Hello,
New to Tokyo as of 1 month ago.
I ordered 5 kgs of whey protein from MyProtein totaling 17990 yen during their Black Friday sale, qualifying for free shipping. I paid for this with my credit card. They provided 3 free gifts along with my purchase.
I just received the delivery from Yamato Transport, but they required 10100 yen cash on delivery. With my minimal Japanese and zero knowledge of the import process, I paid the amount, but I’m wondering if something was wrong here since this amount seems excessive. I realized after the fact Yamato sent me an email a couple days ago stating this amount.
The receipt shows as follows (using Google translate):
Customs duty tax: Tax amount – 8755
Other terms, small consumption tax, etc: 6.24% tax rate: Tax amount – 1185
Local consumption tax: 22/78 tax rate (?): Tax amount – 310
-> Summing to 10100
Any idea where this “customs duty tax” of 8755 yen is coming from? I’m wondering if something was wrong here or if I should expect charges like this moving forward. Thank you.
13 comments
Isn’t myprotein a Japanese company ? I don’t understand why you would pay a customs duty on a domestic product 🤷🤔
Should be about 15% of the value if you are importing it if they classify it as agricultural but honestly idk what they classify that as. You can probably reach out to the company for clarification. They’re not going to be able to change it – import taxes are import taxes and individual companies have no control over the amount.
If they do anything about it, it’s out of the kindness of their own heart and out of their own profits.
And yes you should expect import taxes on items more than 10,000jpy (which this was)
Japan’s cheese tariff is 40%
Could whey be classified as that? If so wouldn’t be far off the mark. Also will depend from which country you imported from.
Something to watch for, is some sites will convert their prices to yen when the site recognizes you’re accessing from a Japanese IP, but it won’t always be clear the product is being imported. Not sure if that’s what happened here, but something to watch out for nonetheless
If you ordered off their Japanese site, there shouldn’t be any tax on it. I’ve ordered from the multiple times and never had to pay anything.
Had the same happen to me. I put in the Stupid questions thread and got a great explanation from Altruistic Switch4388
[https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/16tvw96/comment/k2isdy1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/16tvw96/comment/k2isdy1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[https://www.myprotein.jp/customer-services/delivery-detail/tax.list](https://www.myprotein.jp/customer-services/delivery-detail/tax.list)
You need to find the HS code is for the items and go from there.
Basically, My protein should put this on the invoice and Yamato should use it to calculate the HS code to calculate duty.
Without the HS code it is all guesswork.
Yes, I’ve been juggling with this all of the time. Try to make the orders less that 14,000 yen. I learned the hard way.
That happened to me not long ago. I paid 18,000 in tax!
I called the customs office and found out there is a tax per kilo of whey protein plus more tax on top of that for import duties. I foolishly thought it came from Japan but it was from Singapore.
As far as I know, if you buy under 16,000 yen worth of stuff and under 10kg oh whey they just wave it through. But according to the people in my company that regularly deal with customs officers, it really depends on the guy checking your stuff.
Sometimes they just wave it through but if you have a guy on a power trip he will charge you for everything they legally can do.
I hope this helps!
There’s a cheap made in Japan brand that is 7,000 for 3kg, I forget what it’s called
I order monthly from Iherb (Japanese website) but shipments are always coming from Korea or California so I make sure that my orders don’t exceed 14.000 yen. Learned this the hard way as well.
I often order from them and never had to pay a thing. On the cart page, it clearly states:
“**関税につきまして**16,666円以上購入で課税対象となります（為替レートで指定額未満でも課税対象となる場合有り、衣料品は金額に関係なく約10％の課税対象）。無料ギフトを含む場合、お支払に影響はありませんが、注文明細上無料ギフト1個あたり手数料が150円程が記載されるため、関税計算の際ご注意下さい。”
It’s always better to have a safety cushion in case there’s a sudden change in currency rates after you order, but I’ve made purchases up to JPY16,500 (+150/gift included) without any issue. But yes, when you do cross that amount, the custom tax bites hards.
well the govt has to make money somehow so