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How to Ship from China to Japan: NACCS, PSE & 10% JCT

Japan is the shortest deep sea lane we run. A container out of Shanghai or Ningbo reaches Tokyo or Yokohama in roughly three to five days port to port, and Osaka or Kobe in about four to six. Sailings are frequent, schedules are tight, and compared with a five week run to northern Europe the freight itself is barely a variable.

That is exactly why first time importers get caught out. On a lane this short, the schedule does not slip in transit — it slips in paperwork. Japan Customs clears through NACCS, an electronic system that cross checks your invoice, packing list and bill of lading against each other. Where the numbers disagree, the entry is flagged and moved to manual review, and that costs days the shipping never cost you.

Three rules shape everything else on this lane. Someone with a Japanese address has to hold the import. If you have no office or residence in Japan and want to import in your own name, you appoint an Attorney for Customs Procedures — an ACP — and notify Customs before the first entry. Electrical and radio products need Japanese conformity marks before they can be released, not after: PSE for safety and TELEC for anything with a transmitter. And consumption tax is charged on the CIF value plus the duty, at 10% standard or 8% for food.

The tax side is more forgiving than most markets. A large share of industrial goods, electronics and machinery enter at zero duty, and goods with a customs value of 10,000 yen or less have historically been relieved of duty and consumption tax together — though that relief is now being unwound, and the reported timing differs between sources.

This guide is written for buyers importing from China for the first time. It covers why the short crossing is not the hard part, the ports on each side of the country, transit times by mode, trade terms and who may act as importer, the ACP appointment, NACCS and the filings that happen before the vessel sails, duty and consumption tax, PSE and TELEC, food and plant quarantine, and how to tell whether a forwarder genuinely works this lane.

The crossing is short, and the paperwork is what takes time

On a long haul lane, an extra two days of documentation is absorbed by three weeks at sea. On this lane there is no slack to absorb it. A shipment that is not ready to be declared when it lands sits at the terminal, and Japanese terminals are not generous with free time.

• Descriptions must be specific. "Electronic parts" or "accessories" invites reclassification. Use the technical term, the model and the material.
• Invoice, packing list and bill of lading must agree on quantity, weight and value. NACCS checks them against each other. A mismatch is the single most common cause of delay.
• The nine digit code matters. Japan runs its own national tariff, with three digits beyond the international six. The code that worked in Europe may not resolve here.
• Value has to be defensible. An unusually low declared price, or a related party transaction, draws a request for bank records and the purchase contract.

Tokyo and Yokohama, Kobe and Osaka, and Nagoya

Choosing the wrong gateway costs more than the freight difference. A container landed at Yokohama for a consignee in Osaka adds a long inland leg and a second handling; landed at Kobe it is a short haul. Ask which terminal the sailing actually calls, because on a three day crossing the inland move can take longer than the sea leg.

Japan transit times: ocean, air freight and courier

Because the ocean alternative arrives inside a week, air loses its usual advantage here. A part load that would justify air on a transpacific run frequently does not justify it across the East China Sea. See our air freight and LCL pages for how the modes compare.

We do not publish freight rates here. On this lane the number matters less than the structure: base freight, origin charges in China, destination charges in Japan, duty, consumption tax and inland delivery. Ask for those separately so you can see what moved when the price changes. See our local charges page.

Trade terms on a Japan booking, and who is the importer

The trade term sets who pays and where risk transfers. It does not change who holds the import: the party named on the declaration must be identifiable and answerable in Japan, which is why the ACP question comes up before the Incoterm question on a first shipment.

• EXW — you collect at the supplier's door and carry everything including Chinese export formalities. Rarely sensible for a first import.
• FOB — the supplier loads and clears Chinese export; you take over at the Chinese port. The term most experienced buyers use.
• CIF — the supplier pays freight and insurance to the Japanese port, risk passes in China, and you still clear. Not delivered.
• DAP or DDU — delivered to a named point, with duty and consumption tax for you.
• DDP — duty and tax paid. Note that DDP does not solve PSE or TELEC: for regulated categories the conformity work still has to exist before the goods ship, whoever arranges the freight.

NACCS, and the filings that happen before departure

NACCS — the Nippon Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System — is how Japan processes import and export declarations, and how the terminal releases a container. Two things about it matter to a first time importer.

First, the declaration can be filed before the vessel arrives, and should be. Your broker needs the bill of lading number, the nine digit code, the CIF value and any conformity evidence. Filing early turns clearance into a formality; filing on arrival turns it into a wait.

Second, ocean cargo is subject to an advance filing requirement: manifest data has to be lodged with Japanese Customs before the vessel departs the Chinese port. If you are shipping anything that needs a permit — food, plants, cosmetics, medical devices, certain chemicals — the permit has to be in hand before that filing, not discovered afterwards.

Once the entry is accepted, Customs either releases the cargo or selects it for examination. Risk based selection is tighter for food, plant and animal products, for first time importers, and for anything where the declared value looks unusual. Clearing cargo into a bonded area is also an option where you want to defer duty and tax until the goods are actually withdrawn for sale.

A container from Shenzhen to a warehouse in Kobe

The representative a non-resident importer has to appoint

Under Article 95 of the Customs Act, a person or company with neither an address nor an office in Japan that wants to import in its own name must appoint an Attorney for Customs Procedures — the ACP, or zeikan jimu kanrinin — and notify Customs of the appointment in advance.

The ACP is your point of contact at Customs. They receive and submit documents, receive notices, handle the payment of duty and consumption tax, receive refunds, and answer when Customs asks a question. They are not a substitute for a licensed customs broker: if your ACP does not hold a customs broker licence, the actual declaration is still filed by a licensed broker.

Because of that, most first time importers without a Japanese entity take one of three routes: import through a Japanese distributor who already has the registrations, appoint a third party importer of record, or set up a Japanese subsidiary once volume justifies the cost. Choose before you book, because the answer changes what goes on the invoice and the label.

Duty, consumption tax, and the ten thousand yen line

The cascade worth understanding is that consumption tax is charged on a base that already includes the duty. A shipment at 5% duty and a CIF value of one million yen pays 50,000 yen of duty, then consumption tax on 1,050,000 yen — 105,000 yen. The tax on tax effect is small at Japanese duty rates, but it is real, and it is why the nine digit code matters even when the duty rate looks like a rounding error.

Preferential rates are available. RCEP covers both China and Japan, and a valid certificate of origin issued by an authorised Chinese body can bring the applied rate below the general rate — for many lines the saving runs to several percentage points of CIF value. Japan has tightened origin verification and the evidence expected behind a claim, so keep raw material invoices and production records for several years and expect to produce them.

PSE and TELEC, the two marks that gate electronics

Electrical goods are where Japanese imports most often stall, because the requirement is Japanese and it has to be satisfied before release. It is not enough to hold a CE declaration or an FCC report.

Two practical points. A product that is both mains powered and wireless needs both PSE and TELEC, and they run in parallel rather than one covering the other. And the work belongs to the production phase: testing, factory inspection and the METI notification cannot be compressed into the last week before the vessel sails. Budget months, and start before tooling so that labelling and manuals can be printed with the right marks on them.

Batteries travel as regulated cargo whichever mode you choose. See our dangerous goods page.

Food, plants and the quarantine that runs alongside customs

Quarantine is a separate track from customs, and it can hold a shipment that customs has already cleared.

• Food and drink, and food contact materials. An import notification under Article 27 of the Food Sanitation Act goes to the quarantine station covering the port of clearance, per shipment. It must be filed by a party resident in Japan. Food contact ware is tested against the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare standard for the material.
• Plants and plant products. Plant quarantine under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, with a phytosanitary certificate from China.
• Wood packaging. ISPM-15 treated and marked, or the pallets are a problem at the terminal rather than at the factory.
• Animal products. Animal quarantine applies to meat, dairy and hides, and the restrictions are strict.
• Medicines, quasi drugs, cosmetics and medical devices. Regulated by the PMDA and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, with a Japanese marketing authorisation holder in the structure.

Prohibitions are enforced hard: narcotics, explosives and weapons, counterfeit goods and counterfeit currency are seized, and Japan has zero tolerance for intellectual property infringement. See our quarantine inspection page for the inspection side.

Sourcing from a screen, and sourcing from a handshake

Where you found the supplier changes what you need to check before booking.

Either way, our Alibaba and 1688 sourcing page covers what to verify before you place the order, and our China inspection service page covers checking goods before they leave.

Importing as a company, and importing as an individual

• Company imports. You need a party in Japan to hold the import — your own entity, a distributor, or a third party importer of record — plus the ACP appointment if you have no Japanese address. Consumption tax paid at import is recoverable through the Japanese consumption tax return where the importing entity is registered, which is the reason to import in your own name rather than under someone else's.
• Individual and personal use imports. A separate, simpler track applies to goods for personal use, with a different valuation basis. It is not a route for commercial stock: goods bought for resale are commercial imports, and declaring them as personal is treated as an under declaration.
• Samples and small parcels. Mark them accurately with a real description and a real value. "Gift" and "sample" with a nominal value is a common cause of a held parcel.

The China forwarder and the Japanese broker

• The China side forwarder collects from the factory or factories, consolidates, clears export, files the verified gross mass and the advance cargo data, books the service, issues the bill of lading, and hands over documents early enough for the entry to be pre filed.
• The Japanese broker holds the customs broker licence, files the NACCS entry, handles permits and quarantine coordination, arranges examination if the shipment is selected, accounts for duty and consumption tax, and arranges release and delivery.

The gap between them is where delays live: a bill of lading issued before the code was confirmed, a set of documents that reaches the broker the day the vessel berths, or a conformity mark nobody checked. Goodhope works the China end, sends documents ahead of the vessel, and coordinates directly with your broker.

Checking a forwarder on a Japan booking

A forwarder who works this lane will ask more questions than you expect, and that is a good sign.

• What is the nine digit code? Without it, duty rate and permit routing are unknown.
• Does the product need PSE, and diamond or circular? If they have never heard of PSE, they have not cleared electrical goods into Japan.
• Does it transmit? Then TELEC as well.
• Who is the importer of record, and is an ACP appointed?
• Which terminal does the service call? Yokohama for an Osaka consignee is an inland move you did not budget for.
• Is the entry being pre filed before arrival?
• Telex release or original bill of lading? On a three day crossing, waiting for a paper original to arrive by courier can defeat the point of the short lane.
• What is the free time at the terminal, and who pays demurrage?
• Is a preferential rate being claimed, and is the certificate in the right form?

Three shipments into Japan, and the reason for each

The examples below are illustrative. They describe typical decisions on this lane, not specific customer shipments.

Appliances that had to be built for Japan

A container of small household appliances. The deciding detail was not freight: the units had to carry the PSE circular mark, the Japanese importer's business name from the METI notification, and Japanese language manuals. Those were production decisions made before tooling, and the testing ran in parallel with manufacture. The goods cleared in a day because the entry had been pre filed with the certificate in hand. A shipment built to another market's specification would have been compliant everywhere except Japan.

A food consignment that needed a Japanese importer

Shelf stable retail food. The importer discovered late that the Article 27 notification cannot be filed by a non resident or by its ACP, and had to bring in a Japan resident importer of record before the first shipment could move — the same entity then appeared in the importer field on the retail label. The freight was three days. The compliance work was six weeks, and it was entirely avoidable with one question asked at quotation stage.

A part load that waited on consolidation

A first time importer shipped six cubic metres of consumer goods LCL. The vessel crossing was four days; the consolidation and deconsolidation added another four. The container then sat an extra day because the invoice and packing list disagreed on carton count and NACCS flagged the entry. Total door to door was more than twice the crossing time, and none of the extra days were at sea.

Typhoon season, Golden Week and the production calendar

• Chinese New Year. Production stops in China and the weeks either side are congested. Fix production dates around it.
• Golden Week, late April to early May, Obon in mid August, and the year end and New Year holiday shorten working days in Japan and slow processing at terminals and agencies.
• Typhoon season runs through summer and autumn and can close a terminal for a day or two. Because the crossing is short, a closed terminal is a missed cutoff rather than a minor delay.
• Peak seasons before the year end and around Japanese retail events tighten space. Book earlier than feels necessary.

Check our holidays page when you are fixing a production date.

What Goodhope does on the China end for Japan

• We treat documentation as part of production — invoice, packing list and conformity evidence complete before the vessel sails, not after it berths.
• Ocean freight port to port and air freight airport to airport — into Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya or Fukuoka by sea, and Narita, Haneda or Kansai by air, with the terminal and the service named rather than a generic estimate.
• We ask for the nine digit code before we quote — because the code drives the duty rate, the permit routing and whether a preferential rate is worth claiming.
• Consolidation across suppliers — several factories, one container, one declaration, one certificate set. See our consolidated shipment and pick up pages.
• Telex release by default where the lane justifies it — on a three day crossing, waiting for paper defeats the point.
• Documents prepared for the NACCS entry — in the form your broker needs, handed over early so the entry can be pre filed.
• Regulated cargo handled properly — see our dangerous goods, non-DG chemicals to Japan and quarantine inspection pages.
• Plain answers on what we do not do — Japan import clearance, the ACP appointment, PSE and TELEC, food notifications and the consumption tax belong to the importer of record and their broker. We coordinate with them and we do not pretend otherwise.
• NVOCC licensed, since 2012 — see our why partner with Goodhope page.

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