Can I act as my own Importer of Record in South Korea?

To act as an Importer of Record in South Korea, like in most countries, you will need a registered business entity and an importer license. FGX typically encourages companies that can be their own importer of record to do so. This makes IT imports cheaper and allows companies to reclaim VAT taxes when applicable. But more often than not, our clients do not have import licenses in place, as they’re typically not in the logistics business (e.g. SaaS, CDN, Financial firms). In this instance, FGX provides our import license via our IOR service on behalf of our clients when importing into South Korea.

What is a KC Certificate and how will it affect my shipment?

A KC Certificate is a product safety document that you can procure from the equipment manufacturer. The certificate is specific to the brand, item, and model. A certificate from a similar product but an earlier model will not suffice to clear customs. The certificate proves to customs that the product has gone through all the necessary testing for voltage, radio transmission, etc.

KC certificates are provided by the manufacturer and they either exist or they do not. FGX has a database of KC Certificates for most IT products of major OEMs, like Cisco, Dell, etc. With it, we can manage everything on our client’s behalf.

What can I do if the equipment I want to import does not already have a KC certificate?

If the equipment that you need to ship has not undergone the proper testing and the manufacturer does not already have a KC certificate, an alternative is to obtain equipment that does have one. In some rare cases, we help our clients procure KC Certificates for products that don’t have one, by going through the certification and testing processes. However, this is a very long and expensive process and we don’t recommend it for equipment that you will ship infrequently.