit when it is for personal use.
• Small-tax waiver: RMB 50. When the tax due on a parcel is RMB 50 or less, customs waives it.
• Over the limit: a parcel above RMB 2,000 that holds more than one item must be sent back or cleared as cargo.
• Commercial mail clears as cargo, whatever its value.

Customs charges one combined rate that stands in for tariff, VAT and consumption tax. The rate depends on the class of article. To find it, look up the article in the customs classification table for inbound articles, then find the matching entry in the dutiable value table. That entry shows the rate.

How customs values a parcel

Customs starts from the price you paid. It can ask for proof before releasing the goods: an invoice, a receipt, an order record or a payment confirmation. Keep them.

For gifts and other goods with no purchase price, customs uses its own published value table. Declaring a lower value than the true one is an offense, and customs pursues it.

Cross-border e-commerce orders

A consumer in China who buys from an overseas seller through a registered platform gets a reduced rate, inside two limits.

Cross-border e-commerce retail import: limits and tax

	Rule	What it means
Per order	RMB 5,000	The value limit for a single transaction
Per person, per year	RMB 26,000	The total one shopper can buy this way in a year
Tariff	0%	Set at zero for orders inside the limits
VAT and consumption tax	70% of the normal amount	Charged on every order. There is no small-tax waiver.
One item above RMB 5,000	Full tax at cargo rates	Allowed when it is the only item in the order and the shopper is inside the annual limit
Returns	Within 30 days of customs release	The tax is refunded and the shopper’s annual total is adjusted

The arithmetic is short. Customs charges the tax on the transaction price, with freight and insurance included. For a product with 13% VAT and no consumption tax, the shopper pays 70% of 13%, which is 9.1% of that amount.

The product has to be on China’s Cross-Border E-Commerce Retail Import Goods List. Products off the list cannot use this regime.

General trade cargo

Stock imported for resale pays the standard taxes in full:

1. Tariff, at the rate for the product’s HS code, on the customs value.
2. Consumption tax, on the categories that carry it, such as alcohol and high-end cosmetics.
3. Import VAT, on the customs value with the tariff and any consumption tax added.

China’s tax authority gives the formulas. The composite assessable price is the customs value plus tariff, divided by one minus the consumption tax rate. VAT is that price multiplied by the VAT rate. Consumption tax is the same price multiplied by the consumption tax rate.

General trade has no value limits and no restriction to personal use. It also carries the full set of import licensing, registration and labeling rules for the product.

Goods coming back to China

Exported goods that return can enter free of import tax.

• Cross-border e-commerce exports that return in original state within six months of export, unsold or sent back by the buyer, pay no import duty, import VAT or consumption tax. The policy covers exports from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027. Food is excluded.
• Other exports that return in original state within one year, for reasons of quality, specification or force majeure, pay no import duty.

See how to return Amazon FBA inventory to China for the documents.

Four mistakes that cost money

Using old limits. The RMB 800 and RMB 1,000 parcel limits ended in 2024. Plans built on them are wrong.

Splitting a commercial shipment into personal parcels. Customs treats commercial mail as cargo. Splitting it into small parcels does not change what it is.

Guessing the value. Customs can ask for proof of the price paid. A declared value it cannot verify delays the parcel.

Ignoring the annual limit. A shopper who has used their RMB 26,000 for the year cannot receive another cross-border e-commerce order at the reduced rate.