BOI duty-free equipment import: per-shipment document checklist
Duty-free equipment imports go wrong in two places, almost every time: the goods ship before the machinery list is approved, and the documents do not agree with each other. This sheet turns the pre-conditions and the document elements for each shipment into one checklist that has to be cleared before shipment.
01The expensive lesson: get the order wrong and everything after it jams
Duty-free import is not a matter of mentioning at the customs counter that you hold a promotion certificate. The order is fixed: the machinery master list goes in for approval first, and only once it has been approved do you arrange shipment. Reverse that order and the consequence is immediate. The goods arrive, the list is still pending, duty-free release cannot be done, and the shipment either sits at the port running up demurrage or gets switched at the last minute to a taxed import. The duty you were saving becomes cash you actually pay.
One condition travels with it: the list has to match the purchasing paperwork. Where the type designation, quantity or value on the letter of credit or the purchase contract differs from the approved list, release gets held up just the same. Aligning the purchasing side with the list side before the list is submitted is far cheaper than amending documents afterwards.
02What the sheet covers
Four blocks, all of them worked through shipment by shipment rather than once for the project.
- Pre-shipment hard gates: is the equipment on the approved list, has the list actually cleared approval, and does the purchasing paperwork line up with the list item by item. All three green before shipment is arranged.
- Per-shipment document set: commercial invoice, bill of lading, packing list and draft import declaration, with the required elements set out for each; it also marks the fields that must be identical across documents (type designation, quantity, unit price and total value, consignee, origin), any one of which will hold up release if it differs.
- Draft declaration pre-check: the draft import declaration is checked once before the goods leave, and only then does the shipment go. This one step heads off the great majority of amendments and re-issues.
- Duty route decision: for each shipment, record which channel it takes and why, so the reasoning is on file.
03Which taxes are exempt: do not budget as if everything is
This is the line that most often makes an investment estimate look better than it is. For a promoted company, the machinery import exemption covers import duty and import VAT; excise tax is outside it. If your equipment or the material shipped with it includes excisable items — batteries, for example — that part is payable as normal.
We checked one of these against the records on a live project: on one equipment shipment for a data centre project, duty and VAT were exempted under the entitlement, but the battery portion still carried a seven-figure excise bill. If that has not gone into the budget, cash flow on arrival day looks ugly.
Not every shipment has to go through the duty-free channel. Where equipment is not on the approved list, or approval will not come through in time, you can assess a preferential agreement channel based on the origin of the goods. But note what that channel does: it reduces duty only — VAT and excise are still payable — and it requires complete origin documents, with certificate numbers and issue dates that tie up. It is the second-best answer when time has run out, not a reason to stop worrying about the list.
04How to use it
Keep one file per shipment: copy the sheet for each consignment and have purchasing or the project manager tick through it before the goods leave, with no release for shipment until all three hard gates are green. The sheet leaves two fields for who checked and when. When a document problem surfaces later, the hardest part is always establishing which step went unchecked.
Which channel a given shipment should take, whether your list and your purchasing plan still match, and how much room is left in the import window all have to be judged shipment by shipment against the certificate conditions, the approval status of the list and the actual sailing dates. That judgement is normally issued and recorded by the advisory team for each shipment, so that the same goods are not treated on different bases at different stages.
What is in the workbook
- Pre-shipment hard gates: three checks that must all be green before anything ships, and one failure stops the shipment
- Per-shipment document set: commercial invoice, bill of lading, packing list and draft import declaration, with the required elements listed for each of the four
- Cross-document consistency comparison: type designation, quantity, unit price and total value, consignee, origin — five groups of fields checked side by side
- Duty route and audit trail: which channel this shipment takes, the reason for it, who checked, and when
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Common questions
- The list is not approved yet and the goods are already on the water. What now?
First work out whether this shipment can go through another channel: look at the origin of the goods and whether a preferential agreement rate applies. If none applies, import it and pay duty at the normal rate. Note that a preferential channel only reduces duty — VAT and excise are still payable — and the origin documents have to be complete. This is damage control, not standard practice.
- The machinery list and the purchase contract write the type designation differently. Does that count as a mismatch?
Treat it as a risk. What gets compared at release is whether this is identifiably the same piece of equipment, so differences in how the type is written, in the specification wording, or in the unit of quantity can all trigger a query. The safe practice is to settle on one way of writing it before the list goes in for approval, and record the correspondence in the sheet.
- Can duty-free equipment be disposed of later?
Duty-free equipment is subject to disposal restrictions during the prescribed period of use, and selling, transferring or scrapping it normally requires the relevant formalities to be completed in advance. Check the certificate conditions and the current rules before you dispose of anything. Do not act first and paper it over afterwards.
Related
Sources
- Board of Investment (BOI): duty exemption on imported machinery under section 28 of the Investment Promotion Act B.E. 2520 — equipment must complete master list approval before it can be released, and imports must be completed within the period stated on the certificate. Retrieved and checked 2026-07.
- CTAC Thailand project evidence: under section 28, the exemption covers import duty and import VAT; excise tax (on excisable items such as batteries) falls outside the exemption and remains payable — verified against the actual tax payment records for one equipment shipment on a data centre project in progress in 2026. Retrieved and checked 2026-07.
- Thai Customs: current requirements for the documents needed on an import declaration and for the documents required to claim preferential origin treatment. Retrieved and checked 2026-07.
- General note: master list approval requirements, import windows, preferential agreement rates and disposal rules all change with official announcements. This sheet states no specific periods or rates; the current announcements from BOI (boi.go.th) and Thai Customs (customs.go.th), together with the conditions on your own promotion certificate, govern.
Once the sheet has surfaced the problems, the order of work and the recovery route depend on the individual case.
中文版 · Chinese version