Claim excise duty remission or refund

Apply for excise duty remissions or refunds

There are two ways to apply for a remission:

1. manually each time, using NZCS 248 – Application for Remission or Refund of Duty on Goods (DOC 208 KB)
2. if you’re an LMA CCA licensee, and we’ve approved you, you can reconcile some remissions in your own business records - this means you don’t need to apply to us each time and don’t need our supervision if you destroy products. If you’ve already paid excise and/or Customs duty, you may be able to get a refund.

Application

You must apply to us each time for items:

• that have been lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed while in the CCA
• that have diminished in value while they were stored in an export warehouse
• that you found out were of faulty manufacture after we released them from our control, and
  • the fault must have happened before we released the items, and
  • you returned the items to the LMA
• we’ve released from our control
• that you’re abandoning to the Crown.

Approved licensees

If you’re an approved licensee, you can record products as a loss and remission if they had never been released from Customs control when they were:

• damaged, or deteriorated in condition
• destroyed, stolen or lost
• of faulty manufacture.

For us to approve you, you must have suitable record-keeping systems for verifying your losses. Read about Remissions for approved licensees  (PDF 184 KB).

You must keep evidence and records of the loss in your business records, and claim the remission in your next excise entry. We may audit you at our discretion.

Suitable systems for record-keeping

Permission to claim remissions without our supervision or approval isn’t automatic. We have discretion and will grant this permission based on:

• your record-keeping systems
• past performance.

Suitable systems will record, and we might ask to see, that:

• any remissions claimed in an excise entry meet the criteria for remissions
• you’ve effectively and adequately recorded and proved that your products have deteriorated/been damaged/ are of faulty manufacture
• you’ve kept a record the loss and how the loss occurred
• you make/keep records that verify that you destroyed the products before they were released from Customs control.

If you have a suitable record-keeping system, we might still ask you for evidence of your loss. If you haven’t kept sufficient evidence, you could be liable for excise duty and penalties.

The evidence we ask for will depend on the type of loss. Remissions for approved licensees (PDF 184 KB) provides examples of the evidence we may ask for. There isn’t any change to the criteria for granting remissions. 

Apply for excise duty refunds

You may be able to get a refund on excise and/or import duty you’ve already paid.

If you’re destroying items, we may need to supervise, or see evidence of the destruction.