Importing clothes into Nigeria is getting expensive

Posted on Thursday May 7, 2015 at 8:45:44:

I have to admit that of all things I've bought on US websites and imported into Nigeria using my US shipping company, it is clothes that tend to cost me more and this is as a result of the growing import bills you have to pay when your goods arrive Nigeria.

When shipping with a courier service like DHL or Fedex, your items will be shipped much faster from the USA to Nigeria but when it reaches the cargo section, it gets billed by the Nigerian custom service if it's a high value or commercial quantity import.

Perhaps, if one buys only a few clothes maybe worth under $300, it may be import free or not charge any duty but when I recently imported clothes into Nigeria after purchasing them from Amazon, I received an import bill from DHL worth about 40% more of the cost I've spent so far.

The total shipment value of the items I imported cost me about N145,977(about $733) and I was asked to pay an additional import fee of N75,538(about $379) which is about 51% of what I spent on purchasing and shipping it. I used Google exchange rate. Imagine that! It means that for every $1000 I spend on buying foreign clothes, I would have to pay an additional fee of at least $500 to get it through the Nigerian border. I guess it's because of the new law by the government that is aimed at making textile importation less attractive as they introduced an additional charge of 20% on textile importation called import levy. There was already an existing import duty on clothes worth 20% and with this new one, it brings up the total bill to more than 40% because we've not included other smaller charges.

In the past when I purchased clothes on Amazon, I only paid the import duty of 20% but now DHL is telling me I have to also pay an additional levy of 20% and this is not encouraging me to keep purchasing or importing clothes into Nigeria.

I'm at a loss as to what to do concerning this new ordeal and yet to decide whether to leave my package with the Customs or pay a hefty fee or more than 50% just to acquire it. DHL is waiting for me to make the payment to their bank account else they may leave it at the hands of the Nigeria Custom service.

I guess in the future, I may focus more on buying and importing items that are non textile or have high import duties such as electronic products.