Meet Argentine Customs Procedures - Day 1

Even in Argentina it sometimes happens, that you need imported goods. This is usually due to the particular things not being available for a decent price, with the necessary quality or because they are just not available at all. In this case - as the European boy I am - you just fire up your internet browser to order things for delivery to your parent's place back in Germany for them to send out the stuff to Argentina. This procedure is a little more on the costly side in terms of postal charges, but sometimes you just have to. So here we are...

P.S. I am a guest in Argentina. As such I will not personally comment on any of the events and (try to) just describe what I experienced...

Meet Argentine Customs Procedures

 

Fun facts to start with

DHL have offices in Argentina and they provide services here. Anyway, if you send out packages from Europe via DHL, they are handing these over to Argentina's public postal service Correo Argentino. I guess that is due to Argentina's customs procedures. Tracking the package via the DHL tracking identification is easily possible up to the Argentine border. In reality this means, that you are able to track the package from Hanover, Germany to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The plane with the package is going to Buenos Aires directly, which is in Argentina, thus past the Argentine border, hence no tracking outside of Germany. My heartfelt thanks go out to the DHL guys for their service.

Day 1 - Thursday, October 9th, 2014

In the morning the doorbell rings - it is the Correo Argentino guy. He tells us, that he has got a package for us. We are getting downstairs only to find the Correo guy telling us, that he does not really have the package with him. He has got a kind of parcel registration card for us - including service fees to pay for Correo Argentino's hard work storing the package for us at their offices rather than delivering it to us directly (40 ARS). He tells us to go to customs with the registration card. There we would get the package.

We are going to customs right away. It is only like 2 blocks from here, so we are okay. We take a number, approximately 1h to wait. Quickly doing some grocery shopping while we are "waiting". Coming back to the customs office, the customs lady tells us, that we need a Clave Fiscal Category 3 (it is basically a specific tax number). Every Argentine who receives foreign goods, buys foreign currency or has any income from independent services needs such a clave fiscal. The Argentine government generously allows every Argentine to import goods for 25 USD...! per year...! which includes cost for postage and packing...! Goods exceeding the 25 USD are taxed with 50% of the value (i.e. the overall value of the goods plus postage and packing). To keep track of the 25 USD you need the clave fiscal. Young lady asks us, how much the value of our package is. As to our knowledge it is 18 EUR (23 USD). Her remark: "well, that is quite cheap". Yup, it is, ma'am.

We need a clave fiscal. The customs guys are doing customs things. Clave fiscal is a fiscal thing. So we are on our way to the Argentine tax authority (AFIP - Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos) offices right away to get our clave fiscal (about 4 blocks away). The "offices" are packed. There are people waiting outside the building. Inside you cannot move (and you cannot breathe). We are fighting to get inside the building just to learn by chance, that we took the wrong entrance. There is a separate entrance where they are handing out claves fiscales only. As AFIP basically owns the whole block, we leave the queue and the building, half-way round the block is our entrance to get the clave fiscal. The "offices" are packed. There are people waiting outside the building. Inside you cannot move (and you cannot breathe). We are fighting to get to the information desk. The guy explains to us, that you have to take a number. They are only serving 500 numbers per day. Since 9.30 am all the numbers are taken for today (meanwhile it is 1 pm). After 2.5hrs of dealing (or rather not dealing) with officials we are going back home without a clave fiscal and without the package.