Give me more information on Indian custom clearance?

Every country has a robust custom process which takes some time.

Customers or Exporters can not do anything to make it faster. Customers need not do any thing, it is a systematic departmental process. Customers are just requested to wait.

It is shipping agents duty to get the consignment inspected and all the NOC issued from respective department. It is applicable to all consignments, irrespective of size and value.

In India, all consignments must be custom cleared before shipping. There are plenty of documentation, inspections and checks. For example, occasionally It may need NOC (No Objection Certificate) from Archeology Department in case of stone/marble statuary or NOC from Environment Department in case of wooden products. It may need Fumigation certificates, X-ray examinations of boxes etc.

There are plenty of other documents required as well. Custom clearance is a smooth and mandatory process which does not require any action from Customers.

Usually it takes 5 to 7 days to get all the clearance. But sometimes when there are holidays, weekends, festivities or the workload is more on custom departments, it may take anywhere between 10 to 15 days.

Kindly also note that Indian custom uses Intelligent software. It analyses the product description in Invoices. It occasionally selects the consignment for custom inspection. The system also Randomly selects any consignments for custom inspections.

All the above activities takes time to clear. It will impact/increase the shipping time of the consignment.

Kindly note that sea shipping times mentioned elsewhere on our website is only for idea, it may vary by 1 to 3 weeks.

UPDATE-1: All the shipping documents and official custom cleared documents/invoices are available once the consignment clears the customs. Hence the document time is as well depends on the above process.

UPDATE-2:The size of consignment is irrelevant, Indian custom department can inspect the whole truck size containers or may be a single wooden box as per their requirements.