Japan Customs Published Results of Annual Post-Entry Audit; Still Showing High Non-Compliant Rate in Customs Valuation

In an effort to ensure compliance with Customs laws, particularly with regard to making correct import declarations and paying the correct taxes and duties, Japan Customs under the Ministry of Finance (“MOF”) conducts post-entry audit every year. The post-audit is conducted to review the import declarations made by importer so that correct duties and taxes have been paid. On November 2, 2012, the MOF published on their website the results of the post audit conducted between the period from July 2011 to June 2012. During this period, the Customs officials conducted post-audits on a total of 6,098 importers. The post audit team’s findings are summarized as below:

Amount of short & additional tax on incorrect import declarations is the highest based on historical records

The total non-declared and short-declared related value of all investigated companies was approximately JPY 247 billion (approximately US$ 3.1 billion). The amount of customs duty and tax shortage (additional payment) was JPY 15.5 billions (approx. US$ 195 million), an increase of 15% compared with previous year’s post audit results. This amount of shortage and additional duty/tax is the highest and the worst in the history of customs valuation relating to import declarations.

Still high rate of Non-Compliance Companies

The post-entry audit team investigated a total of 6,098 companies. Of these, 4,290 or 70.4% of companies investigated were found to have failed to make correct import declarations, the tendency is to keep about 70% of failure rate in recent years.

The top five product categories and its short duty & tax declarations amount are as follows. These top five categories make up 54.4% of short duty/tax amount.

1. Optical & precision (Chapter 90) JPY 1.95 billions

2. Medical equipment (Chapter 30) JPY 1.86 billions

3. Machine and Mechanical appliances (Chapter 84) JPY 1.66 billions

4. Electronics (Chapter 85) JPY 1.64 billions

5. Chemical (Chapter 29) JPY 1.01 billions


Typical short-declaration case examples are as follows;

- The cost of material which was provided free of charge basis to an exporter of finished goods was not included in the import declaration value.

- The transaction price was variable depending on the sales result in Japan and it was retroactively adjusted. The variance amount was paid to an exporter, and the adjusted amount was not included in customs declaration.

- The transaction price was not included license fee relating to patent of the imported products.


Japanese Customs conduct this post audit in customs valuation every year by randomly picking up the target companies. For recent years, the non-compliance rate continue to be higher in level of approx. 70%. Non-compliance with customs laws may result in imposition of penalties and loss of credibility, it is encouraged for importers to conduct customs health check in order to find hidden issue and manage the penalty risk.

(Reference:  http://www.mof.go.jp/customs_tariff/trade/collection/ka20121102a.htm )