Paying Custom Duty when shipping with DHL

Posted on Wednesday October 15, 2014 at 9:21:4:

I recently made an order on Amazon and shipped to Nigeria using DHL as my preferred courier service provider. This was not the usual smal order I normally make but a bigger order and so when the order arrived Nigeria, it was subject to custom duty and the fees I paid was about 5% of the total Purchase cost of my package.

As an online shopper who also imports, one of the things you will have to face is the issue of custom duty. You will have to pay it when you are importing items that are of significant value. For me, this is the second time I'm paying it and I guess it's because I imported something of big value.

I normally buy a lot of things on sites like Amazon and eBay and have them send to Nigeria using DHL. Some of the items I bought were for personal use while some were just for resale. For most of the items I've imported using DHL, I was not charged any custom duty on it or maybe DHL settled it for me since there were mostly small items under N100,000($550). I think if you are importing a package with a sales value under N100k, you might not have to pay any duty on it or it may just be too small to be considered significant. However, it seems if you were importing items worth as much as N200,000, you would have to pay some duty on it.

In my own case, a DHL representative sent me a message that my package has been delayed by the Nigerian Custom Service and I have to pay a duty on it. I finally had to spend about a total of 5% of my package cost before the item will be released to DHL by Customs.

So, let's say you imported a package worth about N300k, you may end up being charged about N15,000(i.e. 5%) for it by DHL on behalf of their services in helping you to pay your Custom duty fees.

I was given a bank account to make the payment and I later had to contact DHL office by email to notify them of my payment. It took about 24 hrs before they paid the dues and sent my package to their delivery department.

So, for most small imports, you may be able to escape paying any duty or have your shipping service settle it for you if they are so small to be considered signification. However, you are more likely to be called upon to settle your custom duty bill if your imports are considered of high value.

I guess this is one of the reasons why imported items tend to cost more in Nigeria than they cost in their countries of origin.