Dominican Republic

• Labeling Requirements
• Required Documents
• Licensing
• Import Procedures
• Taxes/Tariffs
• Contacts

LABELING REQUIREMENTS

Labeling requirements are issued by DIGENOR (Dirección General de Normas y Sistemas de Calidad).  Labels must be in Spanish - in cases in which the label is not in Spanish, a complementary label may be used that contains the information translated into Spanish.

• Food name
• List of ingredients – list should be given in decreasing percentages of ingredient (if water is added, it must also be indicated in the list of ingredients)
• Food additives, if any
• Net weight by volume
• Name and address of the producer, wholesaler, importer, exporter, or retailer
• Country of origin
• Lot Identification
• Minimum Duration Date and Preserving Instructions (if applicable)

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REQUIRED DOCUMENTS

The documents below should be in Spanish, except for the Bill of lading, which may be presented in English or Spanish.

• Bill of lading
• Consular invoice (The D.R. requires all shipments to have a consular invoice, obtained from a Dominican overseas Consulate or Embassy approving the transaction)
• Commercial Invoice
• Insurance certificate
• Certificate from the Central Bank (this qualifies as an import permit for the importer)

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LICENSING

Importers must register with the Central Bank (Banco Central) as importers/representatives.  You will receive a receipt of payment (recibo de pago) and must pay a fee.  This process should take around 20 days to complete.  They should also register with the Registro Nacional de Contribuyentes, or National Register of Contributors, which will provide importers with a tax identification number.

Foods also must be registered with the Secretariat for Public Health and Social Assistance (Secretaria de Estado para Salud Publica y Asistencia Social), which issues a certificate of Sanitary Registration.  The registration number from this certificate must subsequently be printed on the label of the product.  In order to receive this certificate, the importer/producer must present a sample of the product.  This process varies in time, and is likely to take approximately nine months.

Lastly, importers must register their importation of alcoholic beverages with the Department of Internal Taxes (Dirección General de Impuestos Internos) – this can be done through forms AL-01 and AL-02, available at the Department’s Colecturia #6 (Av. Mexico Esq. Jacinto de la Concha, Santo Domingo).

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IMPORT PROCEDURES

Customs clearance takes approximately seven days, with proper documentation.

There are two methods that many importers utilize in order to clear their products from Customs:

• Advance Declaration (Declaración Anticipada): importers may submit their customs documentation 25 days prior to the arrival of their shipments; this is useful in expediting clearance.
• Express Dispatch (Despacho Expreso): this method involves advance declaration of shipments and verification of the shipment by customs officials at the importer’s warehouse.

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TAXES/TARIFFS

All imported merchandise is subject to payment of tariffs and other taxes. Alcoholic beverages are taxed through a luxury tax (referred to as “impuesto selectivo al consumo.”  Tariffs are based on the C.I.F. value (cost, insurance and freight) in Dominican Pesos at the current exchange rate.

For the most current tariffs and taxes applied to imported products for this country, please visit the Online Tariff Database provided by Tariffic at: http://www.tariffic.com/ITA/, and click on “On-The-Fly Tariffeed”.  Please ensure you have a 10-digit HS classification code in order to obtain tariff information.  Also see the Census Bureau’s Schedule B search function (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/index.html), which allows you to classify your product according to United States export codes. Simply click "Search" and enter the keyword (i.e. beer) that best describes your product.

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CONTACTS

Most of the information in this guide was obtained from direct contact with various governmental organizations and embassies, as well as online sources.  The FAS Attaché reports at: http://www.fas.usda.gov/scriptsw/attacherep/default.asp served as the primary (online) sources used for this report.

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