Home » Machinery & Equipment » Why Are RMA Shipments Always Held by Customs? The Pro-Agent’s Way Out
The Hidden Barriers in Equipment Repair Services
The latest 2025 customs data show that the average clearance time for re-exported mechanical and electrical equipment after repair is 2.8 times longer than that for ordinary trade, with 63 % of delay cases stemming from companies overlooking the special nature of repair trade. An auto-parts manufacturer, having mistakenly declared repaired equipment as “temporary import/export goods,” saw a US $1.2 million testing device held up at customs for 37 days, incurring extra storage charges and penalty fees totaling US $86 000.
The Three Core Values of Professional Agency
Construction of the Qualification Certification System:
- Maintenance capability certification: alignment with the technical standards of the destination country (e.g., EU CE Machinery Directive)
- Preparation of Special Documents: Maintenance Agreement + Quality Guarantee Certificate + Component Traceability Certificate
- AEO Certification Guidance for Customs: Building a Repair-Parts Management System Aligned with the 2025 New Regulations
Customized Clearance Strategy:
- HS Code Dynamic Maintenance: Adjust the declaration category based on the degree of repair (35%/50%/70%).
- For repair volumes below 35%, declare them as "items for repair".
- More than 50% of cases involving replacement of core components require reclassification.
- Tariff Guarantee Optimization: Reducing Capital Occupancy Through a Combination of Cash Deposits and Bank Guarantees
Tax Risk Prevention and Control:
- Maintenance Pricing Review: Ensuring Compliance with Customs Transfer Pricing Regulatory Requirements
- Residual Value Assessment System: Establish a depreciation model that complies with the 2025 territorial taxpayer management standards
- Tax RebatesConnection: Distinguish the tax refund ratios between maintenance service fees and material costs
A Step-by-Step Breakdown of a Typical End-to-End Service Scenario
Take the case of a returned CNC machine that was rejected by a Southeast Asian customer as an example:
- Emergency plan activated: Complete a feasibility assessment of the return/repair plan within 2 hours
- Customs Route Design: Adopt a composite model of "repair items + guarantee" to shorten customs clearance time
- Includes risk assessment reports, performance test data, clinical evaluation reports, etc.: Provide bilingual (Chinese-English) maintenance records and quality inspection reports
- Localized coordination: Coordinate with the overseas customs clearance agent to complete the re-import declaration in the destination country.
Prediction of industry regulatory trends in 2025
According to the latest revision of the "CustomsImport and export"Measures for the Administration of Duty and Tax Exemptions for Goods", equipment maintenance services will face:
- Mandatory integration of electronic maintenance logs into the customs supervision system
- Core component replacement shall follow the “approval-before-replacement” procedure.
- The pricing of maintenance services has been included as a key focus in post-clearance customs audits.
A certainMedical DevicesBy leveraging a pre-built dynamic HS-code database, the agency successfully averted three classification disputes in Q1 2025 and cut average customs-clearance time to within 72 hours.
