According to the Notice of the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, the State Administration of Taxation, and the State Administration for Market Regulation on Improving the Supervision of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Imports (Shangcaifa [2018] No. 486), which came into effect on January 1, 2019, cross-border e-commerce retail imports refer to the consumption behavior of consumers in China purchasing goods from abroad through cross-border e-commerce third-party platform operators and transporting them into the country through “online shopping bonded import” (customs supervision method code 1210) or “direct purchase import” (customs supervision method code 9610).
The above-mentioned goods should meet the following conditions:
First, they are included in the “List of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Goods”, limited to personal use and meet the conditions stipulated in the cross-border e-commerce retail import tax policy;
Second, the e-commerce platform is connected to the customs and can realize the comparison of the “three documents” of transaction, payment and logistics electronic information, or the platform is not connected to the Internet but the inbound and outbound express operators and postal enterprises can assume the responsibility of transmitting electronic information such as transaction and payment to the customs on behalf of the platform. In addition, there is a model called “Online Shopping Bonded Import A” (customs supervision mode code 1239), which is basically the same as “Online Shopping Bonded Import” (customs supervision mode code 1210), except for its scope of implementation and the requirements for the first import of goods.