On April 1, the General Administration of Customs fully implemented the cross-customs area return policy for cross-border e-commerce retail export commodities (9610). This move was like a timely rain, breaking the bottleneck of “easy exports, difficult returns, original customs refunds, and high costs” that had long plagued the industry, and achieved “nationwide handling, close customs processing, and efficient logistics.”
This reform has a superimposed effect with the tax preferential policies announced in Announcement No. 16 of 2026 by the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation, injecting strong policy momentum into the internationalization of Linyi Mall and marking the entry of my country’s cross-border e-commerce service system into a new stage that is more mature, more inclusive, and more efficient.
For a long time, returns of exported goods have to be “returned the same way”, which makes logistics costs high, the cycle long, and the procedures cumbersome.
A large number of small and medium-sized e-commerce companies have no choice but to destroy goods overseas, resulting in a serious backlog of funds and inventory.
The new policy allows companies to independently choose any customs across the country to handle returns, and with the added benefit of being exempt from import duties, value-added tax, and consumption tax when returning goods in their original condition within 6 months, the overall return cost is significantly reduced.
The two-wheel drive of “national refund + tax exemption” fundamentally solves the congestion point of reverse logistics, allowing Linyi merchants to feel more secure when “going overseas”, worry less about after-sales, and make turnover more efficient.
From “original customs return” to “nationwide administration”, this is not just a simple change in the supervision model, but also a profound change.
The customs is guided by the needs of enterprises, breaks down geographical barriers, optimizes the supervision process, and truly realizes “more data travels and less business for enterprises”.
At the same time, tax policies have simultaneously relaxed the reasons for return shipments and clarified the original status standards, forming a whole-chain facilitation system.
The coordinated efforts of the two policies are not only an in-depth advancement of the “decentralization, regulation and service” reform, but also optimization of the business environment through institutional innovation, laying a solid institutional foundation for the high-quality development of foreign trade.
As a northern trade and logistics hub, Linyi Mall is accelerating its leap from “buying and selling across the country” to “buying and selling around the world.”
The city’s cross-border e-commerce import and export reached 31.55 billion yuan, a growth rate of 32 times. 9610 and other models are fully covered, and specialty industries such as hardware, labor insurance, and building materials are deeply connected to the Internet.
The implementation of the new return policy accurately matches Linyi’s characteristics of dense small and medium-sized merchants and high-frequency small-amount exports, significantly reducing after-sales costs, revitalizing overseas inventory, and improving customer trust.
The policy dividends go directly to market entities, helping Linyi build a cross-border e-commerce highland in the north and promote the upgrade of the entire “mall + logistics + industry” chain.
The superimposition of return convenience and tax incentives is not only about optimizing logistics and costs, but also about improving global competitiveness.
For Linyi, it is necessary to seize the policy window, improve the functions of the comprehensive bonded area and cross-border e-commerce industrial park, promote the upgrade of the “overseas warehouse + industrial belt” model, and strengthen customs, taxation, foreign exchange and commercial collaborative services.
Guide enterprises to make good use of policies, standardize operations, improve quality, and expand the global market with better after-sales, faster response, and stronger resilience.
Small policies spur big development, and small breakthroughs activate the big picture.
The new cross-border e-commerce returns policy and tax incentives work together to inject certainty and new momentum into the internationalization of Linyi Mall.
We look forward to Linyi taking policy as its wing and innovation as its sail, continuing to deepen the digitalization and international transformation of business logistics, showing greater achievements in building a new development pattern of services, making Yimeng’s good products accessible to the world, making its mall brand famous around the world, and writing a new chapter in Yimeng’s high-level openness and high-quality development.
