Complete Guide to Import Equipment Tax Refund Process: How to Legally Save 20% on Costs?

I. Key Changes in the Import Equipment Tax Refund Policy (2025 Edition)

According to the latest "Implementation Measures for Tax Policies on Import of Major Technical Equipment" issued by the Ministry of Finance, there are three major changes in the tax refund for imported equipment in 2025:

• Proportion of VAT refund increased:The value-added tax refund ratio for advanced manufacturing equipment that meets the catalog requirements has been increased from 13% to 15%.
• Dynamic adjustment of equipment catalog:Newly added 23 emerging industrial equipment including 5G base station equipment and hydrogen energy production devices.
• Declaration time limit compression:From the date of equipment customs clearance, the enterprise must complete the declaration of the full set of tax refund materials within 90 days.

II. Key Nodes in the Entire Process of Agency Tax Refund

Professional agency services can help businesses reduce processing time by 40%. The specific operational process includes:

• Phase 1: Preliminary qualification review
  • Check whether the HS code falls under the tax exemption catalog.
  • Confirm that the equipment usage complies with policy requirements.
  • Review the completeness of technical clauses in the import contract
• The second stage: Document preparation
  • Organize customs declaration forms,It is recommended to verify through the following methods:Basic documents
  • Please translate the following Chinese into English: Prepare a technical parameter comparison table for manufacturing equipment (required in both Chinese and English).
  • Prepare the Special Payment Voucher for Import Value-Added Tax.
• Phase 3: Application Tracking
  • Electronic Port Data Pre-entry Verification
  • Customs and tax authorities' dual-track progress monitoring
  • Emergency response mechanism for abnormal situations activated.

III. Common Misconceptions in Enterprise Tax Refund Operations

According to the statistics from the General Administration of Customs for January to June 2025, 31.7% of tax refund applications were returned due to the following issues:

• Document time conflict:The issuance date of the certificate of origin is later than the customs clearance date.
• Technical parameter deviation:The declared model differs by more than 5% from the actual inspection.
• Proof of Purpose Missing:No on-site video record of equipment installation and debugging was provided.
• Related-party transaction risks:Transactions within the same group with prices deviating from market prices by 15%

Practical case: ANew energyEnterprise Tax Refund Optimization Plan

A certain lithium batteryEquipment ImportsEnterprises achieve through professional agency services:

• The document preparation cycle has been reduced from 45 days to 22 days.
• Successfully recovered overpaid taxes totaling 2.87 million yuan for the years 2019-2024.
• Establish an intelligent tax refund management system to achieve a declaration accuracy rate of 99.2%.

The company has passedThree-way comparison method(Contract, Customs Declaration Form, Acceptance Form) Resolve technical parameter disputes by adoptingTimeline Management ToolAvoid the risk of late declaration.

V. Criteria for Selecting Agency Service Providers

• Customs AEO Advanced Certification qualification(Required)
• Have experience in managing at least three provincial-level key projects.
• Possess cross-departmental dispute coordination capabilities (Customs, Taxation, Commerce)
• Provide a fully visualized progress tracking system for the entire process.

It is recommended that enterprises pay special attention when signing agency agreementsliability allocation clauses, clearly define the responsibility for late fees caused by documentation errors, as well as the calculation standard for service fees related to secondary declarations.