FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How to prepare a proper packaging
Always when it is possible use a new box. Every time we reuse a box it looses its protective characteristics.
If you reuse a box make sure it is in a good condition, it is not damaged and there are no cuts and other visible raptures, doublecheck the corners as well as the top and the bottom side of the box, remove any labels or marks from previous shipments.
It is very important to cushion the contents of the package properly, wrapping each article separately, leaving a space between themselves as well as between the items and the corners, sides, top and bottom of the box.
Materials suitable to cushion and protect your shipment inside the box:
- Plastic bubble bags
- Inflatable bags (air bags)
- Expanded polystyrene (loose fill)
- Enclosure foam
- Foam filling
- Corrugated liners
- Corrugated paper
To bind the package safely use a strong adhesive tape:
- Pressure sensitive plastic
- Reinforced nylon fillment tape
To avoid delays and delivery problems:
- Always include the recipient’s zip code, as well as a full address, including apartment or door number if exists
- Indicate a contact persond and contact telephone number, as well as an e-mail address if possible, especially for international shipments
- Stick the shipment label on the top side of the packaging
What is the IATA letter?
It is the International Air Transport Association. It enables the cooperation between airlines, promoting safety, reliability, trust and lower costs in air transportation. It can be said that IATA has the following objectives:
- Allow airlines to operate safely, efficiently and economically under defined rules
- Serve as an intermediary between the passenger, cargo agents and airlines
It may be any carrier that has the ability to operate a scheduled international air service by the Government of a State belonging to ICAO.
ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organization, established in 1947. Although it has its own legal personality, currently is the advisory body of the United Nations on International Civil Aviation. In fact, you must be a member of the UN to belong to ICAO. The aims and basic objectives of ICAO are to develop the principles and techniques of international air navigation and to foster the establishment and development of international air transport by:
- Promoting safe progress of aviation
- Fostering aircraft construction
- Stimulating the construction of airports, airways and other infrastructure
- Ensuring that the member states’ rights are respected
- Promoting safety of air navigation
- Other related activities
Yes, there is, we leave the sample text that should be included into the document. You only have to copy-paste some data into it.
What is ADR?
The ADR is a European agreement on the road transport of dangerous loads. It was signed for various European countries in Geneva on 30th of September 1957 to regulate the road transport of the loads that may present some danger to the environment and other road users.
The acronym ADR, results from the English name of the agreement European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road, as well as its French version Accord Européen Relatif au Transport des Marchandises Dangereuses par Route.
Dangerous loads are defined as the ones that in case of an accident during the transportation process may present danger to the population, goods and natural environment and therefore they transport is regulated by some special requirements.
The ADR agreement was advised to introduce by the UN and is valid in Spain from 19th of October 1972 Apart from the majority of the European countries was accepted also in many Asian and North African countries.
The last version of the Royal Decree became valid on 14th of March 2013. It is supposed to be updated biannually on uneven years.
The decree includes a detailed list of symbols which refer to the majority of substances that are believed to be dangerous (coded accordingly to the UN approved coding) and the requirements they should be accompanied with.
The regulations affects the parties directly engaged in the transport as well as the manufacturers of the materials related to the transport, the packaging and manipulation of the dangerous loads.
The materials that are considered to be dangerous:
- The types of packaging that have to be used
- The marking and designation of the load and the vehicle
- The documentation required to execute a service
- Types of vehicles, special equipment and certificates
- Regulations referring to the cisterns construction
- Loading, placing and unloading of the loads
- The obligations and responsibilities of anybody engaged in the transportation process to avoid damages to people, goods and natural environment
There are also similar agreements regulating the transport of the dangerous goods by railroad (RID), see (IMDG) and air (OACI).
Normative Pallet ispm-15
¿Have you ever been wondering if your wooden pallets or packaging should be fumigated? Have you ever been surprised by the fines, the load being detained or returned because of having not been fumigated?
It is important to be aware and well informed because the consequence of not meeting the requirements of NIMF-15 may be rejection or destruction of the packaging at the customs office. It is not permitted to re-package the load so the only alternative is the load return paid additionally by your company followed by the delayed delivery to your client.
The ISPM-15 (International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures) is an international agreement focused at avoiding the spread of diseases by wooden packaging between the countries involved into the agreement. To fulfill its requirements the pallets should be defumigated either thermally or chemically before the use. To identify the fumigated packages they should be marked accordingly:
- XX – ISO country code (e.g. ES for Spain)
- 0000 – unique identification number of the fumigation agent or packaging manufacturer
- YY – type of treatment: HT for thermal (Heat Treatment) and MB for chemical fumigation (Methyl Bromide)
Some of the countries that are involved in the ISPM-15 agreement and therefore only accepts fumigated (treated) packaging are:
Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Republic of Korea, Costa Rica, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, USA, Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Israel , the Dominican Republic, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Malawi, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Seychelles, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Some materials are not obliged to follow the requirements because they present a very low risk of transmit the diseases:
- Wooden packaging manufactured from fine wood (thickness below 6mm), processed wood (OSB o component) or a material including resin or manufactured in high temperature or under high pressure or any combination of above mentioned
- Barrels containing wine or other alcohol which were high temperature-treated during the fabrication. Cigar and wine boxes treated in the production process or produced in a process ensuring that they do not contain any disease transmitters
- Wooden sawdust and shawings
- Wooden parts permanently built in the vehicle or containers´ construction
If you are not sure if your pallets were fumigated/treated, the best solution is to replace them by the pallets that were surely fumigated/treated, produced from materials not requiring fumigation/treatment, or even plastic pallets. The cost of the pallet change, manipulation and the cost of the new pallets is always lower then the fines, fumigation at the destination or even the lack of possibility of delivery and all the problems resulting from not having fulfill the commercial agreement.
Incoterms
Do the letters DAP, DDP, etc. refer to Incoterms or are they international commerce terms.
They are three-letter acronyms that describe the form of the delivery agreed between the selling and the buying party.
They are used to specify the costs of the international commercial transactions, they divide the responsibility between the selling and the buying party and reflex the current trends in the international commerce.
EXW (Ex Works): At the plant
CPT (Carriage Paid To Porte): Transport paid to the (e.g. airport)
CIP (Carriage and Insurance Paid To Porte): Transport and insurance paid to the (e.g. airport)
DAP (Delivered at Place): Delivery door to door
DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): Delivery to the buyer with the customs paid by the seller
FOB (Free on Board): Delivery to the board (vessel)
Generally the most wildly used one is DAP, when the selling party pays the transport costs, followed by DDP, when the selling party pays both the transport and customs followed by CPT, when the transport is paid by the selling part to an airport, maritime port, river port etc.
In world Pack we provide that kind of services regularly, so if you need one of them just contact us.
Custom taxes and other duty costs in import
When you import something from outside the European Union, you have to pay the custom taxes and duties by both individual and business entity importers.
Those taxes and duties are calculated based on the goods value adding the import (transport and insurance) cost.
To know in advance the total cost of the goods bought from outside the EU you have first to get familiar with the following concepts:
The duty fees are imposed over the goods imported from outside the UE and oscillate between 0% and 17%.
Some products as for example laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras and videogame consoles are freed from the duty fees. Some others depending on the country of origin are subject to some additional fees however, for example some bicycles produced in China are subject to an additional 48,5% antidumping fee.
Antidumping is a system of measures to protect the own market (the manufacturers) from cheap products from the exterior markets.
The standard VAT rate for goods import to Spain is 21% but in some cases it is applied a reduced rate of 10% or 4%. It is important to be aware that VAT is calculated based on the goods value and international transport and insurance costs. Below you can see some examples how to calculate VAT.
If the importing party is an entity and the VALUE WITHOUT THE COSTS OF TRANSPORT AND INSURANCE of goods is lower than 22 €, it is freed from both the customs duties and VAT and they should not be imposed on the goods.
If the VALUE WITHOUT THE COSTS OF TRANSPORT AND INSURANCE is between 22 and 150 €, VAT should be applied but customs duties not.
We can see the application rules according to the value and the importer type:
Valor del envío | Impuestos a pagar | Porcentaje general aplicable [1] | |
Internet transactions when the importer is an entity [1] | < = 22 € | Exento de arancel e IVA | 0 % arancel 0 % IVA |
> 22 < = 150 € | Exento de arancel pero sujeto a IVA | 0 % arancel 21 % IVA | |
> 150 € | Sujeto a arancel e IVA | 2,5 % arancel 21 % IVA | |
Transactions between individuals[2] | < = 45 € | Exento de arancel e IVA | 0 % arancel 0 % IVA |
> 45 € | Sujeto a arancel e IVA | 2,5 % arancel 21 % IVA |
1)Those numbers are given in case when the corresponding customs classification is not mentioned and then the following numbers are applied.
2)Not applicable for for commercial shippments (in which case the internet transaction rates apply).
The exception from the taxation is an import of personal objects of individuals (clothes, books, computers, furniture, etc.) in case of a people moving to live from other countries. They are freed from the taxation if they are older then 6 months. In case of any doubts it is the importers duty to prove the age of the objects that they import.
Below we calculate the example costs of an import to explain the rates mentioned before:
Let´s take into consideration a box with the total value (without the cost of transport an insurance) of 200€ (>150€).
There should be customs duty of 3% and VAT of 21% applied.
First we apply the customs duty of 3%.
200 X 1.03 = 206€
Then the VAT of 21%.
206 × 1,21 = 249,26€
There are some special taxes applied for example to tobacco and alcohol.
There may be some additional fees applied to cover the costs of examinations and/or checks to verify the goods.
The Customs Office may stop any load for an inspection even if its declared value is bellow 22€. You can reach the webpage of the Spanish Custom Office Agencia Tributaria de España, for more information you can also ask sending an email to servicio@worldpack.es