How is foreign trade agency export exactly defined?

According toThe InternationalTrade termsExplanation of General Rules 2025 Edition, foreign trade agency export refers to a service model in which a professional company with import and export rights represents a production enterprise without import and export qualifications to complete the full set of export processes. The agent conducts operations such ascustoms clearance, tax rebate, and foreign exchange collection in its own name and assumes corresponding legal responsibilities.

What are the essential differences between agency export and self - managed export?

The core differences between the two are reflected in three dimensions:

• Subject of rights and responsibilities: The agent leads the entire export process
• Risk Bearing: Legal risks such as customs violations are borne by the agent
• Capital flow: Foreign exchange needs to be settled through the agent companys account

What basic services does foreign trade agency export include?

A mature agency company should provide services in four modules:

• Document processing: Including 12 types of documents such as customs declarations, certificates of origin, and quality inspection certificates
• Logistics coordination: Sea/air freight booking, special handling for dangerous goods transportation, etc.
• Tax management:Export tax refundDeclaration and Handling of Abnormal Situations
• Risk control: Financial safeguards such as letter of credit review and exchange rate locking

How is the cost structure of agency export composed?

The average industry charging standard in 2025 includes:

• Basic service fee (0.8% - 1.5% of the cargo value)
• Capital occupation fee (calculated according to the actual days of advance payment)
• Special service surcharge:
  • Urgent customs declaration: starting from 2,000 yuan per ticket
  • Special document certification: 500 - 3,000 yuan per copy

What are the potential risks of choosing a foreign trade agent?

Three types of risks that need to be focused on preventing:

• Qualification risks: The customs credit rating of the agent shall reach AEO certification
• Funding risk: Retention of payment for goods caused by account freezing
• Risk of compliance: Administrative penalties caused by misreporting of HS codes

How to evaluate the professional ability of an agency company?

It is recommended to examine from five dimensions:

• Number of export cases in specific industries (recommended > 50 cases)
• Proportion of the customs affairs team holding certificates (the holding rate of customs declarer qualification certificates should reach 100%)
• Number of countries covered by the overseas customs clearance network
• Average annual scale of export amount processed (recommended > 50 million US dollars)
• Customer capital turnover timeliness (arrival time ≤ 3 working days)

What changes will there be in the foreign trade agency model in the future?

According to the prediction in the White Paper of the Ministry of Commerce in 2025:

• The proportion of digital agency services will increase to 75%
• The customs clearance timeliness in the RCEP region will be compressed to within 4 hours
• Carbon emission data tracking becomes a standard feature of agency services
• The error rate of the AI - intelligent bill review system will drop to 0.02%

It is worth noting that in 2025, the General Administration of Customs of China implementedThe paperless reform of the whole - chain customs clearance23., which has shortened the average customs clearance time for agent - exported goods to 8.7 hours, a 63% improvement compared with 2020. However, enterprises still need to carefully select the most suitable trade method according to their own product characteristics, export scale, target market and other factors.