Shipping a dutiable package to Kenya? Watch Out !

When Fedex says, “Relax, it’s FedEx”, they mean it – unless you are shipping a package to Kenya.

So I recently shipped a package to my beloved Kenya and this is something I’ve done countless times often without any glitch – if it’s a letter, a fedex guy or gal takes it to my contact’s doorstep. If it’s a dutiable item, my contact drives to the customs office at the airport, the package is opened , examined and the appropriate duty is levied.

Recently I shipped a fedex box to Nairobi. In the package I had some letters and a small spare part that cost no more than $50. I also knew that when the package got to Nairobi, Fedex would release it to the customs officials and my contact would pay a minimal fee. As expected, the customs people opened up the box, determined how much duty was to be paid and we thought all was well. Not quite. They insisted on opening each letter and scrutinised the contents quite intensely.

Word of advice, if you are shipping a dutiable package to Kenya that you expect the customs to examine, do not accompany it with any documents or anything that is classified as “NCV” – no commercial value. That term means nothing to kenya’s customs officials. Any excuse to examine packages from “abroad” is fair game to them so be cautious.

From experience, if you ship just documents, the package is always with Fedex until it is delivered to you.

The problem comes when the package has to be separated from Fedex and sorted through the customs. A friend lost very expensive electronics he was shipping home to his family in this manner. Fedex ended up reimbursing him when he got back to the US.