According to Decree 67/2020/NĐ-CP amending and supplementing articles of Decree 68/2016/NĐ-CP of the Government, documents for the application for granting the certificate of eligibility for duty-free business have been reduced compared to the past.

Duty-free shop at Noi Bai International Airport. Photo: N.Linh 

According to the new regulation, the dossier for granting a certificate of eligibility for duty-free business consists of four types of documents (previously defined as eight types of documents), specifically:

A document requesting a certificate of eligibility for a duty-free business followed to form No. 01 in the appendix attached to this decree: one original paper.

Business registration certificate or investment certificate or other documents specified in Clause 4, Article 81 of Decree 78/2015 / ND-CP: one copy.

Diagram of design area, location of duty-free shop, duty-free warehouse, camera system installation location: one copy.

A certificate of eligibility of fire prevention and fighting conditions issued by a police office (except for cases located in areas where fire prevention and fighting conditions have been recognised): one copy.

The new decree specified cases of temporary suspension of duty-free business activities. This is a temporary suspension at the request of the enterprise and a temporary suspension because there are no duty-free business activities for six consecutive months.

During the suspension period of duty-free business activities, customs authorities supervise the quantities of inventory in duty-free shops and duty-free warehouses.

Enterprises operating duty-free business should take responsibility to ensure the status quo of goods at duty-free shops and duty-free warehouses. In case there are broken, damaged, deteriorated, substandard or expired goods, it should comply with provisions of Clause 8, Article 6 and Clause 1, Article 19 of Decree No. 167/2016/ND-CP.

An enterprise would have its certificate of eligibility revoked for duty-free business certificate if it suspends operation for more than six months from the date of notice without notice paper of re-operation.

At the same time, the order of revocation of the certificate of eligibility for duty-free business is also amended and supplemented as follows: the enterprise sends a request to terminate the operation of duty-free business to the provincial Customs Department ​​that managed the duty-free business; Customs departments of provinces and cities should issue notices on termination of duty-free business activities within five working days of receiving written requests of enterprises or from the date of detecting cases of revocation of certification.