Frugal Japan Wiki | Beware The Leather Tax browse

Topics: Clothing, Shipping, Shoes, Taxes

Be careful about import duties! I ordered a pair of suede shoes for $30 from LLBean and had to pay $45 for the leather tax when the shoes arrived! And then they didn't fit, but I couldn't get the tax money back when I returned the shoes (my husband even called and yelled at the shipping company to no avail).

When buying shoes from abroad you should be careful since there is a heavy tax on any kind of leather import to Japan.

Actually, I would recommend that you don't buy leather on the internet... the tax will probably be more than the actual goods. The tax on leather shoes is 33.8% of the cost or 4362.5 yen/pair, whichever is higher.

If you really need to have shoes sent to you, ask your family to buy and wear them for a day and send them as "used personal belongings".

There can also be tax on other things as well. It seems that the Japanese customs officers don't have the resources to check all packages so some of them will go through without being taxed. If you are worried about paying tax, one way to avoid it is to limit the total of one order to 10,000 yen. The customs office calculates the amount by multiplying the cost by 0.6 so you can actually buy up to 16,000 yen. (16,000 x 0.6 = 9,600 yen). Packages under this amount are not taxed (this apply to clothes, NOT leather goods).

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