Customs and Bringing in Personal Effects

[rickerw]

Hello,
My wife and I are settling in Bali this July. She is Indonesian and I am a US citizen, an artist and a teacher, soon to be retired. We are in Trinidad now where I am teaching. We have a container load of personal stuff, books, art supplies and so forth we are shipping from here to Surabaya which is where the ship goes, so we understand. Do you have any experience with this? It is all used stuff but my wife is worried about how our shipment will be treated by customs. Thanks for sharing your experience and for any suggestions. Ricker:icon_rolleyes:

 

[gilbert de jong]

who takes care of the packinging and loading of the container back in Trinidad ?
Maybe they have a "partner" in Indonesia who can take care of things on this end, clearing customs and bringing the container to Bali.
One tip, make sure the list of goods in the container is complete, numbered boxes and on the list described what is in each box.
Oh and don't forget to ship it under the name of the retirement-kitas holder (your name and not the indonesian wife), ofcourse include a copy of your passport and retirementkitas with the paperwork that goes with the container.
good luck with move

 

[rickerw]

Back to you gilbert

who takes care of the packinging and loading of the container back in Trinidad ?
Maybe they have a "partner" in Indonesia who can take care of things on this end, clearing customs and bringing the container to Bali.
One tip, make sure the list of goods in the container is complete, numbered boxes and on the list described what is in each box.
Oh and don't forget to ship it under the name of the retirement-kitas holder (your name and not the indonesian wife), ofcourse include a copy of your passport and retirementkitas with the paperwork that goes with the container.
good luck with move

Hi Gilbert,
Thank you for the good advice. I had thought it would be better to have my Indonesian wife's name on it since I don't have a Kitas yet. I will come in on a social visa and apply for the spouse visa/kitas once I am there. What is your thinking about that? We are also supplying information to the Indonesian consulate in Caracas, Venezuela which is not far from Trinidad. We are hoping that will help too. If you think it is better in my name then we will do it that way. Best, Ricker

 

[Mark]

My two cents is that all is better in your wife's name particularly since you can't import anything yourself without a KITAS She is a returning Indonesian and provided that the requirements are met, she is entitled to import used personal effects back to Indonesia without paying duty.

 

[ronb]

Consult the Consulate. If your plan is to relocate to Indonesia, and getting a KITAS soon is part of that, then the Consulate will probably be happy to regard your shipment as personal effects. Maybe they would be happier with your wife's name or yours, see what they say.

 

[Lovegrove]

We arrived just over two months ago on a social visa, we shipped 6 cubic mtrs as personal effects via Surabaya from Australia, as Gilbert said, we had to have a complete packing list, desc of goods, box numbers etc. we were told that because we currently don't hold a KITAS, we weren't supposed to ship personal effects, but we did, got stung for some duty at customs, we also needed to include a value of each item, hope that helps....

 

[gilbert de jong]

sorry I asumed you would get a retirement-kitas because of the soon to be retired part..and thus would travel here on a retirement kitas.
but what you are going to do is, come in on a social-visa sponsored by wife and then convert that to a kitas (ikut istri/suami)..
(I did that converting from social to kitas a while back, and is as easy as 1,2,3. Do bring original marriage certificate when going to convert though.)

In the case of travelling on a social, then yes like Mark says...use your wife's name on the paperwork for the shipment, that should safe some duty-fee's..
Still would try and find an movingcompany or shippingcompany on this end though, who takes care of clearing the container through customs here and getting your stuff to Bali.

 

[borborigmus]

When we did this, we came unstuck big time because rules were changed while goods were in transit to Surabaya, suddenly requiring the shipping company to be a 'registered and approved importer'.

Our goods were stuck in Surabaya bond store, we had constant demands for illegal 'fees', and they insisted that we pay 'storage' fees for the 8 months that they refused to either clear or release the goods for return to Australia.

If the same shenanigans are still going on, I would advise you double check that your shipping agent is in fact an 'approved' importer to avoid similar problems.

 

[gilbert de jong]

@borborigmus...just wondering and asking : what do you mean with "shipping-company" ?
a Shipping-company is not in the business of importing or exporting...they just ship from A-B.

 

[borborigmus]

@gilbert: Exactly my point. We used a 'shipping company', as you would expect to do, to move personal effects to Bali. A sudden change in the rules (and I don't know whether these are still in effect) meant that any shipping company bringing in our goods to Indonesia also now had to have a permit to 'import' our goods, even though they were just personal effects.

The company didn't have this at the time of shipping, because the new rule was brought in without notice while the goods were in transit.

After endless 'negotiations', we had to send the entire shipment back to the point of origin at our expense.

 

[rickerw]

Thanks to all of you for the intelligent and useful information. My wife has had some experience in export/import through a business she worked for in Surabaya. She knows that there is a distinction between the shipping company, one entity, and the forwarding company, another entity. The shipper here in Trinidad needs to have a connection with a forwarding company in Surabaya that has a license for importing. We have four different shipping companies coming this week to look over our stuff and discuss rates and procedures. I know enough about Indonesian regulations to know that is pays to get all the information one can and do everything possible to be accurate. I will report back in the hope that others will benefit from our experience."Borborigmus" really suffered. I assume because I am married to an Indonesian citizen that we will have an easier time but I haven't done well in my life assuming anything! Ricker

 

[Fred2]

First I would sell everything, failing that I would not tell customs she is married to a westerner, Customs do not like people importing stuff that can be punched in Indonesia. I do remember something about the shipping company had to be registered, I do know that some import rules changed last month. Im lucky anything that would not fit in a suit case didn't come. Best of luck rickerw