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Aramex and Customs

Just got the following email from Aramex:

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for choosing Aramex as your transportation partner.

The Kuwaiti Customs Authority has recently notified us that all courier shipments containing non-documents shall undergo customs inspection upon arrival at Kuwait airport. While Aramex shall continue providing its clearance services, we are unable to provide a specific time frame as to the duration of the clearance period, which may exceed five working days. Aramex therefore encourages all its customers who require speedy clearance to collect their shipments’ documents for self-clearance at the Aramex Ardiya office.

Should you need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us on + 965 1820011.

Best Regards,
Aramex Shop&Ship Team

I wonder if this applies to other carriers like U Shop We Ship and DHL?

Update: I just called Aramex to get more details. Basically everything is still exactly the same as before except now once the package arrives to Kuwait it will take a few days to get delivered to you. You don’t pay anything extra with this new rule, you just have to be more patient. But, like before, if customs decides to hold your package you would need to either clear it yourself or have them clear it for you for a fee.

Update2: I just called Aramex again and spoke to a person I know there. According to her I can expect ALL my packages to be held in customs from now on. Which means I will have to pay a fee to get my packages cleared. The fee is around KD15 (I think) which is just ridiculous!

Update3: Here is the breakdown of what you will have to pay from now on for EVERY single package you get via Aramex

a. 5% CIF.
b. 10 KD Kuwait airways.
c. 2 KD Bank Commission.
d. 1 KD Handling Charges.
e. 5 KD Clearance charges, if your good selves choose aramex to clear on your behalf, otherwise 2 KD only for self-clearance for customs declaration form.

That’s over KD20 per package! I still haven’t verified if USWS and DHL Easy Shop are effected by this since their offices were closed at the time of this posting.

Update4: Want to know how complicated it is to clear the stuff from customs yourself? Check my Kuwaiti Customs Clearance post with step by step directions and a map. [Link]

186 replies on “Aramex and Customs”

Does it mean we have to pay for customs clearance every time we order something online?

How much is the customs clearance fee? is it per item or per shipment?

As for Shop’n’ship, this would effectively destroyed what was a speedy service which was great for hard to find items for personal use.
Apart from the inordinate delays Aramex advise that they will charge KD 5 as a service fee to clear the shipment , as well as customs duty ( technically not applicable on items for personal use) The duty is intended for bulk resale commodities. This is the case in other GCC countries.
Aramex charges the high courier charge per pound becuase they are supposed to take care if the customs and clearance of items. They do exactly the same in other GCC countries.
It will indeed be really sad if the system permanently stops working the way it did. If the customs is going to do anything other than random inspection, it is sure to lead to this.
Very Sad. There is alerady a huge backlog of parcels at the Customs. My last package has been there for over a week – all it has is a blackberry with an english keypad which I purchased paying a higher price than what is available from Zain and Al Ghanim. I wonder how much longer it will take to clear !

They are saying KD 5 on the phone . However, in the email to you actually says that they will continue to provide clearance services ( i guess fro free ) but its going to take longer as Customs will be staring at the packages for the few days. Lets see what happens…
Shop’n’Ship will fail completely if the effective cost goes up.
Its already pricey enough to cover the relative differential on a local purchase which provides instant gratification.
I hope Aramex figure out a way to get things worked out with Customs for this personal use items courier service.
They should offer an undertaking to Customs that ShopNShip is not available to businesses or corporate clients, just for individuals who are residents.

not just 5kd , 40% or something for the shipment .in 2008 i paid 30Kd for Ps3 .
this is very sad day for me T.T .

its just trying to help wealthy bastards in Kuwait get richer by not allowing any kind of fair trade and imposing stupid restrictions on small people like us who try to order things from abroad for our personal use.

may I set apple store in kuwait as example? we all know who owns it, we all experienced how they bully us into buying new items for defective ones that are covered under warranty (speaking of personal experience that i know 4 others went through) or by simply setting up rediculiously high prices, and if we ever decide to order from abroad customs will act as their pimp or whatever mafia word suits it and force us to pay extra amount of cash as a tax for not buying from their ‘boss’!

Mohammed – I think you got ripped off.
The customs duty is a flat 4 to 5% on the invoice value of a product when it is imported for resale. If your PS cost your KD 150 it should have been KD 7.5.
Also, items imported for an individuals personal use are usually exempt from duty . However, this is always subject to interpretation.
Of course we are also feeling SAD now , but maybe it is only a temporary problem….

I have ordered few shirts online nw it is held for kuwait customs inspection….

If I need to pay fee for clearance for this

Kindly please advise

YES, we will have to pay customs charges for every package we now ship using Aramex!! 5KD for Aramex to clear the package for us + 10KD storage fee for all packages weighing under 5 kilo (not sure how much for packages weighing more than 5 kilo) + 5 % taxes + 3KD for the stamps!!! I’m not sure about you but I can’t afford an extra 25+KD for every package I have shipped through Aramex. .

UPDATE coment – I also just called Aramex. I was tod we would have to pay customs on EVERY package we ship from now on!!! The fees above are what I was quoted when I called Aramex.

CR: Well I called Aramex up and they told me I don’t have to and that the only thing changed was the fact shipments will take longer to deliver. She laughed when I told her I heard that I have to pay customs for every shipment.

WTF I am so fucking pissed…I just called Aramex to double check, sorry Mark but your update is wrong. The guy said that they take 5% + 5KD for something + 10 KD for the holding thing + 3 KD for stamps every fucking time. This is fucking bullshit…

I called Aramex two times and both times I was told the same thing. The lady at Aramex even broke down the fees. We will be charged for each shipment. I’m calling them again as we speak = Joy at Aramex just answered the phone and again I was told, WE WILL HAVE TO PAY CUSTOMS 20 – 30 KD FOR EVERY PACKAGE WE SHIP USING ARAMEX!!!!!!

Alright I just got off the phone with a woman and she told me that only if your shipment is held in customs you will be charged. But then thats also fucking retarded because the e-mail states that ALL shipments that are not documents will be held in customs. God every day something new comes out like this in our dumb ass country that has to fuck shit up. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.

Dude, this is crap. They held my shipment this week and told me i have to pay the KD5 for clearance + the customs fee of holding the package + the %age value… the government just killed Aramex.

Im certainly not using them anymore under these circumstances.

Corruption and under the table money! That’s all i have to say. Why is everything going backwards?????????????????

Well well well what an improvement!

Instead of fixing up the mailing system in Q8, or improving the process for the postal services of private companies in Q8 like aramex, or at least keep them as they were… they are doing this to us… o b3dain?!

What’a next? Lets think of things that make postal delivery harder in Kuwait? I don’t know maybe the parcels must be kept in Bahrain or Dubai and we have to personally go pick them up… that ought to do it… of course we would then have to be xrayed with infrared o ultraviolet o cat scan if neccessary upon arrival just so we would restore the virtue of the innocent society!

Must get used to banging my head against the wall

Welcome to Kuwait…a country controller by the greedy blood sucking merchants…if you buy better cheaper products they’ll always use the law to make your life miserable and their pocket full of money !

So what now? everything will be held. And apparently it will effect everyone including fedex, ups, etc. I give up on this country.

Wait la7tha.. people are already ordering Abercrombie and Fitch to their hotel rooms in bahrain and going to pick them up! Madry ishma3na but this is how some people are doing it… wala ana b3d baroo7 a7awel my post to bahrain kahe 3nd 3ene ticket 10 kd aro7 bel weekend i get my post o arj3 la 3oqad wala y7znoon!!!

This is really fucked up. Packages will take much longer to arrive (5 days my ass). Every package will have been opened and fingered by the monkeys at customs. Worst of all, a lot of the items that normally came through without problem will be held up and rejected. FUCK THIS SHIT.

This is the end for USWS, Aramex S&S and places like kuwait-mall.com; it was good while it lasted.

It is cheaper now to fly to Dubai/Bahrain or even further (depending on what you are ordering) pick it up, and bring it with you.

Someone needs to call and ask them what is the effective date for these rules; does it apply from the beginning of next month or is it effective immediately.

ARAMEX is dead. This basically means that the first half kilo is now 18.5 KD as apposed to 3.5KD, AND it will take longer AND a lot of items will be rejected. WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!

I think, Aramex should allow us to store shipments in the mailbox for few days, so we can at least get 3-4 shipments together and pay for customs just once.
That would help if you have multiple shipments, but its still ridiculous.

I use myus but DHL always charge me the clearance fee 10-15kd And I always complain and tell them that aramex never that !!

I think, Aramex should allow us to store shipments in the mailbox for few days, so we can at least get 3-4 shipments together and pay for customs just once.
That would help if you have multiple shipments, but its still ridiculous.

This is whore shit!

They finally did it. I knew this was gonna happen.

Those major electronic stores are trying to restrict the global competition by making the delivery channels harder for us.

BULLSHIT!

just got off the phone with a guy from fed ex. they are almost double the price of aramex. its 21.8 kd PER KILO! AND THEY DONT EVEN PROVIDE A MAILBOX. u need to have someone to ship it TO u from the desired location. thts just a rip off isnt it?
i think aramex is also a rip off but its still much cheaper than fed ex.

wai3: FedEx isn’t Aramex’s competition. DHL Easy Shop and SkyNet’s U Shop We Ship are the direct competitors. Both I believe are cheaper than Aramex.

This is the most depressing news I have read for quite some time. It will essentially shut down all the shop&ship services and my impulse Amazon purchases.

I need to start cancelling all my pre-orders. The problem is I have some shipments on the way. This is terrible.

well i guess ill order the catalogues and magazine, and weep at night over them. i knew those bloody ***** at customs are gonna bite me in the a** someday.
Now that the law is under personal interpretation, does that mean if the customs guy likes something, he could just pick it up and tell you its been rejected……

DHL is around 3.5 kd/half kilo and 6 kd per kilo for every extra kilo.
just got off the phone with a guy from DHL as well, he was very helpful, he also suggested ordering through someone in a “big” company in kuwait who are frequent clients cuz they get rates as low as 3 kd per kilo which is nearly half the price. so if u guys work at a company who uses DHL or aramex frequently, u guys might get good rates. also, i think its time to switch to DHL, aramex was always a bit of a rip off.

Hello everyone: Wanted to quickly clarify any misconceptions about the recent developments with Kuwait Customs and I hope it helps:

1. The new customs procedures are applicable to all carriers (we’re all suffering from this).
2. Here is the detailed breakdown of all related customs fees:
a. 5% CIF.
b. 10 KD Kuwait airways.
c. 2 KD Bank Commission.
d. 1 KD Handling Charges.
e. 5 KD Clearance charges, if your good selves choose aramex to clear on your behalf, otherwise 2 KD only for self-clearance for customs declaration form.

3. Time required for clearance: This is something that is unfortunately dictated by the authorities; however, we’ll do everything possible to speed up the process.

At the end of the day, we care for our customers and we’re here to help you. We will do everything possible to improve this unfortunate situation!

Hi Murad,

If we choose self clearance, we will still be charged the 10KD Kuwait Airways, the 2 KD bank comission, and the 5% CIF. Thats still absolutely horrible.

Dear Mr. Murad Bdair,

I know it is not your fault, but it’s just not worth it to order stuff through the Internet anymore. For example, I have to pay at least around 21 KD for any item even if it was priced @ 1 KD.

This is true even for the more expensive items. For example, if I want to order a $1,199 13″ MacBook Pro, I would have to pay 343 KD for the laptop + around 8% US tax (35 KD) + shipping cost to Kuwait (around 15 KD) + all these new fees mentioned above (around 35 KD) + a very long delay.

In other words, I have to pay approximately 428 KD for the laptop and wait for a while until I receive it, so is it worth it? Maybe buying the laptop from Kuwait isn’t a bad idea after all.

Hope this issue will be resolved as soon as possible or I will sadly stop using the mail forwarding services 🙁

Have you been to customs before? Clearing it by your self is a full day job, and there is no known process at all. You start by asking, which building do I go to?

Aramex would take 5 working days, and now maybe more with the load, so you won’t be getting it in less than a week.

Sameer83: Sadly, even when they do that, your shipments will be scattered across the customs area depending on their content. DVD to Ministry of Information, phone to ministry of commerce, etc! Won’t make things easy enough even then.

Right now, I’m holding shipments unless I really need to.

i use DHL for quite some time now.. and i’m proud to say that i’m happy!

people just hear about Aramex and think it’s the best because well, DHL used to suck but since they changed their name and all.. they’ve been doing quite well..
and about the customs and all.. i used to get caught a couple of times before.. but not in the last 5-6 shipments.. thats like 5-6 months .. i’m not a very active person on the internet shopping! 🙂

thank god Bahrain has signed a free trade agreement with the US and can’t pull off such a move. my only advise is for Kuwaitis to push their parliament to also form a FTA with the US; but that takes at least a couple of years if the US congress approves.

Notice Kuwait airways gets kd10 on every shipment.
Sound like the corrupt people running the the corrupt national airways company are trying to make as much money before the company is privatised.

STRIKE! No really, we should do a strike! Because this is total nonsense. 20KD per package? Are they out of their minds?

CIF = Cost, Insurance and Freight.
I still can’t believe this is happennnnning!
For the record. I work for aramex and we ain’t happy!!!

Wait….you people actually thought you were gonna get your shopping fix on the cheap for forever without paying the Man? The Man needs to feed his family too, ya know.

ppl ,
we should protest to ministry ! i not kidding we should protest all possible ways available ! let’s use twitter , blogs , you-tube even google-ads .
we just can’t sit here like this!
also , we should inform our parliament members too (al-awadem) .
20kds for nothing APEshit .
furthermore, why don’t even complain everywhere? i mean we could flood all the govermental and officials e-mails just to let them feel how unjust it is to all , just to feed a fudgin’ WHALE !

Ok he is a solution.

Aramex should have an office in AlKhafji in K.S.A, nearest point to Kuwait. and we will ship our item to that office then pick them up ourself by crossing the board.

Ha Mr.Murad what do you think ?

I experienced this blunder 3 years ago when I got an e-mail from Aramex telling me that the customs got my parcels. I was told that I have to get them myself and when I got to the customs, money was thrown around just for the papers. They even charged me 6 KD for the sticker which includes your name & address, a sticker they did not even put in the first place. I was shocked when a Kuwaiti guy, who works there, told me that the customs are doing this so that nobody shops on-line. Does this apply for the Aramex branches in the other GCC countries?

What a shame.

Hi guys I don’t think things will come to this point where we’d have to pay aroun 20 KD for each package, I ‘ve been getting packages for the last couple of years through other carriers and yes they used to hold t he packages at the airport for a couple of days for clearance but i didn’t have to pay any storage fees or customs cuase they were for personal use, and that was the normal process but i think aramex shop and ship had an agreement with customs where they search random packages only to hurry up things. Second if kuwait airways wants to charge 10 KD for every package then why not make a deal with another airline like united or lufthansa they have regular flights from us, uk into kuwait

then again,
i think it’s a temporary thing. , why?
because i don’t think those guys at the duty would check every freaking thing !
and besides , now i can sell anything the trade thread with out anyone (aka burhan) telling me amazon is cheaper , LOL (sarcasm)

in a nutshell , i’ll give it a month and then it’ll fade away , they want to shake off the couriers .
that’s all

I used to work in FedEx in Egypt before, and the customer were paying only about KD 4 as a clearance fees to the company and the customs amount… nothing else.
I dont know what the fuck is that, What if I bought a CD for KD 2.5 …. How much am gonna pay ?? KD 20 also ??

Come on Guys, don’t blame the country or the bad guys , blame the good people including your self who let them take control of You. “Kuwait and Proud” hmm…

i think i’m over with Aramex. i signed with them as being a fast and reliable service. i think it’s not the case anymore…

I went through the same ordeal, earlier this week my iPod’s came in and it showed that they were held in customs, I had placed an order for 3 iPod Touch’s as birthday gifts, and the reason we all order online is to get a better deal.. so I was extremely shocked and surprised that they got held up in customs, I called and went mad since it’s not fair to pay at least 27KD to clear iPods and I had paid around 60KD per iPod including shipping + gift fees now with the additional amount it’ll be around 70KD per iPod and that would be only a difference of 9KD from the price I would’ve paid had I bought it here.

I think this is a major step towards failure of all shipping companies and I mentioned it to the Aramex Employee that I spoke to today, we will now stop ordering anything because what good will it be for us, if we’re paying the same price as what’s available in the market. This is truly truly a depressing piece of news and I hope that something gets fixed soon.

I just realized something…now I will be paying 40 KD for a game that I can buy for 20 something here XD what sucks is I cannot cancel the order *cries*

We’re all screwed. I am going to pay KD25 + KD3 for 2 tshirts that cost me $20. I am going to pay KD25 + KD10 for sneakers that cost me KD20. Never ordering online again!

does this apply to anything coming in thru couriers or just the shipments from online shopping?
like if my friends in canada send me an ipod for example by FedEx, would i have to pay the 20+ fee?

Only way I guess you can justify ordering online now is if the item is expensive. For example I bought a Canon HF S100 HD Camcorder for around 300KD including shipping and handling. Now add the 25 to 30 KD to that and you get a max of say 335. The same camcorder is sold here for 500KD! So yeah only things I am ordering from now on is stuff that I know I will be saving with. But still I am really pissed…
Why the fuck do I have to pay Kuwait Airways lol. Fuck em ill buy a plane and bring the shit myself >_>

Dear Mark,
I would like to thank you for this wonderful blog. Regarding the email that was sent to us by Aramex regarding customs, I ordered a laptop a few months back and I had to pay only 13 K.D to get it cleared out, 10 for Kuwait airways, 2 K.D for stamps and 1 K.D for the clearance office that operates there I still hope the charges stay the same and nothing changes.
I don’t know why aramex are charging their clients 5 K.D for clearance charges I mean come on they should reduce their cost to make things easier and cheaper for us in addition to that we have to wait for over a week to get our stuff why? What about movies? tell me where in hell are we supposed to get region 1 blu-ray movies here in Kuwait??? I think Kuwait airways is benefiting from this and Aramex too, lets see how! For example you purchase a blu-ray disk for 7 K.D from amazon.com+3 K.D shipping charges+5 K.D clearance charges+10 K.D Kuwait airways(I hope it depends on the weight of the package)= 25 K.D that is more than the price of the blu-ray disk itself.
Few months back I talked to one of shop and ship supervisors and he told me that Kuwait airways doesn’t want to give Aramex a cargo facility to operate and make things easier on us and them, if they do they will be able to deliver packages faster.
I wish Kuwait airways cargo facility gets burned and when that happens they will have to compensate all of aramex clients lets see who will be laughing then!!

Mark aramex should/must compensate you for these items, they should have at least given all their customers a two week notice before the implementation of these new rules. If they have a problem with the government giving them a late notice they should in turn bring charges against the government. My guess is they knew about it for a while but tried to negotiate/understand and only decided to go ahead today.

I think that anything that is sent using courier in any country goes throu customs – why because this way you never know if the item is meant for personal use. You could imagine shipping 100 laptops one by one and then being sold on the market. When you bring one item with you then it is obvious that it is personal one and they will stop you. I think this is the logic behind all this.. and it has just reached Kuwait. I used to send personal items from here to Europe and they were _always_ stopped on customs, even though they were so obviously personal.

I forgot to mention something you have to pay a ground fee for your package for each day it is spent at the cargo facility. I think it depends on the weight of the package and the size of it too.

am i the only one weeping real tears here?

el nas tet6awar… tetqadam, teshtere online, boasts the online store concept…

o ihnee we find ways to suffocate customers o force them to actually not to buy from the net

now i dont have a home to call my own, i dont have the freedom to read, i dont have the freedom to watch a full movie, i dont have the option of buying stuff online like any other normal human being would do on this planet since it would be just not worth it… it will take too long and cost too much… what the hell is that

o shako ana adf3 7g q8 airways 10 kd

ba7rain ya jama3a ba7rain… 10 kd se3er ticket el jazeera… o mako fayda we protest ,,, inroo7 il ba7rain o khalas shinsawe b3d

I am actually with an amazon rep on Skype XD, gonna see if I can combine all my stuff into one order. HA CUSTOMS I FOUND A LOOPHOLE!

Wait a minute…I forgot about the 5% of the total price!!! From the famous words of Homer Simpson…”DOH!”

Why doesn’t Aramex deliver all the stuff to Bahrain or Saudi and then drive them by truck into Kuwait? That would bypass all the customs bullshit.

I remember there was a company that used to do that.

fucking perfect timing.. I got the email that my shipment’s confirmed a few minutes before getting the Aramex email. So, we’ll see how much it’s gonna cost me once it gets here

Looks like that is it for my late night shopping

FedEX already charging us minimum KD 12.ooo per shipment since July 2009.
Many countries have Mumtaz Post / use it, its cheaper and average delivery time is 4-6 days.

It it for everyones online shopping. No more buying anything less than 300 USD items from amazon ;_; damn you oh cruel fate!

You pay 10 K.D to Kuwait airways because they keep your package at their docking bay!!! Kuwait airways lose money with their flights so why not screw us up to make some profit from aramex clients.

Dear Lukas trust me aramex are benefiting, their guy at the customs doesn’t do a thing he only pays the guys who work at the customs their fees and they do everything so why the 5 K.D for sitting, drinking tea and coffee? I have seen them with my own eyes I went there and saw how things are like down there trust me I went there once and there is no way in hell am going there again!!!

Mark, how can bring the whole truck of goods and bypass customs !!.. and you cannot do that with one shipped item? You are passing the country border anyway. I do not think the rule is meant only for air traffic.

I think there are no custom fees when moving between GCC countries, so Aramex won’t have to pay any fees if I was correct.

Ahmed, Aramex gets 5KD only if u buy. I agree… but who will buy now? It is well know rule – if you want to get more profit – lower you price – more people will buy and you will eventually get more money. What will happen now will be exactly the opposite and since the jump in the cost is big their loss will immediate.
I only hope it will go “normal Kuwait way” and it will settle down soon ..

Dear Lukas people will still order from Aramex, I hope they don’t so they force Aramex to take an action against airport customs but I am very sorry to tell you that people won’t! Do you know why? because it’s hard to change people’s habits they get used to buying things online and they won’t stop immediately. You have a good point and I agree with you, I wish that no one orders from abroad until this issue is resolved.

oh my god oh my god OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

Ahmed, as far as I know most people buy stuff online because of 2 reasons.
1. It is not sold in their country.
2. It is sold in their country but overpriced.

As far as anything I ordered, I always go under the second category, but with the added fees it won’t make my order cheaper so consider my Aramex account closed…for now.

True… if u have money u do not really bother. I will only order now in case i cannot find an item locally. I have always been greedy :P…

I have got like 4 items waiting to be released and get shipped by amazon I am going to cancel my orders and I have been waiting all year for them to be released in the US =(

The funny thing is that you have to pay more and wait more to receive your parcel how nice is that? It is like they are saying to us you are screwed by us not in 1 way but in 2 ways so enjoy it while we do so!

I live on amazon.com and to be honest I don’t know how I am going to get over this crap!

Terrible…but anything that’s run by the government is corrupt as hell, but if we as a people take everything they spoon feed us lying down and never complain about anything then IMO we deserve it when we get FISTED by the Man.

I will tell you what I am going to do and I am so sorry Mark to post it in your blog. I will order the biggest DILDO you can find even if it was the size of a car I won’t mind purchasing it and when aramex call me and tell me you have a package at the customs I will tell them to ask the custom guys and whoever is responsible for this stupid shipment holding thing to use that dildo on himself and see how that feels to be screwed!!! They can leave it there as a gift from shop and ship clients.

LOOL good one !!! but now since they know what u gonna do.. they will pass your “gift” without a charge and u gonna get it at your doors… neighbors face – priceless … rotfl

i think this should be added to the WTF webpage 🙂

WTF every package goes to customs ?

and that’s it for online shopping.

Thats terrible news to hear. Too bad my Windows 7 (pre order item) just got shipped; I hope it gets cleared without customs! I will definately stop ordering items online with these new fees since it is no longer feasible. This will DEFINATELY hurt Aramex!

I feel terribly sick.I have two shipments on their way here and I don’t wanna calculate how much they’re gonna cost me.( I should have listened to my wife’s advice and stopped buying video games)

Hey guys let’s do something! We can protest in-front of the shameful customs building to stop this crap from happening.

Online shopping is no longer considered as secondary activity. It has changed our whole lives. We must not surrender that fast. we don’t want it to end that way.

you know what sounds funny is that Kuwait is going to be the FINANCIAL CENTER in the regoin… in our dreams it may become with these rules.. lol

BJ commented: “God every day something new comes out like this in our dumb ass country that has to fuck shit up. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”

here’s my respond: if you don’t like our country which made you buy a labtop and made you shop online, get the hell out of Kuwait.. and watch your tongue.

I’m willing to support any protest related to this shit. We should get rid of all import fees. The only costs should be is like 10% duty if its over 1000KD .

I read all of your 112 comments and i am outraged! I just recieved my mastercard and started online shopping so I could save more money. I havent recieved any of my orders yet but now im pretty sure my first package might cost me 25KD (6KD for amazon)

I’ve been living in Kuwait my whole life and I know how things work in here.
Theres two ideas mentioned up here that might work.

A) “Why doesn’t Aramex deliver all the stuff to Bahrain or Saudi and then drive them by truck into Kuwait?” (Post #89 by mark)

B) Make a public protest.

(A) probably wont work. We cant tell aramex what to do. Even if they did take action and send our stuffs to Bahrain/Saudia theres no garantee it will work. And if it does they might still charge us 25KD and lie about the reasons. More money in their pockets. unless they lose alot of comstumers and need them back.

(B) When the athorities makes an action like this (so some big men can make more profits and open up a new bently in their garage’s while citizens suffer and feel that they lost a part of their freedom.) Theyre corrupt and they will stay this way, why? Cause they think they can get away with it. Thats why protesting is a good idea. Things cant get your way in Kuwait unless your voice gets heard. The hardest part tho is gathering protesters cause Kuwaiti’s are pretty laid back!

Im actually a guy whos up for a protest. This is not acceptable! We know local stores will hike up the prices even more sooner or later.

The idea of shipping things to Bahrain and then trucking them here is not as easy as you think. Goods are charged (duty or customs) based on their manufacture/origin, not where they are shipped to.

The easiest solution that I can see is to find a drop box that will terminate in a country with a FTA with the US, then you go there and personally courier the items to Kuwait.

So, since Bahrain has a FTA with the US, then find a company (maybe Aramex) that will give you a drop box in Bahrain. You can have them hold it at their offices. Fly in for one day (ticket costs 5 KD) or if you are lucky enough, you can drive there – pick it up – and drive back the same day.

If you time it correctly, you can go for a weekend day trip and bring back three or four packages that you’ve ordered.

That’s the only solution I can think of — the other way to get around this is find someone with an APO at Arifjan and have your shipments sent to them; this completely bypasses customs and Aramex (APO shipments are exempt) and it will reduce your shipping charges since you only pay for shipping in the US. However, not all merchants will ship to APO.

Being an ex-Aramex employee, i’ll tell you, those guys do work like hell to get stuff done on time. our biggest problem in Kuwait is that the Customs people keep changing the rules whenever they feel like it. they are now treating a courier shipment like its a freight shipment. why do we have to pay 5% CIF for a magazine, that’s what most of us are ordering, or better yet, get us some good literature to read that isn’t marked out with black marker cuz the lady is wearing a sleevless top!!! ridiculous! SHAME ON YOU KUWAIT FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN!

Sorry for the double post but I have to add that theres actions to be done in order to solve such an issue. So dont expect all of this to go away over time. unless some good people take action and stop this unreasonable price hikes for a rediculous procedures.

Well, at least now you guys know why most of the stuff sold in Kuwait are over priced. And who said that Kuwait was “tax free”?

I got an e-mail that my shipment was on hold. So I called Aramex up and sadly, Joy picked up, again. She told me I could pick up my stuff from shahan jawee immediately or I could wait for an additional 4-6 bussiness days for Aramex to clear it for me and deliver it to me… at additional charges for this and that. She then assured me that customes were not doing this to all shipments. I didn’t ask her. She’s the one that old me that all this was RANDOM. So I went to pick up my stuff, figuring it would be cheaper than having Aramex deliver it and here’s the kicker. They wouldn’t give it to me. It’s just freakin’ makeup! So I call up Aramex and they’re like, we’ll send it to you once it’s cleared. Now I gotta wait another week AFTER they clear it, so Aramex can deliver it to me.

Folks, People at Ushop We Ship have implemented the so called custom charges and clearance almost 8-9 months back. U guys are still lucky in a way if Aramex implmented only now. Nevertheless the whole experience of shopping online is been screwed up by some as**** at the customs. It’s just a shame that kuwait implements rules without consideration.

I feel some of the top electronic stores may have lobbied for this change. If Kuwait has about a 1,000 online (import) buyers every week, we are looking at about 4,000 to 5,000 buyers per month. About 24,000 to 30,000 sales in 6 months and so on. This is a big dent to local stores really.

If you discourage just about half of these buyers; now that’s like still making some good business.

It is what happens many a times but not everyone knows.
Example: A person decides to have a ‘fire extinguisher business’. There is a genuine need for it in the market but not everyone who owns a car is interested. Then the business owner will lobby with the Govt. to mandate a compulsory fire extinguisher rule for each car. Some deal goes on & officials agree. Then they bring a huge stock of fire extinguishers and stock it and then finally they fire the rule in the market. People panic and fire extinguisher sales jump to about a 1,000 times. Sounds like business?

I only hope and keep fingers crossed that this rule really changes again as is the case of many rule changes that happen now & then. Not sure if ARAMEX is really to be blamed for it.

I am not sure if something like a good [ ONLINE PETITION ] to be presented / addressed to the top ranks at Kuwait Customs will work. Something like this can be signed online by all of us.

ONLINE PETITION – will it work?

I Have found an alternative solution that can reduce the damage imposed by this stupid law. There is a website called MyUs.com that provides the same service as aramex but with some crucial differences. They let you set the frequency for shipping your packages. for example weekly, bi-weeks or monthly or until you till them to ship it.

So if you chose monthly they’ll collect your shipments and send all of them at the end of each month. The other thing is that they do combine shipments into one package which is a very big feature. So what I want to say is the following:

for people who are not in a hurry to receive their items they can have a monthly scheme with combined shipments. This will make the 15KD fees spread over the whole packages you ordered through this period.

The down sides of this company is that their shipping rates are a bit higher and for combining shipments you have to get a premium account with a fee of $60 per year which is not a serious obstacle IMO.

Sharing one account between two or three friends also can reduce the overall costs. So there are alternatives but they are not as good as the old way we used to.

Mark: Frankly I didn’t know this about Aramex but they definitely don’t have combined shipping . The problem now is the number of packages you have because customs fees are fixed for each package you receive. That’s why I think reducing the number of packages to the minimum is not a bad idea.

Aziz call them and ask. They have three options, ship 3 times a week, once every two weeks and once a month. When I stopped using them except for magazines i had my mailbox checked once a month only.

Mark: What I mean by combined shipping is that if I ordered 3 items from amazon and 2 from ebay and 3 from walmart. MyUs can wrap all these items into one single package and send it to kuwait by DHL.

So I don’t have to pay 15 KD for each of the 8 items I ordered. I only need to pay 15 KD once for one package that contains all my 8 items.

I hope this clears the idea further more.

@ Icey
Wtf are you talking about? A Labtop? Anyways its not only your country, I was born here and its my country and I can say whatever the fuck I want about it. Its called freedom of speech which sadly frowned apon here because of our backwards society. So shush.

BJ i was born here too, but today i am disappointed.
i had to pay around 22Kd to get my ps3 here, thanks to some help from abu mashari… my soccer playing friend’s dad who made the process quicker and saved 3-5KD from stickers.

i am totally like i am ready to go with friends and Mess them up. pretty fucking crazy customs i say. 22kd for delivering no way ever.
not again i will try.
i am pretty pissed right now…

Just called DHL and asked them about their so called easyshop service which is something like Aramex shop&ship and I asked them about the new customs law and if they got notified you know what the answer was? NO we didn’t receive any notice regarding new custom fees!!! If there is a new law how come aramex didn’t forward us the letter they received from the head office at customs? and why notify us one day before they enforced the new law? we should be notified in advance something is fishy going around here.

You know what I am going to open up an account with DHL then or something. Maybe I can hurry and switch addresses before the items ship.

BJ just wait and don’t do anything! I asked one of my friends to send me his DHL mailbox address I will order something and ship it to that mailbox if it works I will inform you don’t waste your money now and just wait ok. Btw you only need to pay 10 K.D to get a mailbox and the first half kilo is 3.5 K.D (for your first order) and every order that weighs another half a kilo is 2.5 K.D. If this thing works you guys will be the first to know. Wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed. Oh and they don’t deliver your parcels to your house you have to collect them yourself the only downside, but it’s worth a shot.

Thank you musty. I want one thing from aramex I want them to send us the letter they received from the customs in arabic or english. I said this before something fishy is going with aramex and I think it is a stunt to increase their income. 5 KD clearance charges X 1000 parcel = 5000 KD profit by aramex!!! Come on guys cut us some slack.

I think if Aramex wants to keep customers they should not charge customers a 5KD clearance fee. We are paying enough for weight that this should be included in the price. If Aramex really cares about saving customers and staying in buiness they would waive the 5KD clearance fee!

They won’t waive anything CR trust me all they care about is money I saw their guy who is supposed to get our stuff cleared out the only thing he does is hand in the papers to any customs release office (private office) and the egyptian guy does all the walking around and going up and down to get it done while he sits and waits to pick your stuff up. While in hell would I pay that ass 5 KD for what sitting on his butt all day sipping tea and coffee?? I am telling you what I saw with my own eyes. Since when a new law comes out and it gets inforced the following day?And why in hell we didn’t get a notice in advance?? Oh tell you why because we consumers are idiots. I did some calculations in my head and trust me if we keep on ordering aramex won’t lose a fils because they are getting 5 KD from each parcel add to that the cost of shipping so they are making more profit now that before!
We are in a financial crisis for gods sake some people don’t even have jobs why not raise the fees this ought to solve the issue hooray we solved the economical issue by making stupid laws that I don’t think even exist!!

No thank you Aramex. I’d rather take a plane there, sneak my purchases in my anus, and take a plane back to Kuwait.

I find it really funny that people still surprised at all the stupid shit that happens here. This cuntry has been going backwards for a long time now and realistically the best thing we can do is sit by and watch it destroy itself or help run it to the ground completely to get it over with then hopefully we can start fresh from the ashes.

we have to wait and see , I think there is a meeting on Sunday according
to Aramex rep, the Q is did Aramex knew about this way back and held off telling S&S customer on the new process . I think so .
I have been a long time S&S customer since its start , now I guess I’ll wait for a trip and buy whatever I need .
Mark Aramex used to offer a choice of how many shipments a month
now they don’t keep anything in NYC , there is so much boxes it will cost them more to store it at NYC , I think they are leasing the facility and they are running out of space , they did this 3 years ago .
now the Q is did customs read the memo correctly ??

I think we need to speak to somone from AL Ghanim Family for wasta since Kuwait Customs GM is Mr. Ibrahim AL Ghanim 😛

According to a friend of mine who works in customs, the new laws were put by the customs and the deal is that three parties will get benefits out of it Customs, NAS and ARAMEX.

This is one stupid greedy move. There are always better way to get money from people for good service, but this is the SHITIEST way I have ever seen for service anf for they money we poor cusomers pay

I submitted an order for call of duty special controller now I’m thinking of cancelling the order…………what to do ????
the cost was 15 kd and 3 d for aramex now it will cost twice that

These guys should have implemented the new rules with a deadline and informed us well in advance so we could have saved our shipments from getting ruined. There are so many products which are still not available in Kuwait. Guess we all need to protest and form a committee to tackle this situation. We love this country and we should think of improvising such kind of issues rather than thinking irrationally. Lets all hope this matter get subdued inshallah .

Cheers

Well look at the bright side. You have a reason now that why you haven’t bought that ‘item’ . So money saved , pride maintained and less pondering over the internet. Health restored !!!

Funny I thot of ordering for the first time a lot of Metal T-Shirts , music CD’s and Memorabilia related to hard rock metal music….but alas Now the news is confirmed , orders cancelled.

have a good weekend.

And petrol is 60 fils per litre. Who here actually pays for electricity? My air conditioner runs non-stop. And I’m running 4 refrigerators. Those of you who are Kuwaiti citizens enjoy many other perks & goodies from the gov’t. What the gov’t gives away with one hand it takes away with the other. Of course if enough Kuwaitis complain perhaps the Customs Authority will reverse course.

I sympathize with those who note the harshness of the almost immediate implementation; does suck to have already ordered something.

Ahmed your going us a huge favor, I would like to thank you. Be sure to give us an update regarding DHL man. Appreciate it!

Guys please do us all a favor and tell everyone you know not to order anything via aramex for now I am telling you these guys are just greedy and want more money let us for once do the right choice and not order anything for at least 2 months until they learn a lesson that consumers have the power to change organizations behavior and not vice versa. I need an answer for this question ok, do you think if you have a wasta at customs you would pay any fees at all? The guys who work there would deliver it to your door stop on a silver platter and kiss your hands maybe. My answer to you is this not everyone will be paying those fees.

I think we should expedite things by going to 2-3 newspapers an putting short (and visible) notes about what happend – that could speed up the news and reach not only to aramex customers. More chances to reach the right decision makers faster.

same happened to me last week,,i paid KD20 for the item from Aramex shop n ship. i regret i should buy the item here in Kuwait in that case

I’m re-routing all my orders to a friends place in Dubai. I’m better off flying there on a cheap ticket – booked way in advance or during promotional periods, I already have 3 tickets rt @ 18KD tax free – and picking up the stuff myself. At the same time, I get to take a mini vacation!

So if I buy the camera outside and bring it – then if really there is this new customs rule then they should stop me on the airport and I would have to pay all except 10kd for KA…. right? Well in reality they will not do it (for sure!) so where is the logic? What is the difference between sending _personal_ things by courier and bringing them on your own?!

By the way anybody knows if magazine or book is a document.. bcoz I can understand electronic equipment which is “expensive” could go thru customs but book?!?! I buy a used one for 1$ and i will have to pay 20KD … PLEASE !!!!!

right? Well in reality they will not do it (for sure!) so where is the logic? What is the difference between sending _personal_ things by courier and bringing them on your own?

Sending it by courier = profiteering merchants may easily “tax” you as a deterrent for “lowering” their volumes. Aramex/Fedex/ect boxes are easily filtered out.

Bringing it in yourself = practically speaking, they cannot “tax” you… if they did, everyone will pay a ton of cash on everything they bring with them to Kuwait Airport.

One of my friends received a package from Aramex today it was a PS3 video games he paid 3 KD the usual shipping price for a single blu-ray or a PS 3 disk. I don’t know whether it will stay the same or change for their new charging fees, it will show within the following couple of weeks.

Guyz whose paid the normal fees , I believe Aramex received their package before 21 oct , i have package on the way will be in Kuwait soon , so i will inform you with the new prices : )

My package came to Kuwait on 18th and until today it is on hold – I was called by Aramex and told that will have to pay those 20kd… I am bringing a printer which I could not find in Kuwait. Customs were always doing “random” check – this is what I was told when I was opening the account with Aramex (around 3 years ago) – I managed to bring some electronics and was stopped only once (couple of months ago) and had to pay 20kd (+ MOH inspection) when I tried to bring some stuff from bodybuilding.com

I was informed by Aramex that magazines = documents but books not. I am giving a try with a book coz i cannot believe they gonna ask 20kd… if they will i am gonna leave it to these guys to read ;P…. so.. what titles u suggest to leave for our brothers in the airport? 🙂

As a business owner our customers never believed us how much more we have to pay to clear customs while they were getting thiers out for free !! These charges & more are NORMAL for all business transactions for ages !! Now you know why items are more expensive to buy in Kuwait than through Amazon for example

@Hamdan

I have always known about such rules since it is normal practice everywhere. However it is the practice only for companies who resell (like yours I believe) as well is it is the practice for example if you want to bring expensive equipment. I agree with this approach.
If I want to bring a car from Kuwait to Europe I will have to pay customs (regardless i bring by cargo i drive myself..)

You as business owner should support locally produced goods not bring stuff from other countries – each country basically wants to support local economy and protect goods produced locally – and again I agree with this. It is not my problem that Kuwait is not producing and only reselling things bough outside. Reason why this (customs issue) happened in Kuwait is totally different and was many times explained in above comments. The bottom line is that there should be no customs fees for PERSONAL or “cheap” stuff like it is all over the world (not to mention the monopoly done by Kuwait Airways and charging 10KD per item!).

i had ordered a laptop battery and received it yest. with charges of 5.5 KD…even the delivery man didnt know anything about these so called new rules…now will wait n watch b4 ordering items again…that’s what i advise everyone 2 do…dont go ahead and close ur accounts with aramex, they are not paying back the account opening fees, r they??

as business , you buy in quantity the price is way different than we pay at amazon or other shops . I don’t mind paying %5 on a $5.00 second hand DVD from eBay or amazon marketplace . Kuwait constitution grants individuals few rights ,but not businesses . That is the difference and customs rules issued without being checked by legal Dept or Fatwa .

I understand that this thread it old. What is the current Kuwaiti customs clearance fees with Shop and Ship? I’ve just arrived. Thank you.

my parcel wasn’t even held at custom. it was held in Aramex ardiyah warehouse ( Operation). the package only contains clothing ( 3 pcs) for personal use. after being held for few days, they sent me message that i have to pay 5 kd for custom’s charges. it is very depressing.

Only a few items are exempt from customs. so it could be one shirt or 10 you’re still going to have to pay 5% customs fee plus their 1kd clearance fee.

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