From 'waiting for several days' to' arriving within an hour ', customs tax refunds will be accelerated
Recently, Chinalco Qingdao International Trade Co., Ltd. applied for a refund of 8.816 million yuan from Qingdao Dagang Customs, a subsidiary of Qingdao Customs, through the "paperless tax refund application system". The entire process was processed online, and the refund was received one day later.
Coincidentally, Weihai Henghan Import and Export Co., Ltd. also submitted a tax refund application to Weihai Customs, a subsidiary of Qingdao Customs, through the system. Just a few hours later, the customs officer of the company received the bank's payment information.
Tax refund is still a routine business of customs duties, with a wide coverage and high processing frequency, which directly affects the efficiency of enterprise capital circulation. According to relevant regulations, the tax refund process requires four key steps: enterprise application, customs acceptance, tax department deduction information verification, and national treasury processing of tax refunds.
In the previous processing mode, various units and links relied on the circulation of paper documents, and enterprises needed dedicated personnel to travel to multiple departments to submit materials. This not only resulted in slow document transmission speed and poor cross departmental communication, but also consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, seriously restricting the timeliness of tax refund processing.
To solve this "bottleneck" problem, the General Administration of Customs will promote the application of the "paperless tax refund application system" in the national customs from November 1, 2025, based on the pilot operation of seven directly affiliated customs including Qingdao Customs. This system realizes the electronic circulation of tax refund information between customs, taxation, treasury, and banks. The tax refund business has been fully upgraded from traditional paper document circulation to full process online processing, which not only greatly improves the efficiency of tax refund, but also effectively reduces the operating costs of enterprises.
In order to enable more enterprises to enjoy the benefits of reform, Qingdao Customs has conducted policy lectures through various online and offline channels, actively promoting tax refund related policies to enterprises and guiding system operations. At the same time, the customs set up dedicated personnel at the customs clearance site to promptly respond to and solve problems encountered by enterprises during operation, ensuring the smooth and fast processing of tax refund business.
The convenience brought by reform has truly benefited enterprises. Nowadays, when processing tax refunds, there is no need to prepare paper documents or go to the customs clearance hall. All applications can be submitted online, which is really time-saving and labor-saving, "said Luo Xingbang, Deputy General Manager of Business at Chinalco Qingdao International Trade Co., Ltd. It usually takes 7 to 10 days to receive the tax refund for offline processing, but now it can basically be received in one day.
The promotion and application of the 'paperless tax refund application system' is an important measure to optimize the business environment at ports and improve cross-border trade facilitation, "said Yang Wenwen, a senior executive of the Customs Tariff Department of Qingdao Customs. In the next step, Qingdao Customs will continue to promote the implementation of various reform and facilitation measures, allowing more import and export enterprises to enjoy the benefits of reform and help promote high-quality development of foreign trade.
According to statistics, Qingdao Customs processed a total of 2339 tax refunds in 2025, involving a total amount of 220 million yuan, an increase of 85.9% and 15.8% year-on-year, respectively. (Li Ranran, Chen Xiangkang, Yu Yang/Wen)