A domestic load is finished when someone signs for it. An export load is not finished at the port gate, and not when the box is on the truck. The Customs Act counts a sea export as done when the ship leaves the last port zone. A road export is done when the vehicle leaves the border post zone. Until then the load is under customs control, and the truck is carrying a legal record as well as cargo.
For a first-time exporter the change is easy to say and costly to get wrong. Each container or truck now has a document that names it, and what arrives at the gate has to match what that document says.
Five steps, and the three that touch the truck
Customs' own procedure manual splits an export into five steps:
- The declaration. Sent by the exporter, a customs broker, a service counter, or on paper at the customs station.
- Stuffing and the movement document.
- Passing the loading point at the customs station where the goods leave.
- Matching. Customs checks the truck or box against the movement document and closes it off.
- Loading onto the ship, train, truck or plane.
Steps 2 to 4 are where your carrier works. Step 1 is yours, and the law puts a hard line on it. Before the goods leave the kingdom the declaration must be filed correctly and the duty paid or guaranteed (Section 51). It must show the kind of goods, the quantity and weight, the customs value and the destination country (Section 52). Missing that is a fine of up to 50,000 baht under Section 208. The Director-General can allow an urgent shipment out before the declaration is complete, but only on request and on conditions.
The movement document is the new thing
The manual calls it the goods movement control document. It is a separate record from the declaration, and it is what rides with the truck.
- One per container. A load that is not in a container is documented per trailer, where there is one.
- It names the truck. For road exports the field takes the plate of the tractor head only. A container load also carries the plate of the truck bringing it.
- The party that stuffs the box makes it. In the manual's wording, whoever is responsible for stuffing prepares and sends the data. Agree who that is before the first booking, and do not leave it to chance.
- The driver carries it. A printout, a photocopy, or just its number written on another document is enough.
- At the loading point the driver shows the number. For sea freight the weighed EIR weight goes with it. The officer checks the container number for sea, the plate for road, and the air waybill for air. The system replies the same working day.
- At a land border it doubles as the goods list handed to the border post.
Compare a domestic job. Swap the tractor head at 5 a.m. because one broke down, and nobody downstream notices. In an export, the document names that truck.
The manual does leave room. The sender can amend any field while the goods are moving. The data held in the system at the moment the paper is presented is what counts, with no need to change the paper or initial it. So a plate swap is fixed by an update to the data before the truck arrives, not by an argument at the gate.
When the truck and the data disagree
| What turns up | What the manual says happens |
|---|---|
| Container number differs from the document | The officer may judge it should be corrected and let the box in. The stuffing party then files a correction request with the customs service unit, and the officer corrects it and matches. |
| Release port on the document is not the station it is going to | The officer can correct it, match it and let it in. |
| Land export, plate does not match | The manual says the plate of a vehicle crossing a land border must match the data exactly, and gives no correction route in that passage as it does for a container number. |
| Document not found in the system | Hand a paper copy to the service counter or service unit, then the officer matches it. |
| Declaration carries a risk flag | The truck goes to the inspection point, for example X-ray. The cost of the check sits with the exporter. |
On the last row, the manual names the flagged types: declarations of a net-return type, re-exports, vegetables and fruit, and live animals. The Act backs the cost rule too. Handling goods for inspection, weighing, repacking and marking is the exporter's duty at the exporter's own cost (Section 57).
A flagged truck is a delay your carrier did not cause. Write into the contract who pays for time at the inspection point, because the law puts the cost on the exporter. Truck waiting time is billed under one clause or another, and it is cheaper to pick the clause first.
Several exporters in one box, and the seal
- A box with one exporter can be stuffed outside the customs area, even if it carries one declaration or several.
- A box shared by several exporters is stuffed inside the customs area. The manual lets such a box be stuffed outside in some cases, for example exporters in the same group of companies, exporters on a continuous production line, a customer condition that needs the goods packed together, and goods that need temperature control.
- The party that stuffs everything prepares and sends the movement data and answers to the other exporters in that box.
- The closing step is assigned too. For a closed container or vehicle, the party responsible for stuffing seals the door when loading finishes, by a method they set. For an open vehicle they cover it with tarpaulin or net and tie and seal it.
Goods leaving a bonded warehouse or a free zone have their own sealing and permission rules, covered in bonded, free zone or normal.
Short shipment, with a 10-day window
Some days fewer cartons go than were declared. The manual draws a clean line:
- Within 10 days of passing the loading point: the exporter sends corrected data listing what did not go and the quantity that did. The manual says the offence is not considered.
- After 10 days: a written request with supporting papers goes to the control unit, and the officer considers both the request and the offence.
A bulk cargo measured by a ship draft survey has the same 10 days, counted from the matching date.
So the habit that pays is a count at the loading point against the declaration, on the day, and a fix on the same week. A number noticed on day 11 is no longer a data correction.
Missing the ship or the border: the clocks
A declared load that does not leave starts clocks that have nothing to do with the shipping line. Both are in the Act, and they are different for sea and for land.
| Sea (Section 76) | Land border (Section 90) | |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Declared, but not fully loaded before the ship sails | Declared, but not exported within 7 days of release |
| Tell customs | Within 3 days of the ship leaving | Within 10 days of the release date |
| Goods are | Stored where customs says, at the exporter's cost | Stored where customs says, at the exporter's cost |
| Re-export | Within 21 days of the first named ship's departure | Within 14 days of the release date |
| Or reclaim | Within 30 days of telling customs | Within 30 days of telling customs |
Two things are worth working through. On the sea side, a weekly service leaves two further sailings clearly inside the 21 days and a third on the edge, so a re-export plan has to be made in the first days, not at the end. On the land side, a truck released on day 0 that has not crossed by day 7 must be reported by day 10. Reporting on day 10 and reclaiming gives until day 40, but the re-export route is closed at day 14.
Failing to pick either route when the goods are held is a fine of up to 10,000 baht (Section 222). If the goods were under a bond or a guarantee and you do nothing, they are forfeited. These customs clocks are separate from the line's own free time and detention for the box, which is a different set of clocks with a different counterparty.
Marks and numbers on the paper
Section 59 requires each package or container to carry a mark or number, and that mark must appear on the related documents. Leaving it off is a fine of up to 50,000 baht for the exporter (Section 211). A major container line's Thai export page repeats the same point. It also lists gross weight per container as mandatory in every booking, and container and seal numbers in every shipping instruction. Treat the mark on the packing list as a customs field, not a cosmetic one.
What a carrier is expected to do on a land export
For a truck crossing a land border, Section 89 sets the carrier's own duties:
- File a goods list in two copies at the customs station, and wait for the officer to check and sign it.
- Take the goods to the border post promptly on the approved route, in the same vehicle that brought them to the customs station, unless customs allows a change of vehicle. The route and the time allowed are set by the Director-General, and any other route or time needs permission (Section 86).
- Not alter the goods, packages or containers in any way.
- Show the signed goods list at the border post.
A carrier also has to keep its records for at least five years from the date of export (Section 63). Ask for that in the contract and ask which party holds the originals.
What to do differently
- Name the party that stuffs the box, and make that party responsible for the movement data and the seal.
- Send the movement data before the truck leaves. Change it if the truck or box changes.
- Give the driver the movement document or its number, and tell the carrier that the plate and the container number are now part of the record.
- Decide in the contract who pays for inspection and for the wait.
- Count at the loading point and correct a short shipment within 10 days.
- Write down the clock the moment a load misses its sailing or crossing: sea 3 days to tell, 21 days to re-export; land 10 days to tell, 14 days to re-export, 30 days to reclaim.
- For the gate itself, see what the Laem Chabang slot does and does not cover.
What this does not cover
This reads the Customs Act and the Department's e-Export manual in Thai. The Department says it updates the manual online, and the current online version was not checked, so confirm field rules with your broker. The Act was read from one official Gazette copy. Line cut-offs, terminal gate rules, and port fees depend on the vessel and the terminal and are not here. Excise, licensed or controlled goods and the permits they need are separate again.