Baggage rules: why a 55-inch TV costs BDT 70,000 in duty
Bring a 55-inch television home in your luggage and the customs duty is BDT 70,000. Not 70% — seventy thousand taka, regardless of what you paid for it. Chapter 98 of the Bangladesh tariff charges passenger baggage in fixed amounts of money per item, and it is the one part of the schedule where the percentage columns mislead almost everybody who reads them.
This guide sets out all 21 lines of chapter 98 as published in the Operative Tariff 2026-2027, and explains why the numbers look so strange.
Why these figures are not percentages
In the published tariff, 98010059 shows 90,000 in the customs duty column. Read as a percentage, that is a customs duty of ninety thousand per cent, which is obviously not what anyone intends.
The figure is a specific duty: a fixed sum in taka charged per unit, independent of value. Specific duty versus ad valorem explains the mechanism in general. Chapter 98 is where you meet it most often: 20 of its 21 lines are specific.
Because of that, no meaningful Total Tax Incidence percentage exists for these lines, and this site publishes none. Where a figure on a chapter 98 page is a taka amount rather than a rate, it is marked with a dagger (†).
Televisions, by screen size
| Code | Screen size | Customs duty (BDT) |
|---|---|---|
| 98010052 | 30 to 36 inch | 10,000 |
| 98010053 | 37 to 42 inch | 20,000 |
| 98010054 | 43 to 46 inch | 30,000 |
| 98010055 | 47 to 52 inch | 50,000 |
| 98010056 | 53 to 65 inch | 70,000 |
| 98010059 | 53 inch and above | 90,000 |
The charge rises steeply and in steps. Moving from a 52-inch set to a 53-inch set adds BDT 20,000 of duty for one inch of diagonal. If you are buying abroad with the intention of carrying the set home, the band boundaries matter far more than the price.
Appliances
| Code | Goods | Customs duty (BDT) |
|---|---|---|
| 98010032 | Split air conditioner, up to 18,000 BTU | 15,000 |
| 98010033 | Split air conditioner, above 18,000 BTU | 20,000 |
| 98010031 | Air conditioner, refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer | 7,000 |
| 98010034 | Refrigerator or freezer | 5,000 |
| 98010039 | Other machines in the same family | 3,000 |
Entertainment and photographic equipment
| Code | Goods | Customs duty (BDT) |
|---|---|---|
| 98010041 | Music system (4 or 8 speaker), home theatre, disc players | 8,000 |
| 98010042 | HD, DV, BETA and professional cameras | 15,000 |
| 98010049 | Dish antenna | 15,000 |
| 98010060 | Air gun or air rifle | 5,000 |
| 98010090 | Chandeliers (jharbatti) | 300 |
Mobile phones, charged by value
| Code | Handset value | Customs duty (BDT) |
|---|---|---|
| 98010071 | Up to BDT 30,000 | 5,000 |
| 98010072 | BDT 30,000 to 60,000 | 10,000 |
| 98010079 | Above BDT 60,000 | 25,000 |
These three lines carry no AIT and no advance tax — unusually, the customs duty is the whole charge. Compare that with a commercial import of the same handset under 85171300, which carries 64.25% of the assessable value. On an expensive phone the baggage route is cheaper; on a cheap handset it may not be. A BDT 20,000 phone pays 5,000 in baggage, which is 25% — but a BDT 150,000 phone pays 25,000, which is under 17%.
The one line that is a real percentage
98010021 is the exception: customs duty 6%, AIT 5%, advance tax 7.5%, giving a genuine total of 18.95%. It is the general baggage line for goods not named in any of the specific entries above, assessed on value in the ordinary way.
What chapter 98 does not tell you
The tariff gives the rate. It does not give the rules, and for passengers the rules often matter more:
- Duty-free allowances. Returning passengers may bring certain goods free of duty, in limited quantities, subject to conditions on length of stay abroad. Those allowances live in the Baggage Rules, issued and amended by SRO — see what an SRO is.
- Quantity limits. One television per passenger is treated very differently from four.
- Commercial quantity. Goods judged to be for trade rather than personal use are assessed as a commercial import, under the ordinary chapters, at the ordinary percentages.
- Prohibited and restricted items, which no amount of duty makes importable.
The Baggage Rules change more often than the tariff schedule does. Treat the figures here as the published duty amounts, and confirm your personal entitlement with customs or a C&F agent before you travel.
Why this chapter matters more than its size suggests
Chapter 98 holds only 21 of the tariff's 7,469 lines, yet it is among the most consulted parts of the schedule — because it is the part ordinary travellers meet. It is also the part most often misread, since a column showing "90,000" looks like a catastrophic percentage until you know the convention.
The wider tariff contains 58 specific-duty lines altogether, concentrated in this chapter, in steel, in fertiliser and in sugar. On this site every one of them is flagged, the amounts are shown with thousands separators and a dagger, and no misleading percentage is published. Specific duty versus ad valorem explains how to recognise them elsewhere.