Freight and customs questions, answered

International freight forwarding by sea, air and land, plus customs clearance for both imports and exports. Around that sit the services a shipment actually needs to move: warehousing, cargo insurance, and advice on documents, tariff classification and the licences your commodity requires. One team handles the whole chain, so there is no gap between the freight booking and the declaration.

We move cargo to and from 22 countries across 5 continents, through agents we have worked with for years rather than a directory of names. The network is strongest across Asia, and reaches Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Australia and New Zealand.

• Asia — China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam
• Europe — Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Italy
• Middle East — United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia
• North America — United States, Canada
• Australia and New Zealand

Four sectors make up most of our work, and each one carries its own paperwork rather than just its own cargo — which is the part that decides whether a shipment clears on time.

• Food and ingredients — Thai FDA licensing, cold chain, shelf-life planning
• Agricultural goods — phytosanitary certificates, fumigation, seasonal peaks
• Plastics and packaging — resin classification, dangerous-goods checks
• Textiles and fashion — FTA preference, Certificates of Origin, tight seasons

Yes — reefer containers, temperature-controlled airfreight and cold-chain trucking, arranged to the range your commodity actually needs. Tell us the set point and the tolerance at the quoting stage rather than at booking: reefer equipment is allocated separately from dry space, and a late change is where the delays and the surcharges come from.

Yes, short-term and long-term, in Bangkok and near the main gateways. It is most often used to consolidate several suppliers into one container, to hold stock that has cleared customs until your buyer calls it off, or to stage seasonal volume so it is not all sitting at the port. We quote storage separately from freight so you can see what each part costs.

Door to door, including the trucking at both ends and import clearance at destination. That is the default we quote, because a port-to-port price looks cheaper but leaves you to arrange the two most failure-prone legs yourself.

FCL means you pay for a whole container; LCL means your cargo shares one with other shippers. FCL is usually cheaper per cubic metre once you fill roughly 15 CBM or more, and it is faster because there is no consolidation or deconsolidation step. Below that, LCL costs less overall but adds a few days at each end and slightly more handling risk.

Port-to-port transit from Bangkok or Laem Chabang is roughly 3–7 days to Singapore and Hong Kong, 7–14 days to Japan and Korea, 20–30 days to Northern Europe, and 18–28 days to the US West Coast. Add time at both ends for pickup, consolidation on LCL, and customs clearance — the door-to-door figure is what matters for planning, and we quote that rather than transit alone.

Yes. Every quote carries an estimated door-to-door date, not just a sailing time. Four things move it — the destination, the mode, how fast customs releases the goods at both ends, and the carrier's own schedule — so we tell you which of them is the loose one on your route and how much room it needs. If a sailing slips after booking, you hear it from us rather than from the tracking page.

When the cargo is light relative to its value, or when a delay costs more than the freight. As a rule of thumb, airfreight becomes competitive when the shipment is under about 500 kg, or when the goods are perishable, seasonal, or holding up a production line. We quote both so the comparison is in front of you rather than assumed.

Yes. Under EXW we collect from your supplier's premises and take over from there, including export clearance in the origin country. It is the right Incoterm when you want control of the routing and the freight cost, but it does put the export formalities on your side of the deal — which is exactly the part we take on.

Yes — clearance is half of what we do, not a service bolted onto the freight. Our licensed brokers prepare and file the declaration, classify the goods under the right tariff heading, obtain the permits and certificates the commodity needs, and deal with Customs directly if anything is queried. We do it for shipments we move and for shipments arranged by someone else.

At minimum: a commercial invoice, a packing list, the bill of lading or air waybill, and an import declaration. Beyond that it depends on the goods — food needs Thai FDA licensing, plants need a phytosanitary certificate, and anything claiming FTA preference needs the matching Certificate of Origin. We give you the exact list for your commodity before booking, not after arrival.

Duty is a percentage of the CIF value — cost, insurance, and freight — at the rate set by the tariff heading for your goods. VAT of 7% is then charged on the CIF value plus the duty. Because both figures follow the tariff heading, getting the classification right is what determines the bill, and it is the first thing we check.

It is an official document stating where goods were produced, and you need it whenever the buyer wants to claim a reduced duty rate under a free trade agreement. Thailand issues these through the Department of Foreign Trade, with a specific form per agreement — Form D for ASEAN, Form E for ASEAN-China, Form AK for ASEAN-Korea. Confirm which form your buyer needs before shipping, because it cannot always be issued retroactively.

Section 29 of the Thai Customs Act lets you reclaim import duty paid on materials that are later re-exported, either as-is or built into a finished product. You qualify if you can link the import entry, the production records, and the export entry. The catch is that the paperwork has to be set up from the first import — reconstructing it later is where most claims fail, so tell us early if you plan to claim.

As the declaring broker we are notified first and respond the same working day. Most holds are documentary — a tariff heading that does not match the goods, a value that needs substantiating, or a missing permit — and clear once the right paperwork is filed. We tell you what triggered it, what is needed, and the realistic timeline, rather than leaving you to guess while storage charges accrue.

No. Under-declaring value or misdescribing goods is a criminal matter for the importer as well as the broker, and the penalties reach back across every past entry. Where duty can legitimately be reduced we will find it — correct classification, FTA preference, Section 29 refunds — but we will not file a declaration we cannot defend.

Use the Get a Quote form on any page, send the details by email, or call us — all three reach the same team. Tell us what is moving and where it is going, and a freight specialist comes back with a written, itemised quotation rather than a rate on the phone you cannot check later.

Six things cover most shipments. Without weight and dimensions any number is a guess, so those two matter most; if you also know the HS code and whether the cargo is stackable, the quote gets tighter still.

• Origin — pickup address or at least the city and country
• Destination — delivery address, or the port if you are arranging the last leg
• Cargo type — what the goods actually are, and the HS code if you have it
• Dimensions and gross weight — or total volume in CBM
• Preferred shipping method — sea, air or land, or ask us to compare
• Expected shipping date — and any deadline at the far end

Within four working hours of receiving the commodity, weight, volume, origin, and destination. If a rate needs confirming with a carrier we tell you that up front along with when we expect it, rather than letting the request sit.

They are itemised, which is more useful. Freight, origin charges, destination charges, duties, and clearance are listed separately so you can see what is fixed and what varies with the actual weight or the tariff outcome. Anything we cannot fix in advance — duty on a heading still being confirmed, for example — is flagged as an estimate rather than buried.

We arrange it on request, priced on the declared value — it is not included by default. Carrier liability is limited by convention and is far below the value of most cargo, so it should not be mistaken for insurance. We will tell you when we think a shipment warrants cover rather than waiting to be asked.

Both. A large share of our work is LCL and airfreight for SMEs, and the service is the same — a named contact, an itemised quote, and someone who answers the phone. We would rather grow with a business than only quote container volumes.

By phone on (+66) 2-712-3017 to 8 during office hours, by email at any time, through the contact page, or by sending the shipment details straight to a quote. Whichever route you use, you get a person rather than a ticket number — and once you are a customer, the same named contact each time.