Common international shipping terms

 

Inspection Certificate or Surveillance Certificate (Goods Inspection) is a document issued by one of the international inspection companies. The said certificate confirms that the goods shipped are the same as the goods ordered. The inspection certificate is delivered to the seller’s bank along with the shipping documents to be sent to the buyer’s bank. According to the Central Bank’s circular, it is mandatory to provide an inspection certificate for all goods worth more than (twenty thousand dollars) imported through the opening of a letter of credit or a collection bill. According to the said circular, the provision of a surveillance certificate is required in all non-trading transactions.

 

In the case of imported goods without foreign exchange transfer, it is not mandatory to provide an inspection certificate. If the importer himself wishes, he can demand it from the seller of the goods.

 

The cost of inspecting the goods is generally borne by the seller and is included in the FOB or C&F amount of the goods stated in the proforma.

 

A certificate of inspection is a means of preventing fraud by the seller and the shipping company. If the shipment of goods covered by a letter of credit or bill of lading is permitted in partial shipments, it is mandatory to provide a separate certificate of inspection for each shipment to be shipped, issued only by the same inspection company specified in the credit, and foreign exchange branches will refuse to accept a full inspection.

 

The buyer of the goods is responsible for choosing the inspection company, and the inspection certificate issued by the designated inspection company must be approved by the Chamber of Commerce where the certificate is issued.

 

In addition, certificates issued by the Iranian Engineering and Industrial Inspection Company I.E.I. do not require the approval of the local Chamber of Commerce, but must be approved by the local Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran. (According to the Central Bank Circular)

 

 

The value of imported goods at customs in all cases consists of the CIF price (purchase price of goods at origin plus insurance, transportation and loading costs) and all costs related to opening a credit or depositing a bill of lading, as well as the right to use the patent of a design, model and trademark and other similar rights related to the goods and other costs that are due to that goods until they enter the first customs office, which will be determined based on the purchase list or other delivery documents of the owner of the goods based on the exchange rate and equal to the price announced by the Central Bank of Iran on the day the declaration is submitted.

 

 

Any commodity declared as export to customs, regardless of the price determined for it according to the contract or generally regardless of the value of the commodity abroad, has a price that has been previously determined by an official government authority and is made available to customs, banks, and other organizations in the form of a list of export prices. Therefore, exporters have access to these prices and export declarations must necessarily be evaluated with these values. This method of pricing exported goods and the obligation of all exporters to comply with it is because, firstly, if the exporter is allowed to declare the export price of the goods he exports at will, he will definitely declare different prices to customs for the same type of commodity. Thus, if it is decided to obtain a foreign exchange commitment, by collecting taxes, or even by preparing trade statistics, none of these purposes will be properly fulfilled.

 

 

Customs validation documents are generally documents that confirm the entry of goods into the country in the authorized order, the completion of final customs formalities regarding them, and clearance from customs by issuing a clearance document and paying all fees related to the final entry of the goods.

 

Get to know the services of Gita Arad Darya Group!

 

 

False documents are documents or lists in which the characteristics of the goods are not stated correctly and exclusively, and the owner of the goods has acted to the detriment of the government by not stating the characteristics and has declared another product with lower customs duties, commercial profits, and duties.

 

 

That is, any statement or action regarding specific information required by customs in any form recommended or accepted by customs.

 

CUSTOMS FORMALITIES

 

Meaning all operations that must be carried out by the interested party and the customs in order to implement the legal and regulatory provisions regarding the supervision of passengers and the declaration of luggage, furniture and vehicles entering, leaving and passing through the “customs territory”.

 

 

Customs transit is a customs procedure according to which goods under customs supervision are transported from one customs office to another. Usually, customs authorities allow the transport of goods under the title of customs transit within their customs territory in the following order:

 

A – From an entry customs office to an exit customs office (outward transit)It is considered a customs violation.

 

 

A duty or tax that a government collects on goods for passing through its territory on their way from one country to another. Large countries have eliminated transit tariffs, but some developing countries still use these tariffs as a source of

 

Dumping is the supply of goods at a price lower than the final cost of production or by using unusual means in a foreign market.

 

 

An amount paid temporarily in cash or in the form of a valid bank guarantee as security for payment of customs duties, commercial interest, customs fees and costs, and other expenses that may be due on the goods.

 

 

In addition to customs duties, funds are also collected from certain imported goods under the title of commercial interest, as approved by the Cabinet of Ministers pursuant to the Foreign Trade Monopoly Law, the Customs Affairs Law, and the Export and Import Regulations Law, which is called commercial interest.

 

The philosophy of setting commercial profits apart from customs duties was simply that whenever the government deemed it necessary to change its amount in order to support the country’s production and industries, while if these funds were collected entirely in the form of customs duties, according to the law, the parliament would have to determine it. Therefore, any possible change would require preparations and going through common procedures and would take a relatively long time. While these funds may need to be changed every year, this change can be easily done with the approval of the government board.

 

 

A clearance document is any customs document by which goods can be cleared by customs. This document is called a customs license, a return goods license, a foreign transit license, a domestic transit license, a returned goods license, an export license, a cabotage license, and in the case of non-commercial and passenger goods, a pateh or a non-commercial pateh.

 

 

A document in which the characteristics of the goods are stated that do not match the type of goods and characteristics of the declared goods.

 

 

Means taking a list of the details of the goods in the warehouse, weighing the goods (packages), opening and viewing the contents, determining the characteristics of the goods for inclusion in the customs declaration, taking samples of the goods for sending to the laboratory, drying the goods, and also replacing the wrapper.

 

 

Duties received by customs are funds that are entrusted to the customs to collect according to regulations. These duties are determined by law or by resolutions based on law.

 

 

Smuggling is the placement of goods that are the subject of government revenues or the transportation and purchase and sale of goods that are the subject of a crime.

 

 

Goods are seized at customs in cases where the goods are prohibited from entering or are unauthorized and have been declared with the correct name and specifications, and the customs have given the owner of the goods three months to return the goods from the country, but the owner of the goods does not take action, in which case the goods are so-called seized after the expiration of the said three months. Also, after the seizure, the owner of the goods is given up to two months to submit a complaint to the county court, if he has any, otherwise, after the two months have passed, the goods are so-called seized definitively, meaning they become the property of the government.

 

 

Abandoned goods are goods whose owner has abandoned them, meaning that for any reason he has not gone to the goods for clearance or, if he has gone, he delays in presenting the necessary documents or records. The period after which the goods are abandoned is four months from the date of the first warehouse receipt, and at airports it is two months. If no action is taken to clear the goods within this period, the goods are abandoned. If the owner of the goods has a valid excuse for not going to the goods and clearing them, he can request that the aforementioned period be extended by a maximum of four months by preparing a request and submitting it to the customs.

 

 

Returned goods or “re-exported” goods are goods that:

 

– were previously imported into the country as temporary imports and are declared for re-exportation at the end of the temporary entry period and are known as returned goods.

 

– Due to prohibition or inadmissibility or non-compliance with mandatory standards (in the case of those goods whose entry requires compliance with mandatory standards) or generally not meeting the conditions. They cannot be released and must therefore be returned from the country.

 

 

TIR-CARNET This term means a transit book for goods from a customs office of origin in one country to a customs office of destination in another country.

 

 

A carnet de passage is actually a passport for a road vehicle that travels as a temporary entry into a country or countries. It may be used to transport goods, people or as a car for travel or to do something that is intended to be temporarily entered into a country.

 

 

Customs exemptions include customs duties, commercial profits and fees. Now, sometimes all three of these rights and duties are exempt, and sometimes some of its components, for example, exemption only from customs duties or exemption from commercial profits or from some items of duties, or all of these as mentioned.

 

 

A prohibition on the import or export of goods is established by law or by law-based approvals

 

In other words, it includes goods that are specifically prohibited from import or export, as well as goods that are economically prohibited from import or export, which in the latter case are called “unauthorized”.

 

 

Meaning: measures taken to ensure the implementation of laws and regulations that customs are responsible for implementing.

 

 

Definite imports refer to goods that are ordered for consumption or sale and are released from customs after entering the country or completing definitive customs formalities, including payment of import duties and taxes.

 

Under this method, goods are imported for a specific purpose, for a specific period, with the rights that are due to their definitive entry and are released from customs by completing definitive customs formalities. The entry of permitted goods is conditional and not subject to customs approval. The entry of prohibited goods is subject to the approval of the Council of Ministers.

 

 

Legal weight means the weight that is or will be determined by law for specific purposes. In customs law, this weight is also the gross weight (weight with container) minus the approximate weight (approximate weights of the container specified in the customs law) of the container. The weight obtained in this way is used to calculate customs duties and import duties in cases where these duties are collected on the basis of weight.

 

 

It refers to the weight of goods without the effect of humidity or heat in the case of moisture-absorbing goods whose weight is shown more or less than the shipping documents when they are released from customs. Therefore, for the purpose of calculating customs duties and import duties, as well as implementing other regulations related to imports and exports, the weight of goods in their current and normal state, which must generally be the same as the weight stated in the documents, will be the criterion for action.

 

 

Customs costs are funds whose amount and method of collection are approved by the Council of Ministers for unloading, transportation, warehousing, testing. Tariffs, escorts, extraordinary services, and the like are determined and collected by customs. Some of these costs are calculated and included in customs declarations and before declaration, and some are collected by receipt of income and separately from the declaration (such as extraordinary service costs, goods testing costs, tariff costs, and escort costs).

 

 

Transferring goods and any equipment from one ship to another is called container shipping by transshipment. All foreign shipping lines transport containerized cargo to Iran by transshipment. Generally, transshipment is carried out through the port of Jebel Ali in the UAE.

 

Container shipping by transshipment is very effective for those goods owners who, for whatever reason, are unable to display the original destination in the bill of lading. Today, due to the sanctions imposed on the shipping of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the amount of container shipping by foreign shipping lines has increased.

 

We are able to offer our customers the best prices for container transshipment, relying on our volume of activity with foreign shipping lines. Also, having an online cargo tracking system allows us to keep our customers informed of the shipping process online.