Current published rates, transit times and the weight brackets where the price changes.
Air Freight from China to Germany starts at USD 6.78 per kilogram, with door-to-door transit of 5–10 business days. A 100 kg shipment comes to roughly USD 678 on that rate — an indicative freight figure. Duty and tax raised by German Customs (Zoll) depend on the commodity and are quoted separately.
Rates last updated 2026-09-30. Indicative only — published channel prices for planning, not a quotation. Your actual cost depends on the product and its HS code, chargeable weight, declared value, duty and tax at destination and the exchange rate on the day, and can come in above or below these figures.
| Service | Mode | Rate | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Value Air · Duty-Paid General Cargo | ✈️ Air Freight | USD 6.8/KG | View Details → |
| Air · Duty-Paid Battery Cargo | ✈️ Air Freight | USD 7.1/KG | View Details → |
Freight is not billed on the number on your bathroom scale. It is billed on chargeable weight: the greater of actual gross weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is L × W × H (cm) ÷ 6000. Denser cargo pays on its weight; light bulky cargo pays on the space it occupies. Whichever is higher is the one you pay — never the lower.
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Detailed per-weight pricing for every active route from China to Germany. Each tier reflects the published rate at that exact weight — useful for accurate budgeting at common shipment sizes.
| Weight | Rate (USD/KG) |
|---|---|
| 21 KG | USD 8.51 |
| 22 KG | USD 8.42 |
| 23 KG | USD 8.64 |
| 30 KG | USD 8.14 |
| 50 KG | USD 7.63 |
| 100 KG | USD 6.78 |
| 150 KG | USD 6.73 |
| 200 KG | USD 6.64 |
| 505 KG | USD 6.29 |
| 850 KG | USD 6.34 |
| 1700 KG | USD 6.42 |
| 2500 KG | USD 6.40 |
| 3400 KG | USD 6.15 |
| Weight | Rate (USD/KG) |
|---|---|
| 21 KG | USD 8.87 |
| 22 KG | USD 8.78 |
| 23 KG | USD 9.00 |
| 30 KG | USD 8.51 |
| 50 KG | USD 7.99 |
| 100 KG | USD 7.14 |
| 150 KG | USD 7.10 |
| 200 KG | USD 7.01 |
| 505 KG | USD 6.65 |
| 850 KG | USD 6.70 |
| 1700 KG | USD 6.79 |
| 2500 KG | USD 6.77 |
| 3400 KG | USD 6.52 |
The rate above is quoted on one specific trade term. Change the term and you change how much of the journey to Germany is already inside the price. The table below maps the eleven common Incoterms® against the twelve cost stages of a door-to-door shipment, so you can see exactly where our responsibility ends and yours begins.
| Term | 1 Loading on truck | 2 Export customs declaration | 3 Carriage to port of export | 4 Unloading at port of export | 5 Loading on vessel / aircraft | 6 Main carriage | 7 Cargo insurance | 8 Unloading at port of import | 9 Loading on truck at import | 10 Carriage to destination | 11 Import customs clearance | 12 Import duties & taxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXW Ex Works | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck | Buyer Buyer — Export customs declaration | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to port of export | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of export | Buyer Buyer — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Buyer Buyer — Main carriage | Buyer Buyer — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| FCA Free Carrier | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to port of export | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of export | Buyer Buyer — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Buyer Buyer — Main carriage | Buyer Buyer — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| FAS Free Alongside Ship | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Buyer Buyer — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Buyer Buyer — Main carriage | Buyer Buyer — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| FOB Free On Board | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Buyer Buyer — Main carriage | Buyer Buyer — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| CFR Cost and Freight | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Buyer Buyer — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| CIF Cost, Insurance and Freight | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Seller Seller — Cargo insurance | Buyer Buyer — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| CPT Carriage Paid To | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Negotiable Negotiable — Cargo insurance | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of import | Seller Seller — Loading on truck at import | Seller Seller — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| CIP Carriage and Insurance Paid | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Seller Seller — Cargo insurance | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of import | Seller Seller — Loading on truck at import | Seller Seller — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| DAT Delivered At Terminal (DPU) | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Negotiable Negotiable — Cargo insurance | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of import | Buyer Buyer — Loading on truck at import | Buyer Buyer — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| DAP Delivered At Place | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Negotiable Negotiable — Cargo insurance | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of import | Seller Seller — Loading on truck at import | Seller Seller — Carriage to destination | Buyer Buyer — Import customs clearance | Buyer Buyer — Import duties & taxes |
| DDP Delivered Duty Paid | Seller Seller — Loading on truck | Seller Seller — Export customs declaration | Seller Seller — Carriage to port of export | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of export | Seller Seller — Loading on vessel / aircraft | Seller Seller — Main carriage | Negotiable Negotiable — Cargo insurance | Seller Seller — Unloading at port of import | Seller Seller — Loading on truck at import | Seller Seller — Carriage to destination | Seller Seller — Import customs clearance | Seller Seller — Import duties & taxes |
Buyer takes over at the seller's door and carries every cost from there. Lowest quoted price, highest buyer workload.
Seller clears the goods for export and hands them to the carrier the buyer nominated.
Sea and inland waterway only. Seller delivers alongside the vessel; loading is on the buyer.
Sea and inland waterway only. Risk passes once the goods are on board. The most common buying term.
Seller pays the main carriage but carries no insurance obligation; risk still passes on loading.
As CFR, plus the seller must buy and pay for cargo insurance (minimum cover unless you agree more).
Any mode. Seller pays carriage through to the named destination; insurance is not obligatory.
As CPT, plus the seller must insure the cargo through to the named destination.
Seller delivers unloaded at the named terminal. Renamed DPU (Delivered at Place Unloaded) in Incoterms® 2020.
Seller delivers to your address ready for unloading; import clearance and duty stay with the buyer.
Seller carries everything through to your door, duty and tax included. Highest quoted price, least buyer workload.
Two things worth flagging. Under CIF and CIP the seller is obliged to buy cargo insurance and pay the premium; under every other term insurance is optional, and we recommend buyers arrange their own cover so a loss or damage in transit is recoverable. And this table is a working summary for planning purposes — the binding definitions are the ones published by the International Chamber of Commerce in the Incoterms® rules, so confirm the exact term wording in your sales contract before you ship.
At 100 KG the arithmetic changes. LCL groupage becomes bookable, and whether it beats air depends almost entirely on density: cargo that fills space without filling the scale prices badly by air and well by sea. This is the band where measuring your cartons properly stops being housekeeping and starts being the largest single lever on what you pay into Germany.
The switch is decided by volume, not weight. Groupage is billed per cubic metre with a one-cubic-metre floor, so its cost climbs in a straight line with your cube. A container is a flat price for the box whether you fill it or not. Those two lines cross somewhere between roughly 12 and 15 m³ on most lanes — below that a consol is cheaper, above it you are paying groupage rates for space a 20GP would have given you outright.
| Box | Usable cube | Payload | What it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20GP | 33 m³ | ≈ 28 t | Dense cargo — the payload runs out long before the cube does. |
| 40GP | 67 m³ | ≈ 26 t | Twice the space for far less than twice the price. The default for most consolidated buyers. |
| 40HQ | 76 m³ | ≈ 26 t | The extra foot of height pays for itself on anything light and stackable. |
Two things move the crossover on a real booking. Cargo denser than about 167 kg per cubic metre hits a container's payload limit before its cube, so the box fills on weight and the calculation shifts down. And a container starts accruing free-time charges at destination the moment it is discharged — demurrage on the quay, detention off it — which is a cost a consol never hands you. If your cargo sits near the line, send the packed dimensions and we will price both against each other rather than guess.
This page covers Air Freight from China to Germany. Plan your cargo with the matching tool before requesting a quote.
Air rates to Germany bill by chargeable weight — simulate your carton fill in 3D (including mixed products in one box) and cut dimensional-weight waste before you book.
Open Packing Tool →| Method | Transit Time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Air, consolidated | 5–10 business days | Origin warehouse to the door in Germany |
| Ocean LCL (groupage) | 30–50 calendar days | Shared box to the quay in Germany, then inland |
| Rail | 18–28 calendar days | Block train via Central Asia into Germany |
| Courier | 3–7 business days | Integrator door to door — expensive at this size |
Key China-to-Germany import facts buyers should plan around:
| Main air gateways | FRA (Frankfurt), MUC (Munich), CGN (Cologne) |
|---|---|
| Destination customs authority | German Customs (Zoll) |
| De-minimis / duty-free threshold | EUR 150 (duty-free threshold; VAT from EUR 0) |
| Import tax & duty regime | Import VAT 19%; duty 0–12% by TARIC code |
| Local currency | EUR |
| Typical port/airport dwell time | 3–6 days |
| Peak / busy season | Sep–Nov |
| Conformity & certification | CE marking + EU IOSS registration for B2C e-commerce |
Thresholds and bands here are planning references for buyers, not rulings — confirm the exact HS-code rate for your goods before shipping.
Historical freight rates from China to Germany. Data sourced from live carrier price feeds.
Treat the landed-cost numbers here as a planning baseline. German Customs (Zoll) sets the rate that actually gets charged, assessed against your HS classification at the moment of clearance, so their own guidance is worth reading before a large order.
If you want to sanity-check a duty figure yourself, start from the heading rather than the product name — the WCO Harmonized System is the underlying nomenclature, and the WTO Tariff & Trade Data portal holds the applied rates by country pair.
On the air side, anything with a cell or a battery in it, plus liquids, powders, magnets and aerosols, is governed by the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations. Those articles are not refused outright, but they need to be declared at booking so the shipment is built correctly — declaring them late is the single most common cause of an air consignment being offloaded.
On the origin side, export declaration and any commodity inspection requirement fall under China Customs (GACC); we handle that filing as part of the service, but the requirement is theirs, not ours.
For a wider view of how importing into Germany actually works — documentation norms, inspection behavior, the paperwork that tends to hold shipments — the U.S. ITA guide to Germany customs regulations is a useful independent read alongside our own lane notes.
Pricing into Germany currently opens at USD 6.78/KG on Air DDP General Cargo. At 100 KG, the estimated total is approximately USD 678, duty included. Final landed cost depends on the Import VAT 19%; duty 0–12% by TARIC code applied by German Customs (Zoll).
Imports into Germany are assessed by German Customs (Zoll). The applicable regime is: Import VAT 19%; duty 0–12% by TARIC code. The duty-free / de-minimis position is EUR 150 (duty-free threshold; VAT from EUR 0). Under our DDP service these charges are pre-paid and included in the per-KG price, so there is nothing to settle on arrival.
An entry with German Customs (Zoll) stands on five things: a commercial invoice carrying HS codes and a declared value you can defend, a packing list whose weights and dimensions match the cargo, the bill of lading or air waybill, a certificate of origin where one lowers the duty, and whatever product certification applies (CE marking + EU IOSS registration for B2C e-commerce). We prepare and file the set; you supply the truth behind it.
It depends which door you come in by. Consolidated air opens around 21 kg, occasionally 12; groupage starts at one cubic metre and rounds up to it; single parcels go integrator. Under 21 kg into Germany, courier almost always wins on total cost.
Cells fly into Germany under handling controls rather than a ban: batteries installed in equipment sit under IATA PI966/PI967, standalone cells need separate classification. We run certified battery channels through FRA (Frankfurt), MUC (Munich), CGN (Cologne); surcharges add roughly USD 3–8/KG.
Air Freight into Germany runs 5–10 business days end to end — collection at the supplier, consolidation, the main leg, clearance by German Customs (Zoll), and last-mile delivery. Best suited to: time-sensitive goods, high-value items, small shipments.
A duty-paid booking into Germany means we carry the freight, the customs entry with German Customs (Zoll) and last-mile delivery to your door, and quote them together so you settle once. The duty and tax element is not a fixed number: it follows your product's HS code, its declared value and the exchange rate applied on the day of entry, so it is confirmed on your specific goods rather than read off a rate card. The EUR 150 (duty-free threshold; VAT from EUR 0) de-minimis position applies.
Chargeable weight is the greater of actual gross weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is L × W × H in centimetres divided by 6000. One cubic metre therefore equals 167 kg. If a consignment weighs 300 kg but measures out to only 200 kg volumetric, it is charged on the 300 kg — the higher of the two always wins.
The rates above answer the cost question. This covers the mechanics — useful if you have not shipped to Germany before and are still working out how to structure the order.
What Is Chargeable Weight in Air Freight? — Smart Logistics Network. Published on YouTube by a third party; we link it because it explains the process well, not because we produced it or endorse the provider.
Rates above are lane rates and apply to general cargo. Packing specification, HS classification and the clearance step that matters are all commodity-specific — these guides cover them industry by industry.
Duty and tax position, certification, typical port dwell and what actually holds shipments at this border — plus who files the entry.
Germany clearance requirements →I need three things to price your cargo. Give me sixty seconds and I can quote today.
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