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Important Steps in Customs Clearance Process in Dubai Free Zone

Over the years Dubai has emerged as a logistics hub in the Middle East region. Due to its easy access to the global market, the city attracts investors who are looking for a preferable place to carry out trading operations. With zero customs duty, zero corporate taxation, and 100% foreign ownership, the Dubai free zones are ideal for trading businesses. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and the trading businesses must know what are the important steps in the customs clearance process in the UAE free zones. For your help, in this article, we have come up with a short and succinct guide on custom clearance procedures in UAE. So, let’s get started.

Dubai Free Zones and International Trading Business

The fact that obtaining the trade license and establishing a company is easier in the Dubai free zones makes the place ideal to start a trading business. Some of the benefits of these free zones are:

• They usually have Customs Department offices
• They provide Airport access for stress-free transfer of goods
• They provide warehousing facilities
• They issue trade licenses easily
• They provide business infrastructure support services.

Hence, it is not very difficult for a trading company registered in the Dubai Free Zone to scale up its business operations. Rather they can do it easily & seamlessly, and accelerate the trading & shipping operations with the help of support services offered by the Free Zones. However, a series of criteria regulate the imports from Free Zones into the UAE or other GCC Countries for a company.

General Guidelines that the Free Zone Trading Companies Must Follow

• A valid importer code from the customs is required by the importer
• The Goods must be in compliance with standards, rules, or laws meant for the licensed company
• Once the customs is declared, the goods must arrive in the Dubai free zone within 72 hours
• Licensee should not open or alter the goods until they are checked and cleared by the customs
• Inspection of goods is carried out by the customs while the goods enter or exit the Free Zones

Import into Free Zone

The trading companies in the Dubai Free Zones aren’t required to pay Dubai customs clearance charges for importing the goods into the Free Zones. Based on trade license type and validity, the goods can be stored for an unlimited period.

Documents Required:

• Import goods declaration form
• Second copy of the bill of lading (for sea), original airway bill (for air), and road manifest (for land)
• Delivery order from airline or shipping agent for the licensed company in the free zone
• Import permit by the free zones competent agencies for restricted goods
• Delivery note by the free zone company with a confirmation on the acceptance of goods, (if goods are moved from other Free zone areas or by land)
• Sale invoice from the licensee in the free zone for the licensed importer in the country with details pertaining to the total quantity, detailed total value, goods description, and currency
• Detailed packing list based on the packaging method, weight, etc.
• Certificate of origin that must be approved by the chamber of commerce in the country of origin

The trading business owner needs to present the above documents to any customs centers of Dubai Customs at Port Rashid, Jebel Ali, Aweer Terminal, Cargo Village, or Airport Free zone. Based on this, the Free Zone Transit Inn (Free Zone Bill of Entry) is issued for the clearance of goods into the Free zones.

Import from Free Zone into UAE/GCC

The local or GCC importer or their customs clearance agent in Dubai can submit the above documents to the Customs department for receiving the FZ Transit Out (Ex-FZ Import Bill), which allows the Free zone companies to ship their goods from the free zones to the GCC or the local markets.

Export of Goods from Local Market via Free Zone (FZ Transit In)

The FZ Transit allows a Free Zone company to buy goods from a local market in the UAE for export purposes. For this, a local export declaration form and a free zone bill of entry (FZ transit in) need to be filed by the company.

A few prerequisites that need to be met by all the trading companies in the free zone in this regard are:

• An entirely computerized, methodically auditable, and accountable inventory control system in place.
• Filing of all the bills and import-export transactions as well as verification and record-keeping of all the accounts correctly by the company
• For inventory reconciliation with customs records, the company must produce the inventories to customs on request

Export of Goods from Dubai to the Global Markets

Exports play a pivotal role in the UAE’s global trade. As far as the export procedures in Dubai are concerned, they are very straightforward. The Exporters must submit all the required documents to the Customs Office long before the shipping dates to get well-timed approvals for a streamlined export process.

One of the main prerequisites an export company needs to meet for operating business in Dubai Free Zones is to have the export license issued by the Free Zones. Once, they have the shipment contract ready along with the export license, they need to follow the procedures given below to successfully export goods to the global markets.

Procedure for Export

All the required documents must be submitted at the customs office, the export declaration registration fee must be paid, and the Dubai customs clearance certificate must be collected by the exporter.

Documents Required:

• Declaration of customs clearance
• The export permit by the customs for all the restricted goods
• An approved export declaration certificate or instructions of the declaration of goods application in the name of the licensed company
• Sale invoice with details of each item and total quantity description

Wrap Up

No doubt, UAE free zones offer a very lucrative trading business opportunity. Benefits like the ease of logistics operations, no Customs duty imports, faster customs clearances, logistics connectivity, and so on make UAE free zones the most preferred trading hub in the world. As discussed, these free zones can handle large amounts of cargo facilities. For easy customs clearance in Dubai, all you need to do is keep all the required documents in place including the Dubai customs-exit/entry certificate pdf. The same goes for customs clearance in any other zone of the UAE.

18 January 2022