IX. Customs Clearance Procedures
1. Tariff Classifications
Q9-1
How are goods classified for tariffs? Is it possible to know the classification
of the imported goods in advance?
Answer
There are 97 chapters and further subdivisions under the International
Convention. You can inquire the classification of the imported goods in
advance at each customs office.
1. The Japanese tariff classification is based on the so-called HS Convention (International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System) which is applied to 121 contracting parties (as of March 2006).
(Example for Tariff Classification)
| 08 |
(Edible fruit) |
--- Chapter |
| 0809 |
(Apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, sloes) |
--- Heading |
| 0809.20 |
(Cherries) |
--- Subheading |
2. Under the provisions of Paragraph 3 of Article 7 of the Customs Law,
any importer or other related parties can make an inquiry to a customs
office to receive a response in advance regarding category in tariff schedule
(tariff scedule code) and rate of customs duty which are applicable to
the imported goods (Advance classification ruling system). Since January
1996, classification cases of specific commodities have been disclosed
by making database of the responses of advance classification ruling, as
a guideline and reference for tariff classification for the convenience
of importers. Furthermore, since April 2002, they can be searched on the
"Japan Customs Web Site", although they were previously accessible
only through the dedicated terminals installed in each customs office.