Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base

Practical guides for shipping internationally from South Africa. These pages cover the questions customers ask us most often — what to declare, how to pack, how addresses affect delivery, what duties to expect, and how to avoid customs delays.

Customs and declarations

• Describing your contents accurately. Customs reads your description. "Gift" or "samples" is not enough — a description has to tell the customs officer what the item is, what it's made of, and what it's for. "Cotton T-shirt, branded, sample, no commercial value" reads cleanly. "Stuff" doesn't.
• Declared value. The value you declare is what customs uses to assess duty in the destination country. Under-declaring is fraud and gets shipments held. Over-declaring costs the recipient money. Declare the realistic market value of the contents.
• Documents vs goods. Paperwork with no commercial value moves through customs as documents — that's our ICD service. Anything with intrinsic value (a USB drive, jewellery, a passport with a chip) must be declared as goods and goes via ICP, even if it physically fits in a flyer.

The international address — get it exactly right

Roughly half of the delivery problems we see come from incomplete or incorrect addresses. International courier addressing is unforgiving — the destination carrier delivers to exactly what is printed on the waybill, with no improvisation. A complete international address has:

• Street name and house / building number (use the autocomplete on the quote form — it captures the format the destination carrier expects)
• Apartment / suite / unit / floor / complex / estate / compound name where applicable. This is the field that turns red in the quote form when our system can't detect a street number — fill it in. Apartments, gated estates, security complexes, office blocks, and farms routinely have no addressable street number; the unit / complex / building name is what allows the destination carrier to find the actual door.
• City, in the Latin (ASCII) form the destination postal authority uses
• Postal code (ZIP / CEP / PLZ / CAP, etc.) in the exact format for that country — verify against the destination postal authority's lookup tool if unsure
• State / province / region / county where the destination uses one
• Destination country

Plus a working mobile phone number in international format (with country dial code, e.g. +44, +1, +49) — the destination carrier and the customs broker both attempt to contact the recipient by phone for delivery scheduling, duty payment, or address clarification. Wrong or out-of-service recipient phone numbers are the single biggest cause of avoidable delays.

Full address-accuracy guidance, and what costs are payable by the Sender if an address is wrong, in Terms & Conditions Section 3.

Packing for international transit

• Use double-walled boxes for parcels weighing over 5 kg.
• Fill empty space with crumpled paper or air pillows so contents don't shift in transit.
• Pack fragile items in the centre of the box with at least 5 cm of padding on every side.
• Tape all seams with proper packing tape — masking tape doesn't hold under temperature change.
• Don't mark the box "FRAGILE" as your only protection — handlers see hundreds of those a day. Real padding is what matters.
• For documents in an ICD flyer: place the papers flat between two pieces of stiff card to stop folding or creasing in transit.

Duties and taxes

Most countries charge import duty and a local VAT or sales tax on incoming parcels. These are not included in your Interdoc quote and are payable by the recipient before customs releases the shipment for final delivery — Interdoc cannot release a parcel that customs is holding for unpaid charges, even though we manage the clearance process on your behalf. Thresholds vary widely: some countries waive duty under a certain value (a "de minimis" threshold), others charge from the first cent. If you're shipping a gift and you want to keep the recipient happy, factor that in — and let them know to expect a customs contact (typically SMS or email from the destination agent) once the parcel arrives.

If the recipient refuses or fails to pay assessed duties, customs may return the shipment to South Africa at the Sender's cost or abandon it; full carriage terms in our Terms & Conditions, section 5.

Prohibited items

The standard international list applies: dangerous goods, perishables (without prior arrangement), live animals, illegal drugs, counterfeit goods, currency above carrier limits, weapons, and anything prohibited by the destination country's import law. See the Terms & Conditions, Section 3 for the full list.

Common mistakes we see

• PO Box / postal-box delivery addresses. Courier networks deliver to street addresses, not postal boxes. If the recipient only has a PO Box, ask for the physical address of their workplace or home for the parcel.
• Local-format phone numbers without a country dial code. A South African 082 number sent to a Spanish delivery agent is unusable. Use international format: +34 (Spain), +44 (UK), +1 (US / Canada), etc.
• Old or outdated postal codes. Postal authorities change codes occasionally — verify against the current lookup before booking.
• Declaring a personal gift as "samples". Customs treats commercial samples differently from gifts; if it's a personal gift, say so. Honesty here usually means lower duty, not higher.
• Skipping the apartment / unit number. Without the unit, building, or complex name, the destination carrier has nowhere to deliver in a multi-occupancy address.

Get in touch

Phone: 086-9990-559 · WhatsApp: 086-9990-559 · Email: admin@interdoc.co.za

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