Export Clearance in China: What Your Shipment to Russia Depends On

1. Export clearance is the first checkpoint, and it is yours

Buyers in Russia usually talk about customs clearance on arrival, and that is the part they control. But the shipment has to leave China first, and export clearance is where a consignment is most often held up before it has travelled a single kilometre. Your Russian buyer will never see this stage — they will only see the consequences of it in the delivery date.

That is why the question «do you have an export licence, and do you need an export declaration?» now comes up at the booking stage. It is not paperwork curiosity. The answer decides how your consignment is handled on departure, and a change of answer after the cargo has been collected means a new arrangement and lost days.

2. Export licence, export declaration and your VAT refund

If you hold an export licence, this is the most comfortable scenario for everyone. You carry out the export declaration yourself, in your own name; after the shipment is completed you receive the transport document, and on that basis you reclaim your export VAT.

The VAT refund is, in practice, the whole reason the export declaration question exists. A supplier who does not need the refund rarely cares how the goods are cleared for export. A supplier who does need it cares a great deal — and if the consignment is moved without a declaration in their name, the refund is gone and the relationship with the buyer suffers for a reason the buyer never intended.

State in the booking request whether you hold an export licence and whether you require the export declaration. If this is discovered later, you are exposed to customs inspection in China, with fines and possible confiscation of part or all of the cargo — or you simply lose the refund you were counting on.

On the receiving side the consignment is handled as a normal import: your buyer's representative takes care of customs clearance in Russia, and for road consignments from China the goods travel on a consolidated truck service. Neither of those can repair a departure that was arranged on the wrong assumption.

3. Branded goods without a permission to export

Special care is needed when the goods carry a trademark and the shipper has no permission to export that product. The procedure here is genuinely difficult, even though more than one option exists for getting the goods out of the country.

The practical outcome is worth stating plainly: in most cases, where branded goods are exported and the shipper holds no export permission for them, no export declaration is issued to the shipper. If your business case depends on the refund, branded goods without a permission are the situation where that expectation most often fails.

This applies to any product group with a mark on it, and it is felt most in clothing, footwear and accessories, where almost every article carries a brand. Decide the point before you quote, not after the order is placed.

4. Two scenarios side by side

5. What to do before the booking is confirmed

1. Check whether the exporting entity — you or the trading company acting for you — actually holds an export licence. The name on the licence, not the name on the invoice, is what matters here.
2. Decide whether you need the export declaration. If you plan to reclaim export VAT, the answer is yes, and it has to be in your name.
3. Write both answers into the booking request to your buyer or their forwarder. One line is enough; a missing line is what causes the delay.
4. Check every article in the consignment for trademarks. Where a brand is present, confirm whether you hold a permission to export it, and warn the buyer if you do not.
5. Agree the option before collection. Shipments can be arranged with an export declaration or without, with an export permission or without — but the choice is made at the start, not after loading.
6. After the shipment is completed, collect the transport document you need for the refund and keep it with the export declaration.

6. Frequently asked questions

We have no export licence. Does that mean we cannot ship to Russia?
No. Consignments can be arranged both with and without an export declaration, and with or without an export permission for the goods. What matters is that the situation is known in advance so the right option is chosen.

Why does the buyer keep asking about export clearance in the request form?
Because the answer changes how the consignment leaves China. Correcting it later is not a formality — it can mean re-arranging the departure, or an inspection with fines and confiscation.

We export branded goods and need the VAT refund. Will we get the declaration?
If you hold no permission to export that brand, in most cases the export declaration is not issued to the shipper. Plan your pricing on that basis rather than on the refund.

What do we receive for the refund once the goods have gone?
The transport document issued after the shipment is completed, together with the export declaration made in your name.

7. Expert opinion

Yaroslav Loginov — Expert in logistics and customs clearance with 40 years of experience.

«The most common failure I see from the supplier side is silence. The exporter assumes the export declaration will appear by itself, the buyer assumes the supplier does not need one, and nobody writes it down. The mismatch surfaces at the worst possible moment — when the goods are already collected and the departure has to be rebuilt around a requirement that was known from day one.

The second one is branded goods. A supplier prices the order with the VAT refund included, ships a trademarked article without a permission to export it, and only then learns that no declaration is coming. Say it early, in writing, at the quotation stage. Every option we have is available to you before collection; after collection, most of them are not».

Summary

Export clearance in China is the stage that decides whether your consignment leaves on schedule and whether you keep your VAT refund. If you hold an export licence, declare the goods yourself and collect the transport document afterwards; if you do not, or if the goods carry a brand you have no permission to export, say so before the booking is confirmed. Silence at this point risks inspection, fines and confiscation, and costs the refund you were counting on. Send us a request, and we will go through the export clearance option for your specific consignment.