Your household goods to Panama: B/. 25,000 tax-free, with a customs broker and a letter from your lawyer

Can your household goods enter Panama tax-free? Yes: article 216 of cabinet decree 41 of 2002 gives foreigners who prove they are coming to settle in the country the right to import their used furniture and household goods up to B/. 25,000 in customs value without tax. The finding at the source is the document list customs uses for it: a letter from the company where you will work or a letter from your lawyer that you are going to live in the country, a statement from the immigration service and a labour certificate from the Ministry of Labour where applicable. The pitfall is the sentence below it: the exemption does not apply to temporary returns without definitive settlement. Anyone whose container arrives before their residence file exists cannot yet prove that settlement.

What is exempt, and what is not?

Element	What the source says
Used furniture and household goods	up to B/. 25,000 in customs value tax-free (article 216)
Personal effects of a retiree	once up to B/. 25,000, under Law 9 of 1987
Car	not part of the household goods; own scheme with 5 percent ISC and 7 percent ITBMS
Customs broker	compulsory for every definitive import (article 27)
Examination of the goods	in the customs depot, or at your home at a rate per package
For Panamanians	only after at least two years of residence abroad

Which documents does customs ask for?

The list of the Autoridad Nacional de Aduanas starts with a petition to the competent customs administration, signed, with the name of the depot where your goods are and the place where the examination is to take place: in the depot or at your home. With it the bill of lading, air waybill or consignment note with the release stamp of the shipping line or airline, your original passport or notarised copies, and for a foreigner the four papers that prove settlement: a letter from the company where you will work, a letter from your lawyer that you are going to live in the country, a statement from the immigration service and a labour certificate from the Ministry of Labour. For a retiree without a job the lawyer's letter and the statement from Migración are the two that matter; the customs broker knows which combination the administration in your port accepts.

You leave a set of copies of each document for the archive, and the application gets the approval and stamp of the administration. If you choose examination at home, customs charges a rate per package. The declaration itself runs through the Sistema Integrado de Comercio Exterior, and that is exactly why article 27 makes a customs broker compulsory: as a private person you do not get in.

Let the container wait for the file. The statement from Migración only exists once you have registered, and the letter from your lawyer only once your residence application is running. A container arriving earlier stands in the depot at your expense or is released at the full rate. So plan the shipment from the date of your registration, not from the date of your departure.

What does the pensionado scheme add?

Besides article 216, Law 9 of 1987 has its own exemption for foreign retirees: once, personal effects up to B/. 25,000, and once every two years a car without import duty. Its document list is heavier: a copy of your pensionado card, a letter on the amount of your pension, a request for exemption through Migración and a paz y salvo from the DGI, the statement that you are in order with your income tax. You apply for that paz y salvo with your passports, a travel record from Migración and your pensionado card or an apostilled pension statement. Which of the two routes your customs broker chooses depends on what you can show at the moment of clearance.

How do you do the sum?

Add up the sea freight, the port charges, the customs broker and any examination at home, and set against that the replacement value of your things in Panama. The exemption makes the container cheaper, not free. Anyone moving in two stages, first with suitcases and later with the container, gains time to complete the file; anyone shipping everything at once has to have the chain of registration and residence in place before arrival. How that chain runs is in registration and numbers in Panama; the car has its own article, taking your car to Panama. The whole journey is in the step-by-step plan for Panama.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Panama or go straight to step 4.1 in the open plan.