I shipped my belongings from US to Taiwan with Lucky Moving sea freight back in February, but I only just entered Taiwan earlier this month and with how much time passed totally forgot that I had to declare it at customs. The instructions the moving company gave said if I failed to declare it my belongings will be inspected and I will be fined and it’s making me really anxious. I literally just remembered today and I think I have to wait until Monday to call the moving company.
Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? Can I declare it now somehow? Should I leave on a short trip and just re-enter the country and declare it? I’m a dual citizen with Taiwan passport and ID if that means anything. But I grew up in the states and this is my first time doing an international move by myself so I’m super noob. Would really appreciate any help or advice!!
This is actually required. You need to fill out a form for unaccompanied items with customs on landing, and share that info with your carrier.
In the worst case, you’ll probably be taxed on all your personal items at their tariff rates. Not sure about fines, but customs fines can be high, so it’s probably worth calling them: https://web.customs.gov.tw/en/
This will make it possible to declare - provided you arrive back in TW before your belongings. I had several trips between shipping goods and arriving and declared on the last one and it worked fine for me.
Thank you so much. I have a lot of stuff so based on what you said I think it’s probably best for me to just declare it when I reenter the country, since I’m doing a round trip back to the US next month anyway. The moving company instructions said I just need to claim it within 5 months of the items arriving so it should be fine, hopefully my current trip won’t negatively affect this process. I just feel so stupid for forgetting something so important, and now I feel like I’ve done something criminal
Yes, it’s required. Definitely. In fact, I’m surprised that Lucky Moving sea freight didn’t insist you fill out and sign the declaration form before agreeing to take possession in the US.
That form was a real pain to fill out in 2016, especially if you don’t remember exactly what’s in each box/crate. Assuming you do not remember, I would expect some back and forth with (hopefully) Lucky Moving and/or Taiwan customs (could be minor fines and/or some confiscation and destruction if it’s allowed to be received in Taiwan as is - happened to me with a chef’s knife I had hoped to ship but ended up being destroyed).
Thank you for your reply. Yeah, I realized I messed up big time and I definitely want to do this correctly. I feel like my best and most straightforward choice is to re-enter the country from USA and declare it then…?
They only gave me a sheet of paper stating I had to declare it in Chinese along with my receipt, and the movers didn’t explain anything to me at the time they took my boxes. If I had known, I would have documented every box more thoroughly.
Back in 2016, did you have to literally list every item in every box? I have 27 boxes, it is mostly clothing but I am anxious about how specifically I’m supposed to declare it.
I used DHL in 2016. I had a large wardrobe box and two boxes each about a third as large as the wardrobe box. I packed all 3 boxes, not DHL. If DHL would have packed my boxes, then they would have taken care of the declaration form for each box, and it would have been more expensive. In hindsight this was a mistake, I should have had them do it all.
I don’t remember the form number, but iirc it was roughly 20 pages long. First page (or so) had instructions, last page was for my signature. In the middle 18 pages were long lists of household items, with a check box next to each. It was actually more complicated than that, but I don’t recall why. Anyway, it took forever to fill the form out.
Still, DHL took my 3 boxes to their facility, opened the boxes, and then called me to go over most items. DHL confiscated/destroyed my chef’s knife, not Taiwan. As I later learned, Taiwan prevents the import of any kind of knife, including kitchen knives. DHL also filled out a new form and sent that form back to me to sign (again).
From start to finish the process took three days. I think I could have had it done in one if I’d turned everything over to DHL. For example, when I moved back to the US in 2020 I used Steven the Mover (Taipei). They came to Hsinchu, packed my boxes, had me sign a form, and that was it. In and out in 4 hours. Not apples to apples because Steven the Mover shipped to the US, not Taiwan.
By the way, Steven the Mover is terrific. Highly recommend.
If you haven’t already, I would contact Lucky Moving and ask them. They have your stuff now and probably have far more experience both with that form and with Taiwan customs authorities.
Thank you again for sharing! I will keep that in mind if I ever use DHL to ship smaller boxes here.
I actually just called Lucky today and they told me they took care of the customs and my items were released and in their warehouse already, so I actually don’t need to deal with customs at all this time and can retrieve everything now. Huge sigh of relief!
And I will definitely keep Steven the Mover in mind should I need to move back!
Interesting about the knives. I had no problem sending mine over in boxes with the rest of my kitchen stuff in my shipment years ago. First I’ve heard of this rule!
So individuals are not allowed to import knives at all, even kitchen knives?
Edit: I found out there’s a blade length limit of something like 30cm, if it’s longer it’s controlled knives and not allowed. If your kitchen knife isn’t that long (I think it’s actually not common for a kitchen knife to be this long at all), it should be ok.
Basically if it’s not one of those long tuna knives used to slice up an entire fish at the fish factory, it should be fine.
