A quote is not a landed cost

Letter from the table · RC/TR/2026/T.3 · 6 July 2026

To the Trade Council

I support the direction of TR-001. My stance is amend: keep the call for clearer guidance, proportionate treatment and landed-cost transparency, but specify what a usable estimate must show. A total at the bottom of a quote is not enough if the assumptions behind it are hidden.

In May, I arranged an imported consignment for my small business in Gaziantep. On 12 May, I received a forwarder’s estimate in Turkish lira: TRY 218,000 for the costs to get it to me. I understood that the amount could move. I did not understand how many different things it depended on.

The estimate grouped freight and handling, customs-related costs and the broker’s fee. It did not clearly say that the transport figure ended at the port rather than at my address in Gaziantep. The customs amount was based on a provisional tariff classification. Storage was shown as conditional, without saying what would trigger it or how it would be calculated. I had the invoice and the documents I had been asked for, but I could not tell which figure was a government charge, which was a service charge, or which was only an assumption.

On 19 May I asked for a revised breakdown, including the destination charges and the classification used for the estimate. I also checked the paperwork with the customs broker handling the declaration. That helped me understand the process, but it did not turn the original estimate into a dependable budget. In Türkiye, customs duty and import VAT depend on matters such as classification, origin and customs value; the VAT calculation also takes account of customs duty and other specified

amounts. A forwarder cannot promise what the authorities will assess. It can, however, show what information it used and what could change.

By 2 June, the revised estimate was TRY 264,700. The difference was TRY 46,700. The revised figures put freight and local handling at TRY 41,800, customs duties and taxes at TRY 178,900, and broker and storage costs at TRY 44,000. Those lines were not all changed for the same reason: the destination leg had not been included before; the tax estimate depended on the classification and customs-value assumptions; and storage depended on how long the clearance took. I had to make decisions about cash before I could see those distinctions in one place.

I supplied the requested documents, asked the broker to confirm the classification basis and checked which charges were still estimates. I could not remove the uncertainty by asking for one more total. The useful question was: “What has to be true for this number to hold?” That answer should not require a small importer to reconstruct the quote by calling three different people.

What I would amend

I would ask the Council to make a standard landed-cost statement a practical minimum for forwarder quotations. It should be short enough to use for an ordinary shipment, and it should separate:

• the transport route and destination covered, including any excluded leg;
• the goods description, proposed tariff classification and origin used for the estimate;
• the customs-value and currency assumptions, with the date of the estimate;
• estimated duties and taxes, shown separately from freight, handling, brokerage and storage;
• each conditional charge, what triggers it, and who can confirm or update it; and
• a validity period and a simple change log when an assumption changes.

The statement should label each amount as confirmed, estimated or conditional. It should also say plainly that a forwarder’s estimate is not a customs decision. That protects the small trader from false certainty without asking a logistics provider to guarantee taxes it does not set.

For new trade rules or tariff changes, I would add a plain-language notice that identifies the effective date, the shipments affected and the documents likely to be needed. Where the rule permits it, small traders should have a reasonable phase-in period. Where immediate action is required, the guidance should explain the exception and be updated promptly. The Council should avoid a single threshold that assumes every shipment, product or country of origin carries the same risk.