Customs Duty, Import Procedure and Landed Cost

Anyone pricing an import into Nepal from the Customs Act 2064 is working from a statute the Nepal Law Commission has removed from its collection of prevailing law. The Commission’s volume of revenue and economic administration Acts now opens with भन्सार ऐन, २०८२ — the Customs Act 2082 — published in the Nepal Gazette on 22 Bhadra 2082, which is 7 September 2025. Section 1(2) brings it into force on the ninetieth day after certification, placing commencement in the closing weeks of 2025. It has already been amended once, by the Finance Act 2083 on 30 Ashadh 2083 (14 July 2026), which settles any question about whether it is operative.

The confusion is understandable. The administering department has not tidied up behind the change. The Department of Customs still publishes the Customs Act 2064 and a combined Customs Act and Regulation 2064 on its own Acts page, posted on 18 Kartik 2082, three weeks before it posted the 2082 Act. The Commission’s alphabetical index of statutes, as distinct from its volume listing, still records only the 2064 Act.

Parliament has acknowledged the overlap. Section 34 of the Finance Act 2083 grants relief on assessments made following a post-clearance examination carried out “under the Customs Act 2064 or the Customs Act 2082” — drafting for a transition in which past consignments were cleared under the old statute and present ones under the new.

The four governing instruments

The second structural change is easier to miss and matters more to a pricing model. The tariff has left the Finance Act.

Section 4 of the Finance Act 2083 provides that customs duty on goods exported from and imported into Nepal is levied and collected in accordance with the Customs Duty Act 2081 — भन्सार महसुल ऐन, २०८१. The exemptions moved with it. Section 27(2) of the same Finance Act operates by reference to Schedule 4, section 6(3)(f) of the Customs Duty Act, which is where the concession for star-rated hotels now lives. There is a matching set of Customs Duty Rules 2081. The annual Finance Act still adjusts rates and still adds levies of its own, and the Department of Customs still publishes an integrated tariff each year, most recently on 9 Bhadra 2083 (25 August 2026) for FY 2083/84. The standing schedule of rates, though, now sits in a separate permanent statute.

Four instruments therefore govern a consignment: the Customs Act 2082 for procedure and valuation, the Customs Duty Act 2081 for the rate, the Finance Act for the year’s adjustments and additional levies, and the Customs Rules for the detail. A fifth, the Excise Act 2058, and a sixth, the VAT Act 2052, complete the charge.

Charges at the customs point

Duty is the smallest part of most calculations. The Finance Act 2083 imposes a series of separate charges, each with its own schedule, most of them collected at the customs point.

Charge	Instrument	Basis
Customs duty	Customs Duty Act 2081, s. 4 of the Finance Act 2083	Tariff schedule by classification
Excise	Excise Act 2058, s. 3 of the Finance Act 2083	Excisable goods, domestic and imported
Value added tax	VAT Act 2052, s. 2 of the Finance Act 2083	13 percent standard rate
Green tax	Finance Act 2083, s. 9, Schedule 1	Charged at the customs point
Domestic production protection and promotion fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 10, Schedule 2	Listed goods
Clean infrastructure investment fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 11, Schedule 3	Electric vehicles
Road construction fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 12, Schedule 4	Vehicles, at import or at registration
Luxury fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 13, Schedule 5	Listed goods
Hallmarking promotion fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 14, Schedule 6	Gold and silver
Health risk tax	Finance Act 2083, s. 20, Schedule 10	Listed goods
Pollution control fee	Finance Act 2083, s. 6	NPR 1.50 a litre on petrol and diesel

We could not extract the schedule rates from the published file and do not reproduce them. What the table shows is how many separate charges there are. A landed cost model that captures duty, excise and VAT and stops there will understate the bill for a vehicle, for a fuel, for gold, for anything on the luxury list and for anything the domestic production protection schedule reaches.

The underlying tariff is reported to be getting simpler. A Kathmandu firm’s budget summary describes the FY 2083/84 tariff as reduced from eleven bands to seven, with excise removed from 360 items. Neither claim could be confirmed against the schedule.

Valuation

Chapter 4 of the Customs Act 2082 begins at section 31 and governs the determination of customs value. Its opening subsection applies the framework of Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, the WTO valuation regime: the price actually paid or payable for the goods, subject to prescribed adjustments, as the primary basis. Later subsections empower the officer to require documentation supporting the declared value, and supply alternative methods where transaction value cannot be established.

The structure is unremarkable. What matters commercially is how the hierarchy of methods is applied. Where an officer is unsatisfied with a declared value the Act supplies alternatives, so an importer whose invoice is rejected argues about which method applies, having already lost the argument about whether a value can be substituted at all. We could not read section 31 through to the end of the chapter and do not describe the sequence in detail.

Post-clearance examination

Clearance is not closure. The Act provides for examination after release, and the Finance Act 2083 has opened a settlement window around it that is worth using while it lasts.

Under section 34, where duty or a penalty was assessed following a post-clearance examination by the end of Baisakh 2083, and the importer pays in full the customs duty, excise and value added tax established by that assessment by the end of Poush 2083, the penalty and all interest accrued to the date of application are waived. An importer with a case pending before the Revenue Tribunal or another court can take the same relief by withdrawing it. The end of Poush 2083 falls in mid-January 2027.

Section 27 opens a separate relief with a different origin. Industrial, trading and business premises damaged by arson or vandalism during the Gen-Z movement may import replacement buildings materials, furniture, plant and equipment at a fifty percent remission of customs duty and excise, on the strength of an insurance surveyor’s report identifying the damaged items. Star-rated hotels that had already used their once-only concession under the Customs Duty Act may use it a second time for the replacement, without doubling up on the same goods.

Open questions

We could not read the Customs Act 2082 beyond the start of its valuation chapter. That leaves four questions an importer would want answered: whether the 2064 Act is expressly repealed and what is saved, how long after clearance an examination may be opened, what appeal lies against a customs officer’s determination and within what period, and whether the Customs Rules 2083 are made under the new Act or the old one. Until the Department of Customs publishes a consolidated text that supersedes its own 2064 postings, put those questions to the office of entry before a consignment moves.

Sources

1. भन्सार ऐन, २०८२ (Customs Act 2082)

   Government of Nepal, published by the Nepal Law Commission · Published in the Nepal Gazette 22 Bhadra 2082 (7 September 2025); amended by the Finance Act 2083, 30 Ashadh 2083 (14 July 2026) · Tier 1 — Primary legal instrument

   Supports: Gazette publication date; section 1(2) commencement on the ninetieth day after certification; amendment by the Finance Act 2083; the chapter structure — preliminary at sections 1 to 2, customs administration and the customs area at 3 to 16, arrival and departure of vehicles, declaration, examination and clearance at 17 to 30, and customs valuation from section 31 applying the Article VII GATT 1994 framework.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

2. खण्ड ६ — राजस्व तथा आर्थिक प्रशासन सम्बन्धी ऐन (Volume 6, revenue and economic administration Acts)

   Nepal Law Commission · Accessed 26 August 2026 · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: That the Commission's prevailing-law volume now lists the Customs Act 2082 and the Customs Duty Act 2081, together with the Income Tax Act 2058, the VAT Act 2052, the Excise Act 2058 and the Liquor Act 2031, and no longer lists the Customs Act 2064.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

3. कानून (Acts) — document category

   Department of Customs, Ministry of Finance · Accessed 26 August 2026 · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: That the Department publishes the Customs Act 2082 (posted 11 Mangsir 2082) alongside the Customs Act 2064 and the Customs Act and Regulation 2064 (both posted 18 Kartik 2082), and the Finance Act 2083.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

4. नियमावली (Regulations) — document category

   Department of Customs, Ministry of Finance · Accessed 26 August 2026 · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: That the Department publishes भन्सार नियमावली, २०८३ (posted 24 Baisakh 2083, 7 May 2026), the Customs Regulation 2007, भन्सार महसुल नियमावली, २०८१ and भन्सार नियमावली, २०६४ as amended fifteen times.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

5. एकीकृत भन्सार महसुल दरबन्दी (Integrated customs tariff), FY 2083/84

   Department of Customs, Ministry of Finance · Published 9 Bhadra 2083 (25 August 2026) · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: That the Department publishes an integrated customs tariff for each fiscal year and that the FY 2083/84 edition was issued on 9 Bhadra 2083.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

6. आर्थिक विधेयक, २०८३ / आर्थिक ऐन, २०८३ (Finance Act 2083), full text as published

   Government of Nepal, published by the Nepal Law Commission · Published 19 Shrawan 2083 (4 August 2026); most provisions commence 1 Shrawan 2083 (17 July 2026) · Tier 1 — Primary legal instrument

   Supports: Section 2 VAT under the VAT Act 2052; section 3 excise under the Excise Act 2058; section 4 customs duty under the Customs Duty Act 2081; section 6 pollution control fee of NPR 1.50 a litre on petrol and diesel; sections 9 to 14 and 20 the green tax, domestic production protection and promotion fee, clean infrastructure investment fee, road construction fee, luxury fee, hallmarking promotion fee and health risk tax with their schedules; section 27 fifty percent remission of customs duty and excise on replacement imports for premises damaged in the Gen-Z movement; section 34 the post-clearance examination settlement window.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

7. Nepal Budget 2083/84 (2026/27) — Key Highlights

   NBSM & Associates, Chartered Accountants · 10 June 2026 · Tier 6 — Professional or news source

   Supports: The report that the customs tariff was simplified from eleven bands to seven and that excise duty was removed from 360 items for FY 2083/84.

   Accessed 26 August 2026