What Does Import Customs Brokerage Do? Full Process Breakdown From Document Verification to Release

Customs Clearance Reality for Southeast Asian Fruit Imports to Shanghai

In the first quarter of 2026,the value per container of fresh durian imported through Shanghai Yangshan Port exceeded RMB 180,000,up 23% year on year.The short shelf life of tropical fruits determines that customs clearance efficiency is directly related to cargo damage rate.Supervisor Deng has seen too many cases in Hongqiao Cold Storage Area: a trading company handled import of Thai longan on its own,and the entire container was detained at the port for 72 hours due to missing additional declaration on the phytosanitary certificate,with final commercial loss exceeding the cargo value itself.Such situations are particularly prominent in the imported food sector.There are systematic differences in sanitary certificate formats,pesticide residue limit standards and labeling specifications across different countries,so independent operation by enterprises can easily fall into the vicious circle of "document supplementation - application rejection - re-review".

Zhongshen has a permanent working group in the Pudong Airport Customs Supervision Zone.Among imported food customs declaration forms processed in 2025,67% involved animal and plant quarantine.According to Manager Cheng,importers often focus on tariff rates but ignore the revised *Administrative Regulations on Registration of Overseas Food Production Enterprises for Import* implemented by the General Administration of Customs of China on March 1,2026,which puts forward stricter time limit requirements for pre-audit of in-China registration numbers of overseas production enterprises for 18 categories of food.The information gap between such policy updates and practical operation details is exactly the core value of professional customs brokers.

Three Intervention Nodes of Zhongshen’s Import Agency Services

Different from freight forwarding companies,customs brokers intervene before the trade contract is signed.Zhongshen’s service chain covers the full cycle of "compliance prediction before delivery - document tracking during transportation - fast customs clearance after port arrival - inspection cooperation after warehousing".Manager Cheng’s team establishes a product archive for each client,recording data such as HS code classification,customs valuation and inspection key points of previous declarations,forming reusable knowledge assets.This accumulation is particularly evident in response to emergencies: in April 2026,Vietnamese pitayas were required to provide additional heat treatment certificates under the newly revised *Measures for the Administration of Inspection and Quarantine of Imported Fruits*.Zhongshen’s clients received early warnings and completed document preparation before delivery,avoiding the return risk commonly encountered by other importers in the same period.

Pre-declaration Document Verification: Eliminate 80% of Application Rejection Risks Before Delivery

The complexity of document work lies in its dynamism.Take imported New Zealand butter as an example,in 2026,customs added the "raw milk source traceability" attachment requirement for automatic import license audit of dairy products.Zhongshen’s document team will issue an *Import Document Checklist* within 48 hours after the client signs the contract,listing format requirements,issuing authorities and validity calculation methods of 13 core documents including certificate of origin,sanitary certificate,component analysis report,production date certificate and label sample.Manager Cheng especially emphasizes that many application rejections are not caused by invalid documents themselves,but "information inconsistency" - for example,the production batch number on the sanitary certificate does not match the packing list,such detail differences are very easy to be missed in manual verification.

Zhongshen has developed a document OCR comparison system,which matches scanned copies of documents provided by overseas suppliers with customs system templates at field level,and automatically marks differences.In May 2026,the system warned that the orchard registration number on a sanitary certificate for Chilean apples had a one-digit difference from the overseas enterprise list published by the General Administration of Customs.The foreign supplier was promptly required to reissue the certificate,avoiding the return risk that the goods might be judged as "products of unregistered enterprises" after port arrival.This pre-audit mechanism keeps the first declaration pass rate of Zhongshen’s clients above 94%,far higher than the industry average of 76%.

Port Customs Declaration: Game Between HS Code Classification and Price Consultation

The core technical barrier in the customs declaration link lies in accurate determination of HS codes.Take imported Thai coconut water as an example,customs may classify it as "fruit juice" (tariff heading 2009) or "other non-alcoholic beverages" (tariff heading 2202),with a tariff rate difference of 8 percentage points,and involving different regulatory document requirements.Zhongshen’s classification specialists will apply for a pre-ruling from the customs classification department in advance based on details such as product processing technology,ingredient list and functional claims.Manager Cheng pointed out that the General Administration of Customs promoted the "intelligent classification" system in 2026,but machine judgment still has a misjudgment rate of about 30% for "mixed ingredient products",so professional manual judgment is indispensable.

Price consultation is another major difficulty.The customs valuation system will capture import price data of similar products in the same period.If the declared price is lower than the system warning value,the price questioning procedure will be launched.Zhongshen will prepare complete pricing basis before declaration: including overseas procurement contracts,payment receipts,international freight invoices,insurance documents,and industry reports that can prove price fairness.In March 2026,a client imported Greek olive oil,and the declared price was 18% lower than the system reference value due to short-term fluctuations in international futures prices.Manager Cheng’s team submitted official documents on EU agricultural subsidy policies,explaining that the price was normal market behavior,and finally avoided deposit collection,saving the enterprise approximately RMB 450,000 in capital occupation costs.

Commodity Inspection and Quarantine: On-site Management of Quarantine Approval and Label Rectification

The commodity inspection link for imported food involves three parallel processes: animal and plant quarantine,health item testing,and Chinese label review.Since 2026,Shanghai Port has implemented the "inspection upon arrival" mode for fruit products,with improved inspection efficiency but stricter standards.Zhongshen has on-site coordinators at Yangshan Port,responsible for coordinating inspection sites,cooperating with sampling,and interpreting inspection instructions.Manager Cheng shared a case: a batch of imported Malaysian durians was judged to have "overlong fruit stems that may carry quarantine pests" during inspection.The on-site coordinator guided workers to trim the fruit stems and re-sterilize them on site,changing the originally possible return result to rectification and release,saving the loss of the entire container.

Chinese labels are a high-risk area for imported food compliance.The revised *General Rules for Labels of Prepackaged Food* implemented in 2026 puts forward quantitative requirements for the font size and position of allergen information.Zhongshen’s label review team will review label samples before delivery to ensure that the sorting of the ingredient list,the expression of nutrition claims,and the format of the production date fully comply with the GB 7718 standard.According to Supervisor Deng’s statistics,among imported food cases handled in 2025,label rectification accounted for 43%,of which "incorrect nutrition composition table calculation" and "non-standard additive names" accounted for the majority.Through pre-audit,Zhongshen has reduced the label rectification rate of its clients to less than 7%.

Practical Case: Full-process Risk Control for Thai Durian Import

In April 2026,a Shanghai-based fresh food e-commerce company operated Thai durian import for the first time and entrusted Zhongshen as its agent.After receiving the order,Manager Cheng found three potential risk points: first,the durian purchased by the e-commerce company is from the eastern production area of Thailand,which was included in the "key concern list" by the General Administration of Customs in February 2026 due to quarantine issues; second,the phytosanitary certificate provided by the supplier did not include the required additional declaration of "fruit fly monitoring certificate"; third,the Chinese label planned to be used by the client named the product "Thai Musang King Durian King",where the word "King" may involve exaggerated publicity.

Zhongshen’s operation response was as follows: first,send a *Certificate Correction Notice* to the Thai supplier,requiring reissuance of the quarantine certificate conforming to Chinese customs format within 48 hours; second,coordinate the quarantine agency under the Thai Ministry of Agriculture to issue the monthly fruit fly monitoring report of the orchard; finally,revise the Chinese label to "Thai Musang King Durian",delete the word "King",and correct the numerical unit error of carbohydrates in the nutrition composition table.After the goods arrived at the port,due to complete documents and compliant labels,customs only conducted routine sampling and completed release within 24 hours.In the same period,the same category of goods handled by another enterprise on its own was detained at the port for 5 days due to quarantine certificate format issues,resulting in total cold container detention fees and late fines of more than RMB 30,000.

Implicit Value of Customs Brokerage Services

The value of professional customs brokers is not only reflected in customs clearance speed,but also in the transfer of risk costs.Zhongshen has purchased customs professional liability insurance for its clients.If clients suffer customs penalties due to operational errors of the agent,the insurance can cover direct economic losses.Manager Cheng pointed out that in 2026,customs has raised the fine range for "false declaration",with the maximum amount reaching 30% of the cargo value.The professional endorsement of the agency becomes a firewall at this time.

In addition,Zhongshen’s systematic data accumulation can help clients optimize their supply chains.By analyzing historical customs declaration data,Manager Cheng’s team once proposed a procurement country adjustment suggestion for a dairy import enterprise: transfer part of the orders from an EU country to New Zealand,and use the tariff reduction arrangement in the upgraded China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement to save approximately RMB 800,000 in tariff costs annually.Such data-based strategic suggestions go beyond the scope of traditional customs brokerage services.

Trend Prediction for Imported Food Customs Declaration in 2026

The 2026 work priorities of the General Administration of Customs clearly promote the construction of "Smart Customs",which means that the proportion of technical document review will be further increased to more than 90%.However,the contradiction between the rigid rules of machine review and the flexibility of trade practice requires professional brokers to conduct manual intervention and interpretation.Zhongshen is deploying an AI-assisted classification system,but Manager Cheng insists on retaining the final ruling power of senior classification specialists,because "rules cannot cover the particularity of innovative products".

Another trend is backward shift of supervision.In May 2026,Shanghai Free Trade Zone piloted the "conformity guarantee + compliance assessment" mode for imported food,with the port inspection ratio reduced,but the intensity of follow-up market supervision and inspection increased.Zhongshen’s services have been extended accordingly to traceability system construction after goods are warehoused,helping clients establish a complete link from customs declaration forms to sales records to respond to possible market supervision and verification.Such full-cycle services enable clients to focus more resources on market development instead of consuming them on tedious compliance affairs.

Service Value Summary

The essence of import customs brokerage is to transform policy requirements scattered in multiple departments such as customs,commodity inspection,foreign exchange and taxation into standardized operation processes that are executable,traceable and reusable.What Zhongshen has built over 20 years is a knowledge base covering more than 600 imported food categories,as well as an on-site team that can coordinate inspection even after customs working hours.Supervisor Deng calculated that if an enterprise builds its own customs declaration team,it needs to be equipped with at least 2 certified customs brokers and 1 document clerk,with an annual labor cost of more than RMB 300,000,and it is difficult to cope with sudden policy changes.While entrusting an agent,payment is made per order,the cost structure is more flexible,and the professional depth is far higher than that of enterprise self-operated teams.

In the 2026 import trade environment,compliance cost has become a core expenditure item alongside procurement cost and logistics cost.The services provided by Zhongshen are not simple document errands,but based on in-depth understanding of supervision logic,design the optimal customs clearance path for clients,and strive for maximum convenience within the legal framework.This value is reflected in every link of goods being put on shelves on time,fast capital turnover,and effective risk avoidance.