When leaving China there are a few critical considerations to consider. Whether you’re trying to bring out cash, antiques, name brand goods or just a fat stack of stuff, it’s up to you to determine and legitimately declare the value, origin and age of your goods. We’ll help you determine which is what, but beyond that, it’s up to you.
If you’re traveling to the United States, you can bring with you up to $400 worth of domestic goods duty free. This may include art, silk goods, widgets/trinkets, and frankly anything else you might be able to carry with very few exceptions.
Real quick though, unless you’re an art or antique collector or some sort of smuggler, I’d like to meet the man who can carry out more than $400 worth of personal goods.
These exceptions include the transport of agricultural goods, such as plants, seeds, stems and other germinal plant products, even including foods and tea products not sold in tins. This is aimed to preclude the possibility, however uncommon, of transporting plant-borne illnesses such as bug infestation and plant-borne viral or bacterial infestation. If you’ve ever driven in or out of the state of California, you have a good idea about what is covered here. There are strict and serious limitations as to what agricultural goods can be transported across state lines, as they can seriously impact the health and viability of entire state crops. The same applies to the importation of unsanctioned teas or vegetative products, as they may contain insect infestations, bacteria or viruses that could devastate an entire crop.
If you think this restriction is extraneous, consider the plight of the domestic tomato. I’ve owned them myself, and mine was purchased at a tremendous discount from an unauthorized internet outlet. Needless to say (and I do indeed hope the say is needless,) my tomato quickly grew sick of an unrecoverable virus and promptly died.
Also in customs declaration should be the disclosure of DVDs and CDs. It’s very likely that, if you purchased either of these two items, that you did NOT do so through official, royalty compensated channels. If you have purchased illegal CDs or DVDs, now is the time to give them away or discard them in the trash.
While we’re at it, it’s important to point out that any Rolex, Nike, Adidas or other such premium brand products, should likewise be discarded. It is in direct violation of international copyright and intellectual property protection laws to take any such unauthorized products and bring them back in to your home country. Clearly the overburdened customs officers aren’t worried about a couple hats, shirts or a small handful of cut-rate watches, but no less, as a citizen of the world, it is your due place to do the right thing and dispatch with them.
But there are two very, very big, and very, very much (otherwise) un-discussed threats that face you in terms of customs as it pertains to the exiting of the Peoples Republic of China. The first is the exchanging of money. While we could discuss the peculiar iniquities of China’s currency exchange rates for days, it’s likely better to defer this matter to the whole article we’ve already posted on this matter. For brevities sake let’s just say that you should always keep all of your currency exchange vouchers all of the time, never dispensing with even one of them, and then looking forward to abuses on the black market thereafter. As a foreigner it can be nearly impossible to exchange your Renmimbi back in to dollars, no matter who you are, no matter how much you have spent, no matter where it is that you have spent it.
The other serious item of consequence is antiques. Again, this is a matter we have already covered in great lengths in another article, but to sum it up let’s just say this. If it doesn’t have an official, government issued, red, wax seal, you aren’t going to get it out of the country unless it’s a very plain fake, which it almost certainly is under any circumstance.
Whether you’re staying three days or three weeks, the advice remains the same. Declare everything you’re taking out and be as honest as you’re able, and show all your receipts when you have them. With very, very few exceptions (none as accounted by all the writers in this publication,) your honesty alone should absolve you of any mistake, and in very rare cases will incur only the most liberal of additional importation tax.
