One shipment, six calculators, in the order they actually chain
The six calculators on this site are not six separate tools. They are one calculation cut into the places where you have to stop and find something out. Here is a single consignment run through all of them, with each answer feeding the next.
1. What the goods cost you — currency converter
An invoice for 20,000 in the supplier's currency, a mid-market rate of 0.79, and a 2.5% bank margin gives an effective rate of 0.8098 and a real cost of 16,195.00 — 395.00 of which is the spread.
2. How it ships — container load
400 cartons at 60 × 40 × 40 cm is 38.4 m³, which is 56.72% of a 40ft container. One container, comfortably. That is what makes the 2,400.00 freight quote below plausible; if it had come out over 100% you would be pricing two.
Shipping by air instead? Volumetric weight replaces this step, because air freight bills on chargeable weight rather than on containers.
3. What duty is charged on — customs value
Here the chain breaks in a way worth noticing. Customs does not use the 16,195.00 you paid; it converts the invoice at its own published rate. At 0.785 that is 15,700.00. On a CIF basis, add the 2,400.00 freight and 180.00 insurance:
Dutiable value 18,280.00.
4. What you owe at the border — import duty
| Duty at 6.5% | 1,188.20 |
| VAT at 20% on value + duty + fees | 3,923.64 |
| Total taxes | 5,111.84 |
5. What a unit really costs — landed cost
Now switch back to what you actually paid — 16,195.00, not the customs figure — and add the freight, insurance, duty and fees:
| Total landed cost | 20,113.20 |
| Units | 1,200 |
| Per unit | 16.76 |
| Duty as a share of landed cost | 5.91% |
The two places the chain is not a straight line
Two different goods values. 15,700.00 goes into the customs value because that is what the authority's rate produces; 16,195.00 goes into the landed cost because that is what left your bank. Using one figure for both is the single most common error in a homemade import model, and it pushes the landed cost the wrong way by 495.00 here.
VAT is usually not a cost. The 3,923.64 above is excluded from the landed cost on purpose. A VAT-registered importer generally recovers import VAT, so it is a cash-flow event rather than a cost. If you are not registered, or the goods are for a non-recoverable use, add it back — it would take the per-unit figure from 16.76 to about 20.03.
Work it for your own shipment
The figures above come from the same code the calculators run, so typing these inputs in reproduces them exactly. Your own numbers are the point though — start at the currency converter, and finish at landed cost.
These are estimates, not assessments. Duty rates, the taxable base, and the valuation rules that decide them are set by national law and by how your goods are classified. A customs broker or your national customs authority gives you the binding answer; this site gives you the arithmetic so you know roughly what is coming and which question to ask.