The 6 delivery rule applies in a time period only. I think the time period is 3 or 6 months. So if you have 6 orders in 6 months you trigger the 6 order rule.
That’s the supposed rule, yes (six in six months). But I’ve asked a bunch of times over the years if anyone has ever actually been hit by it - and until @Chad_Hogan posted about this above, I don’t think anyone’s indicated it’s been an issue. Hence my suspicion the rule is only arbitrarily and rarely applied.
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A few months back I had an expensive item arriving from Holland via Fed-Ex. At some point in the process Fed-Ex also suggested that I download EZway, but I just ignored this and did it the old fashioned way where I signed a letter of authorization and they took care of the importation fees on my behalf.
I’ve been wondering if that transaction somehow flagged up something. I only say this because that was the one “unusual” transaction in my recent history. Generally, I’m just ordering inexpensive items from Shopee or Yahoo!. And, as other posters have commented, I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded the six items/six months thing before without any issue.
I guess we’ll never know…
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Do The six items have to be over a certain value?
I believe the rules are the duty applies to goods over NT$2,000, OR any shipments beyond the 7th in a six-month period.
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Thanks for the clarification
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Did you have to pay customs duties, and if so, how?
Any over $2000NT? That’s the other limit.
Pro tip: register your wife, maybe children, and/or willing friend if they don’t buy from abroad themselves and you aren’t getting anything dodgy. They only identify by name and phone number, so it doesn’t matter if you live at the same address. At least not for store pick-up orders.
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Nope, never. That’s another alert that iHerb keeps giving me. Their alert is slightly inaccurate if I recall correctly - somewhere in the fine print I think they say the value assuming no discounts needs to be under $2,000. My orders are almost always net under $2,000, but would be $2,200 or so but for whatever 10% discount I’m using. Never been an issue.
But with regards to the ezWay alert, the size of the order doesn’t matter. Every order, I get an email from iHerb telling me blah blah blah ezWay. And I ignore it, and the order arrives. So far. Touch wood.
But in recent years the six orders per six months limit hasn’t been an issue for me - I’m usually only at two or three. Gee, thanks iHerb I guess, for no longer stocking a lot of my preferred products.
Good question!!! Originally I was informed that there would be a small fee on each item. I had assumed this would just be added to the total cost that I would pay upon collection. (It was so little, I never even gave it a second thought.)
Upon reading your question, I looked at the receipts and realised that I had in fact paid NO additional customs duties! That further aroused my curiosity, so I went back to EZway to look at my order history.
The plot thickens…
I found a message on the customs page of each order that: “This has been paid by the courier company”. Looks like they’ve eaten the import duty costs! ($40 dollars on a $254 item.) Now I’m more confused than ever! I mean, I guess they could have just figured it wasn’t worth the hassle of chasing it up? But then that wouldn’t make a whole lot of financial sense if this issue is more widespread.
Weird!
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So far, knock on wood, I have not encountered any issues with purchases over 2,000 NTD over a 6 month period.
For example, in the last 6 months I ordered the following purchases (international) over 2000 NTD;
蝦皮 (it should be noted that all of the overseas deliveries were first accepted by the seller and then sent to me through a convenience store)
- 5 products
Amazon
- 10 shipments in the last 3 months
eBay
- 14 shipments in the last 6 months
- Should be noted that for Amazon purchases either a) the courier company paid for any import taxes or b) import charges for later refunded to my account.
After checking what actually went through the EZway app in the last 2 months, I could not find any instances where the import was over 2,000 NTD.
Curious, indeed!
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I’ve definitely bought way more than six products over a thousand NT in the past three months, let alone in the past 6 months. This seems to be a new issue. I ordered something from China which cost only a couple hundred NTD. The the following message was shown:
I’ve never encountered this issue or seen this issue before. I do make a point of ordering only from Taiwan sellers if possible through 蝦皮, but I’ve definitely ordered at least a dozen or more in the past few months from China. This is really strange.
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What happens if someone who doesn’t have a smart phone (hence no registration on EZway), but still orders things online from overseas?
Go to the store of the shipper.
Depends on the shipping company and the store you ordered from. My past 2 Amazon orders didn’t tell me to use EZ way and I still got my packages. As others have said, sometimes you still get the package even when they tell you to fill it out. UPS, FEDEX, and DHL will also send you an email so you can file paper file (or at least they used to, it might have changed). I even had DHL call me before telling me I had to fill it out and also an extra form for what I was importing.
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I’ve made a bit of a blunder. My wife had ordered up to her limit on Shopee, actually hadn’t but it says she did, probably because two orders were canceled (those required using EZway, which she doesn’t have, and the others didn’t). I had 5 orders, all through Shopee, all using EZWay. I was afraid her order would be canceled because of the EZWay thing again so I ordered on my account. Then, I ordered something from some random store in Europe which probably never heard of EZWay. Then I looked at my EZWay app. I had 5 orders since July. One will pass, but I may owe duties on the other two. That’s fine, but how do I pay them? At least one, the most important and urgent, is coming by post.
It probably depends on the carrier. I had a package from DHL two years ago and DHL sent me and email, and called to confirm I got the email, to collect payment. I was able to pay using DHL’s online payment system. I can’t remember if they add on a fee for that or not. Five years I had a package from Fedex and they didn’t notify me that I had to pay. Just showed up and said I owed this amount of money for customs, paid in cash for this one.
I think most carriers will contact you about payment before they deliver probably by email or phone. If it’s coming by the post office, I imagine they will send you a letter.
Any ideas how long I can wait to confirm a delivery? I’ve go 3 coming, and the last two will put me over the 6 shipment limit. One has shown up on EZWay, but one is coming that is very important and I don’t want any delay. I’d like to hold off confirming this one until that one arrives just in case.
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Has anyone ever had a package disappear at Taiwan customs and tried to track it down by contacting them? I have a missing package that according to USPS should have arrived at Taiwan customs around October 15 but was seemingly not even scanned there since (I was also never notified whether thru EZWAY or otherwise) - the tracking is still stuck at October 15 with the last status being “INTERNATIONAL DISPATCH READY” (according to USPS this means it was scanned at the departing facility but not yet scanned upon arrival). Do they offer any service to check whether something might have fallen through the cracks?
I’ve had a package delivered with the contents missing. 
I wasn’t laughing at the time though. Maybe sometimes things get “misplaced” or “confiscated” at the customs office.
