Importing from China, step by step.

Agree the Incoterm first

Settle the Incoterm before you pay a deposit. It is the code on the purchase order that says who pays for which leg and where your risk starts.

FOB at a named Chinese port suits most first imports: the supplier gets the goods to the vessel, and from there you pick the carrier and see every charge. EXW starts you at the factory door. DDP hides what is inside one price. Our Incoterms guide covers each term.

FCL, LCL or air

• FCL is a full container: less handling, doors shut from origin to destination.
• LCL is shared space, priced on what you use. It suits a few pallets, but the freight waits for the rest of the container at origin and is split out again at destination.
• Air costs far more per kilo and saves weeks. It fits small, urgent or high value orders.

Booking and the ISF

Booking runs backwards from your cargo ready date, the day the goods are packed and available. Export documents and the terminal cutoff land days before the vessel sails.

The Importer Security Filing is due in that window. For ocean cargo it has to reach U.S. Customs and Border Protection no later than 24 hours before the container is laden aboard at the foreign port, under 19 CFR part 149. Air does not need one.

Typical transit ranges

Shenzhen and Yantian run longer than Shanghai to the West Coast, and Houston sits a few days beyond the East Coast call. Panama Canal or Cape of Good Hope routing depends on the carrier, so treat the wide end as real. Ask for an ocean line and an air line on one quote.

Arrival, entry and delivery

A licensed customs broker files your entry. We coordinate it and hand over the documents, because BGL is not a broker. The entry usually goes in before the vessel arrives, so release often lands near the arrival date. Entry is due within 15 calendar days after landing, and the entry summary with estimated duties within 10 working days after that.

Free time at the terminal and on the container is limited, and demurrage and detention are billed by the day. At Los Angeles and Long Beach in August 2026, containers leaving by truck averaged 2.95 days of terminal dwell against 8.20 days for containers leaving by rail.

Duties, MPF and HMF

Your product has a classification in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which gives the regular duty rate. Additional trade actions in force at entry sit on top as extra layers, and they have changed repeatedly, so this page quotes no rate. The rate that counts is in effect on the day the entry is filed, confirmed by the licensed customs broker. Check CBP Trade.

Then the government fees, whatever the duty rate:

• Merchandise Processing Fee, 0.3464 percent of entered value on a formal entry. For fiscal year 2026 the minimum is $33.58 and the maximum is $651.50, rising to $34.58 and $670.86 on October 1, 2026.
• Harbor Maintenance Fee, 0.125 percent of value, ocean cargo only. Air pays no HMF.

Formal entry generally applies above $2,500, and de minimis is suspended as of September 2026, so any commercial shipment needs an entry. See a freight quote line by line.

Chinese factory holidays

Two shutdowns move more schedules than any storm. Lunar New Year falls in late January or February, the date moves every year, and factories close for about a week on paper and often longer. National Day, or Golden Week, starts on October 1.

The squeeze comes before the closure: everyone ships at once and cutoffs move earlier. Work backwards with the shutdown planner in our shipper tools.

Paperwork you need

First imports stall on documents, not on ships:

• Commercial invoice and packing list, with values, weights and country of origin
• The bill of lading or air waybill
• Your IRS or employer identification number as importer of record
• A customs bond, single transaction or continuous
• A power of attorney for the licensed customs broker
• Anything a partner agency needs, such as FDA, FCC or EPA

The paperwork checklist in our shipper tools walks the same list, and our guides cover the rest.

Forced labor rules

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act creates a rebuttable presumption: goods mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang region, or by a company on the UFLPA Entity List, are presumed to be made with forced labor and barred from entry unless the importer overcomes that presumption with clear and convincing evidence.

So ask one question before you order: can the supplier document where each input came from, back through its own suppliers? Detained cargo sits and still runs up charges. Read the current rules on the DHS UFLPA page.

Costly first time mistakes

1. Treating the sailing leg as the whole trip.
2. Accepting DDP without asking what is inside the price.
3. Guessing the tariff classification instead of confirming it.
4. Missing the ISF window, because supplier data takes days to gather.
5. No plan for free time, so demurrage and detention start.
6. Setting a cargo ready date the week before Lunar New Year.