Taipei Customs, of the Customs Administration under Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance, stated on 4 September 2026 that importers and customs brokers using release before duty payment (先放後稅) may have their bank issue the required security as an electronic guarantee, with the guarantee data sent to Customs over a financial blockchain platform. The paper route described in the same notice runs the document twice between the two parties: the bank issues the guarantee in duplicate and posts both copies to Customs, Customs checks and seals them and returns one to the bank, and the bank seals that copy and returns it before the procedure is complete. Taipei Customs states that where a guarantee reaches its term or the security is discharged early, it can send the discharge to the bank through the same system. Applications for release before duty payment are filed online through the Customs-Port-Trade Single Window with an electronic certificate.
Release before duty payment moves an entry out of customs custody against the security rather than against a settled payment, which puts acceptance of the guarantee, and not the duty transfer itself, on the critical path for the consignment. Until that release the metal sits in customs custody: it is on no vault’s register, no weight list or assay check has been run against it at a receiving facility, and it remains under the customs entry rather than under a release instruction to an authorised carrier. The security is a bank guarantee drawn on the importer’s own facility and sized to the duties and fees assessed on that entry, so it is a live utilisation of a credit line from issuance until Customs discharges it. Under the paper route both ends of that utilisation ran on post between the bank and Customs; under the electronic route issuance is a single transmission from the bank and the discharge is a system message back to it. The route is established bank by bank: Taipei Customs directs importers and brokers to their own banks to establish how an electronic guarantee is applied for, so which bank issues it determines whether the electronic route is available on a given entry.
The notice settles the handling of the security at Taipei Customs. Duty and tax liability, tariff classification and the conditions on which release before duty payment is granted rest with the Customs Administration under Taiwan’s customs legislation.