How to make your shipments compliant with Brazilian customs regulations in ShipStation.
As of January 1st, 2020, all shipments sent to Brazil must include the recipient's Tax ID number on labels and customs documents. Any shipment missing this information will be subject to either return or disposal by the Brazilian customs authorities.
When accepting an order from a customer in Brazil, be sure to collect one of the following pieces of information: either the CPF or the CNPJ. Both CPF and CNPJ numbers are the result of an arithmetic operation on the base numbers.
-
CPF (Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas, or Natural Persons Register), or Individual Tax ID.
A CPF is 11 digits long. It is comprised of 9 base digits with 2 digits at the end. Format: 123.456.789-10
-
CNPJ (Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Jurídicas), or Business Tax ID.
A CNPJ is a 14-digit number with 12 base digits and 2 digits at the end. Format: 123.456.789/0000-00
Please check with your selling channels for the best methods of collecting this information from your customers.
This article discusses how to add this information in ShipStation so it prints correctly on labels and customs forms. Additionally, the Identify Orders to Brazil section provides strategies you can use to identify these orders and bring them to the attention of your shipping staff, ensuring all orders to Brazil are properly configured before you print their labels.
Once you have the required Tax ID from your customer, add this information to the Company field under Recipient in ShipStation. This will ensure the ID appears on both labels and customs forms.
Individual Tax ID Format
For a CPF, or Individual Tax ID number, include 'CPF' before the number. The number format should be 3 groups of 3 numbers separated by a period, then a dash followed by the final 2 numbers.
For example: CPF 123.456.789-10
Company Tax ID Format
For a CNPJ, or Business Tax ID number, enter the Business Tax ID, followed by a dash, followed by their business name.
For example: 123.456.789/1011-12 - Business
This information will then print on the label and any customs forms required with the shipment.
Tax ID Error
As this article explains, you must list the Customer's Tax ID in the Company field for orders shipping to Brazil. Even with this Tax ID listed in the Company field, you may see an error that will occur if one of your own Tax IDs appears on the order as well.
Error: Importer's reference format is invalid. The correct formats are '000.000.000-00' and '00.000.000/0000-00'.
If this error persists, check Order Details > Customs Declarations > Tax Identifiers (right-hand column underneath Configure Shipment) for any additional Tax IDs (perhaps your own) and remove them.
Enter the CPF and CNPJ numbers carefully, as any typing mistakes will lead to an invalid number.
Identify orders shipping to Brazil to help your shipping staff ensure the Tax ID numbers are added properly before creating the labels for the orders.
Use any of several strategies in ShipStation to help identify orders:
-
Filters. Use the country filter to identify all orders shipping to Brazil. Save the filter to use quickly in the future.
-
Add tags with automation rules. Create an automation rule that will add a tag to every order with the destination country of Brazil. You can then use tags as a visual indicator, to filter the orders, or to trigger other automation rules.
-
Put orders on hold. Putting orders on hold removes them from the Awaiting Shipment status, so they will not accidentally get shipped until you have ensured the Tax ID is added correctly.
-
Send an email to your shipping staff. Use automation to send an email alert to your shipping manager, letting them know which orders they have are Brazilian orders that require their attention.
Learn the details below about each strategy. You may use any individual strategy or combination of strategies to accommodate your workflow.
Use filters to display only those orders that are shipping to Brazil. Then add the Tax ID to the Company field for each order.
ShipStation will display all orders with a destination country of Brazil. From here you can edit the orders to add the Tax ID.
If you are not ready to edit the orders, you can also manually apply tags or put the orders on hold so you or your shipping staff can easily identify and edit them later.
To use automation rules, you'll first create a tag for your Brazil orders, then create a rule that adds the tag to all orders going to Brazil.
ShipStation will now apply your new tag automatically to all orders shipping to Brazil as soon as they import.
If you have existing orders in Awaiting Shipment that need the tag, click the Reprocess Automation Rules button. ShipStation will apply all of your automation and tags will be added to orders that already imported.
Instead of tagging the orders (or, in addition to tagging the orders), you can use automation to put the orders on hold. This will move the order out of the Awaiting Shipment status so your shipping staff does not ship it until the proper changes are applied.
If you created the tag rule like the example above, you can simply add more actions to that rule.
With this change to the rule, ShipStation will both tag the order and move it from Awaiting Shipment to On Hold. To view and edit the orders, click the On Hold status in the left-hand sidebar of the Orders tab.
If you'd like to send an email to the person in your organization that is responsible for ensuring the Tax ID is added correctly, you must first create the email template ShipStation will use for the email. Review the Create Custom Email Template article for details on how to do this.
Once you have created the template, you can create a rule that will email your shipping manager. In this example, we'll add this as a new action to the rule that tags the orders.
Now, in addition to tagging the rule, ShipStation will send an email to the email address, alerting your staff that an order requires their attention.