On AliExpress, before your order arrives at your home, it goes through a series of statuses or procedures that help to make its delivery fast and safe.
However, the meaning of the messages that appear in your order tracking isn’t entirely known, with certainty. Therefore, in today’s article, we’ll explain one of the most enigmatic ones: the “Clearing customs” status.
What does the “Clearing customs” status on AliExpress refer to?
The AliExpress tracking status, “Clearing customs” means that your order is already in your country and is in customs control.
This procedure is completely normal. To give you a better idea of what it means, we explain the three possible scenarios you may encounter:
Clearing customs: start of customs clearance
All orders coming from outside the European Union have to go through customs clearance, however, this doesn’t mean that they’ll be held there.
This control is carried out randomly by customs agents, at the same airport or port where your package arrives. This is how the government controls the import of prohibited or counterfeit items, as well as verify that the corresponding taxes have been paid in your country.
More information: start of customs clearance.
Clearing customs: customs clearance error
This is an unlikely scenario, but it arises because your order was inspected during customs clearance.
During this process, they’ll verify that you have paid all applicable taxes in your country. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about anything if you’ve paid them. In a few hours, the procedure will be completed and customs will release the order.
What to do if my order is held at customs?
In the event that your package is detained, customs will contact you to give you all the information you need to know in order to solve the problem.
Our recommendation is that you track your order through an external website that handles this type of national tracking; such as Postal Ninja, Track17, or ParcelsApp. On any of these platforms, you’ll be able to see more closely what happened to your package.
If you want to know how to pay customs on AliExpress, we recommend you to read our article on how to pay customs on AliExpress.
Clearing customs: customs clearance completed
Finally, if the tracking of your order shows the status of customs clearance completed, it means that your order is on its way to being received by the courier company in your country.
Most of these procedures are handled by your local post office, but there are also private couriers such as FedEx, DHL, or UPS. Remember that this will depend on the shipping method you have selected (and the country you’re in).
Updated customs and VAT policies
Last July 1, 2021, AliExpress updated its policies, terms, and conditions for customs and VAT cancellation. Now if you order a total order that’s less than 150 euros you are obliged to pay VAT on your package.
This new update has its disadvantages, among which is that, for those products coming from China, VAT will be more expensive, but its strong point is that we can forget about customs and this will boost the opening of new local AliExpress warehouses.
No matter what happens, you still win when buying products on AliExpress, due to the great offers, campaigns, and promotions available to their most loyal users.