In an article published by the newspaper La Republica, which details the main conclusions of a recent study of the DIAN (Tax and Customs Administration) regarding timing of customs processes in Colombia, it is concluded that the country is still quite far from equating international standards in the matter.

According to the media, which also consulted personalities of great relevance in the sector, customs processes in Colombia would be taking about 5 times more than the international average of 48 hours indicated by the World Customs Organization (WCO).

In its study, DIAN indicates that for air shipments arriving at El Dorado Airport, the customs process ranges from about 17 hours for goods with anticipated custom paperwork, to about 10.4 days for initial declarations with delivery in warehouse.        

Meanwhile, maritime import measurements addressed at the Port of Buenaventura indicate that this process takes between 3.7 days, also when paperwork is addressed in advance, and 9.6 days for declarations with delivery and warehouse storage.

Thus, the main bottleneck found by DIAN at the time of nationalization procedures is the low level of anticipated tax and duties declarations, an aspect that according to its study happens only in 13.1% of goods arriving in the country by air and in 11.6% of those arriving by sea.

In line with the above, DEPCO logistics suggests its customers make anticipated tax and duties procedures in their import processes since those, as shown by DIAN in its study, are the key to expedite nationalization and of course for more efficient logistics.