What cleared customs means at each end of a parcel

A tracking page saying a parcel has cleared customs is a carrier sentence. The customs authority publishes the events underneath it, and in China those events run in a fixed order that ends at the country’s edge, not at the buyer’s door. The money question sits at the other end of the route, where a second rulebook applies, written by the importing country’s revenue agency.

The Chinese trade word is 清关, clearance. The customs service’s own tools use 通关, customs passage. Two of those tools are public: a mail lookup that reports 邮件通关状态, the customs clearance status of an inbound or outbound postal item, covering records within one year (GACC mail query, read 12 October 2026), and a goods lookup on the national single window that returns the whole chain for a declaration number (single window, export status query, read 12 October 2026).

The chain, in the order the port sees it

That export query lists the steps it reports: transport vehicle, manifest, declaration, logistics, arrival at the supervision area, transit arrival, declaration again, transit, release, loading, tallying, departure. It covers sea and air freight, and directs other modes to the manifest or declaration queries (single window, read 12 October 2026).

Release (放行) is one step in that list and departure (离境) is a later one. A page reading “cleared export customs” describes a step taken while the goods are still inside China.

What has to happen before release

Supervision is continuous by law: export goods are under customs control from declaration until they leave the country (Customs Law, 2021 amendment, art. 23). The declaration is due once the goods are in the customs supervision area and at least 24 hours before loading, and a late one attracts a fee for delayed declaration (art. 24; the same 24-hour rule is in GACC Order 277, in force 1 May 2025, art. 7).

Inspection is a defined procedure: it checks that the declaration matches the goods, or settles classification, value or origin. It takes at least two customs officers and happens inside the supervision area (inspection rules, arts. 2 to 4). During it the exporter has to be present and to open and reseal the packaging, while customs may inspect without the exporter present, re-inspect, or take samples (Customs Law, art. 28).

Release is conditional on money or security: apart from specially approved cases, goods are released against payment of duties or the giving of security (art. 29). On the export side that condition is usually trivial, because export duty applies to a short list. The 2026 export duty table has 107 numbered rows — ores, ferroalloys, unwrought and semi-finished copper, nickel, aluminium and zinc, metal scrap, bone and hide by-products, and a few farm items such as eel fry — and none is a finished consumer good (Tariff Commission announcement 2025 No. 11, annex 3, 26 December 2025; the 107 is my count).

Release is also not final. Order 277 lets a declaration be amended or withdrawn after export release where loading or stowage reasons shut the goods out or change the means of transport (Order 277, art. 20). A status reading “released” and a parcel that never flew are compatible.

The transit leg, and why the parcel reports twice

Goods are declared at the port they leave from, unless the exporter asks to declare at a place of dispatch that has a customs office; the movement between the two is then supervised, and customs may escort it (Customs Law, art. 35). Transit goods are customs-controlled goods, sealed by customs, though intact commercial seals are accepted on feeder vessels and on rail (transit rules, art. 2) — the 2001 transit measures, amended a fourth time by Order 273 of 28 October 2024.

Three procedures exist: filing in advance, filing directly at the place of dispatch, and bulk filing by the carrier for transhipment. The write-off is only possible once the goods reach the exit port’s supervision area; the exit office writes off the clean manifest after the goods have actually left and reports back to the dispatch office, which issues the declaration certificate (transit rules, arts. 7 and 29). Two offices, two records, two timestamps for one carton: the ordinary explanation for a parcel that shows as cleared inland and then waits.

The other line: what the destination charges

United Kingdom, Great Britain. On goods worth £135 or less, sold directly to a customer in Great Britain and not through an online marketplace, UK supply VAT is charged at the point of sale; above £135 normal import rules apply and VAT is paid to the delivery company on the goods, the postage, packaging and insurance, and any duty (GOV.UK, VAT and overseas goods sold directly to customers, read 12 October 2026). One loose end is fixed on that page: the £135 limit applies to a total consignment, not to each item inside it.

The £135 relief has a narrower test. The tariff document granting it measures the consignment by the intrinsic value of the goods: the price as sold for export, excluding transport and insurance unless they sit inside the price and are not shown separately, and excluding other taxes and charges (Reliefs from Import Duty, s. 5.3).

That relief is being withdrawn. Its removal was announced at the Autumn Budget 2025, a twelve-week consultation ran from December 2025 to March 2026, and the government’s response of 13 July 2026 confirms the direction: mandatory new arrangements for consignments of £135 or less, quarterly payment of duty by sellers and marketplaces, item-level data, and a UK-based fiscal representative for overseas sellers (consultation response, 13 July 2026). The package keeps the £39 non-commercial relief. The policy paper sets an outer limit of October 2028, with the start day to be appointed by statutory instrument (policy paper, 13 July 2026).

United States. The $800 exemption in 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C) (CBP) is suspended: for China from 2 May 2025 (EO 14256 notice, 28 April 2025), for all countries from 29 August 2025 (EO 14324, 30 July 2025), continued by Executive Order 14388 of 20 February 2026, which collects duties on postal shipments without an entry (EO 14388, 20 February 2026). Each dutiable postal item is assessed at the rate in Proclamation 11012, a 10 percent ad valorem surcharge additional to other duties under section 122 — a statute that caps the surcharge at 15 percent and limits it to 150 days unless Congress extends it (Proclamation 11012, 20 February 2026). The interim postal method runs until the surcharge lapses or the new postal entry process starts, whichever comes first.

CBP’s interim final rule of 24 June 2026 makes the suspension indefinite for the mail environment and creates a postal informal entry process effective 24 July 2026 (91 FR 37801); a companion notice opens a test of an electronic informal mail entry for postal shipments valued at $2,500 or less, above which formal entry applies (91 FR 38007, 24 June 2026). Two exemptions survive: bona fide gifts up to $100, and personal or household articles up to $200 accompanying a traveller. The same rule records that the exemption is terminated outright from 1 July 2027 by a statute enacted on 4 July 2025.

Why one small parcel produces different numbers at each end

• The base. China’s export side starts from a declared transaction value; the UK assesses on goods plus postage, packaging, insurance and duty; the US mail method works from the declared value plus the surcharge.
• The threshold. China’s export duty list is short and industrial; the UK still relieves duty below £135 of intrinsic value; the US collects from the first dollar.
• The moment. Chinese release happens before loading; the destination’s assessment happens at arrival, after the freight leg, in the importing country’s currency.
• The currency. Each end converts on its own date, so one parcel quoted in two currencies is two figures.

A worked pair, using the UK rules only. Take goods priced at £90 with £30 of freight shown separately: intrinsic value £90, no duty, and the seller has already accounted for VAT at the point of sale. Raise it to £140 of goods with £25 of separately invoiced freight: intrinsic value £140, no relief. At the third-country rate for cotton T-shirts, 12 percent (UK Trade Tariff, read 12 October 2026), duty is 12 percent of £165, or £19.80. Import VAT at the standard 20 percent (GOV.UK, VAT rates) is charged on goods, freight and duty together: 20 percent of £184.80, or £36.96. The charge at the door is £56.76 on goods costing £140. That is my arithmetic on the published rates.

How I checked this

The Chinese rules were read in Chinese on 12 October 2026: the Customs Law as amended in 2021, Order 277 in force since 1 May 2025, the transit measures as amended by Order 273 of 28 October 2024, the inspection measures, the 2026 tariff package, and the two lookup tools. The UK rules came from GOV.UK pages and the tariff reliefs document, the US rules from the executive orders of 2025 and 2026, the proclamation, the Federal Register rule and notice and CBP’s e-commerce FAQ. Every figure carries a link and a read date. I did not track a live parcel or read a carrier’s own status glossary, so the mapping from carrier wording to the customs events above is not verified here. The destination-side paperwork for the same shipment is covered in /posts/customs-clearance-documents/; the invoice side is in /posts/chinas-fapiao/.

What I could not check

• The start day of the UK reform, inside its own deadline. Both 13 July 2026 documents fix an outer limit, October 2028, and say the start day will be appointed by statutory instrument; neither prints the day itself (re-checked 12 October 2026).
• The £135 threshold against a live consignment. GOV.UK’s consumer page says goods worth £135, the tariff document says intrinsic value excluding separately shown freight; no worked official example reconciles the two.
• Carrier status wording. No carrier status glossary I could verify against a customs event; the Chinese tools expose 通关状态 fields, not carrier strings.
• A postal duty total for the United States. The 10 percent surcharge is cited from the proclamation, but a final sum also depends on classification and on trade measures that move, so I state no total.
• Every export mode on the single window. Its page says sea and air only and points other modes elsewhere; I did not test those.
• Delivery company fees. Carriers bill their own handling charges alongside duty and VAT; no figure here comes from a carrier tariff.