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International Duties and Taxes Made Easy [Interactive Map]
For many online businesses, international shipping can be tricky with unknown regulations, prohibitions, and restrictions. But with the right knowledge, expanding those boundaries can increase your business’ revenues and provide a source of income that isn’t directly tied to your home economy.
So what do you need to understand before you take the leap?
For one thing, many foreign governments collect taxes and duties on products entering their countries. There are two main classifications for tax and duty collection: Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) and Delivered Duty Paid (DDP).
What’s the difference?
DDU means that the recipient needs to pay duties and taxes upon the package’s arrival. They will not be able to receive their item until these charges are paid.
DDP means that duties and taxes were paid prior to shipping (either by the merchant or customer), so there are no other charges due from the recipient at delivery.
Each country’s tax and duty protocol is different, so it’s important to get a good grip on them before you send a package across borders. In some cases, countries will have a liberal duty threshold (between $500 and $1000), so that you don’t have to worry about collecting duties and taxes unless you’re shipping big-ticket items. Yet other countries don’t collect duties and taxes at all – for example, Hong Kong. Knowing which countries have conservative or liberal duty thresholds can help you plan your international expansion.
As a tool to help online businesses understand international shipping policies, we’ve created the interactive map below to navigate the taxes and duties of popular countries. Just click on your package’s destination to find out what taxes and duties to expect.
Please note: The information provided below is based on the current May 2015 duties and taxes, which may be subject to change.
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Liberal duty threshold. This includes countries that have no duties and taxes. It also includes countries that have a higher threshold for duties and taxes – ranging between $500-1,000 in value.
Moderate duty threshold. This includes countries that have a duty/tax threshold between $50-500.
Conservative duty threshold. This includes countries where duties and taxes are always applied or which have a threshold of up to $50 in value.
Countries with no regular duty threshold but that assess duties by CIF (cost, insurance, freight).