Cost of Shipping a Container To Malawi

According to customs regulations, the following documents can be demanded by customs officials:

● Advice notes
● Bill of lading
● Certificate of origin
● Commercial invoice
● Malawi Revenue Authority Form 12
● Customs declaration for Mozambique (transit document)
● Delivery order
● Malawi Revenue Authority Form 19
● Inspection report from scanner (transit document)
● Packing list
● Release order
● Report order

Malawi Revenue Authority customs forms are available online. Please click here.

Additionally, requirements vary slightly depending on the mode of transport into Malawi:

Transport by road vehicle:

● A complete list of the goods carried in the shipping container
● Copies of all waybills
● Copies of consignment notes

Transport by air cargo:

● Manifests of the cargo signed by an authorized person at the point of departure
● Lists of the passengers and crew
● Lists of any goods on board that are accompanying passengers (i.e., baggage)
● The clearance, if any, from the last foreign port
● The aircraft’s journey logbook

Transport by train:

● Copies of invoices
● Waybills
● Delivery and advice notes
● Other documents for goods which will enter at that port
● Lists of all goods carried on the train other than the cargo
● A “Clean Report of Findings” from the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) affiliate in the exporting country is also required

Before shipping a container to Malawi, you should take into consideration these prohibited or restricted products:

● Cement
● Cooking Oil
● Laundry Soap
● Fresh Milk
● Liquor (in plastic packaging or bottles)

For more information about the licenses required upon shipping an item to Malawi, please refer to this link.

Generally, import duties and excise taxes vary according to product, country of origin, end-use, and national interest decisions.  Depending on the good, import duty, excise tax, and value-added tax (VAT) may all be charged.

The Malawi Investment and Trade Center posts relevant information on its website.

Have you ever paid a visit to a grocery store, gathered a few products, and walked directly to the payment section to pay for those items? The cashier handed you a particular list of the goods you bought. That list is the same as the Bill of Lading.

The Bill of Lading is a paper given by a transport rendering company, such as a shipping line or railroad, acknowledging acceptance of goods and showing a legal contract to deliver the items to your desired destination.

Upon planning to deliver a container to your site, you must consider several factors. You should know in advance the details about permitting requirements, clearance space, delivery fees, and ground conditions.

Most of the time, you will be required to allow at least 12 and 20 feet of width and overhead clearance, respectively, for containers. Furthermore, a 20-ft container would need about 75ft of clearance, while a 40-ft one needs about 100ft.

Before shipping a container to Malawi, you must study beforehand the difference between taxes, tariffs, and duties.

● Custom Duties: Customs duties are incurred every time the client imports a product into Malawi. To determine how freely a product can be allowed into the country, the government fixed these fees. Duties will always be there no matter how much they change.

● Tariffs: Tariffs are fees imposed by a government for categories of products at specific times. Like duties, a tariff’s percentage increase is calculated from the product’s import value, and the end-customer receives the fees. Consumer habits are affected by how fast the prices of imported goods change.

● Import Taxes: Defined by the government, the standard percentage is the basis of import taxes by the additional cost added to any imported product entering the country. Depending on the country, it is called Value-Added Tax (VAT) or Goods and Services Tax (GST). In terms of implementation, VAT and GST are indistinguishable, but each is applied to various products based on the country importing into.

Not knowing where your container is can make you feel uneasy, which is why Three Movers has the tools to help you with that. You may track your container while it is in transit, and you can use only one or avail all of these ways to do so:

● Personal, up-close monitoring
● GPS asset tracking
● Live Satellite Imagery
● Container Tracking Services
● Automatic Identification System Tracking

To learn more about these tracking ways, click here.