Importing from China to Jordan: Customs, JSMO and GST in 2026

In 2024, Jordan imported 26.9 billion dollars worth of goods and services, against 13.2 billion dollars in exports, for a gross domestic product of 53.3 billion dollars. China ranks first among the kingdom's suppliers with 19% of imports, ahead of Saudi Arabia (15.2%), the United States (7%), the United Arab Emirates (4.7%), Germany (3.5%) and India (3.4%).

The main categories bought abroad cover fuels and crude oil, precious metals, industrial machinery, transport equipment, electrical goods, food, textiles, chemicals and manufactured goods, arriving via Amman and the port of Aqaba.

The official US guide to Jordan's trade agreements lists a free trade agreement with the United States, signed in 2000 and fully implemented since January 2010, bilateral agreements with Canada and Singapore, an association agreement with the European Union and with the European Free Trade Association, the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, GAFTA, and the Agadir Agreement. No trade agreement between Jordan and China appears there: Chinese goods therefore enter under the standard tariff regime, with no preference to claim against a supplier covered by an agreement.

Jordan Customs operates the Customs Integrated Tariff System, CITS, which lets you check, before ordering, the tariff for a Harmonized System code, the import conditions and the agreements in force. The official site customs.gov.jo offers more than one hundred and twelve electronic services, including a lookup of tariff rulings.

Jordan does not have VAT in the European sense but a general sales tax, GST, at a standard rate of 16%, applied to sales and to imports coming from outside the country or from free zones. A zero rate covers exports, sales to free zones and the Aqaba Special Economic Zone, and exemptions exist for basic necessities such as bread, water in containers under five liters, tea, sugar and electricity, as well as for air transport, education and public health.

The customs duty is determined code by code in the Harmonized System via the CITS: our sources do not give a verifiable national average rate applicable to all Chinese imports, to be confirmed product by product before ordering rather than assumed to be constant.

Once the duty is known, the GST base is the customs value plus that duty. For illustration only, for a CIF value of 10,000 dollars and a hypothetical duty of 5% on the code used, without this rate applying to all products, the duty would come to 500 dollars and the 16% GST would apply to 10,500 dollars, or 1,680 dollars, for 2,180 dollars in charges before port fees.

A standard import requires a commercial invoice, a bill of lading or an air waybill, a packing list and a customs declaration processed electronically by a licensed agent. A certificate of origin is not generally mandatory but remains common practice that Chinese suppliers know how to provide.

Certain categories require an import license before shipment: telecommunications and security equipment, certain food products falling under the health authority, raw agricultural products falling under the Ministry of Agriculture, and sectors deemed emerging or protected. A trading company must also obtain an importer card from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, or otherwise post a customs bond of 5% of the value of the goods.

The Jordan Standards and Metrology Organization, JSMO, develops Jordanian standards, issues certificates of conformity and awards the Jordanian quality mark. It also manages Halal and management-system certificates, and offers technical inspection services, for example for elevators or electric vehicles. Our sources do not give a public schedule of certification costs or timelines, to be requested directly from JSMO.

On the food side, the Jordan Food and Drug Administration, JFDA, inspects products at the retail and wholesale distribution levels, and prepared or mixed products are almost all tested at customs. JSMO also regulates food additives according to the Codex Alimentarius.

Our sources confirm a prior-license regime for several categories, telecommunications and security equipment, certain food products, raw agricultural products and protected sectors, without providing an exhaustive and verifiable list of goods purely prohibited from import into Jordan. A complete list can be checked in the legislation section of the official Jordan Customs site, or by confirming a product's status via the CITS before placing an order. When a license is required, it must be requested before the purchase, never during transport.

Aqaba is Jordan's only port. Its container terminal has been operated since 2006 by the Aqaba Development Corporation, ADC, and APM Terminals, under a concession extended by fifteen years in October 2024, through 2046, against an investment of 242 million dollars. It handled 898,000 twenty-foot equivalent units in 2023, and all of Aqaba's ports together handled 472,681 TEU in the first half of 2026, up 1% year on year, according to ASEZA and ADC, cited by the Petra news agency on July 19, 2026.

Our sources do not give a verifiable transit time between the ports of southern China, Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Yantian, and Aqaba, to be confirmed with a freight forwarder at the time of booking. Air freight to Queen Alia Airport, near Amman, remains reserved for urgent or light shipments. FOB from southern China suits buyers who arrange transport themselves; CIF or CFR if an intermediary handles it through to Aqaba; DDP remains inadvisable as long as the seller is not itself a licensed customs declarant in Jordan.

On payment, common practice remains a deposit on order followed by a balance before shipment, paid exclusively into the Chinese company's business account, never a personal account: any change of bank details received by email should be verified with a direct call before any transfer.

A first order follows a precise sequence: specifications, factory verification, validated sample, proforma invoice with incoterm, checking the customs duty and the need for a license via the CITS, production follow-up, JSMO certification if the product requires it, pre-shipment inspection, gathering the customs documents, then customs clearance by the customer or their local agent.

Sorva is a sourcing and trading house based in Guangzhou, in the Tianhe district, backed by a Chinese subsidiary whose corporate purpose covers the purchase, resale and export of goods, and by a parent company in France. Our Chinese-speaking team finds and verifies factories, organizes visits and samples, negotiates, has quality checked before loading and arranges freight through to Aqaba, while gathering the documents useful for any JSMO certification. We never act as the official importer in Jordan and do not clear customs on site. Our base offer is invoiced in dollars, complemented by a JSMO file support option, quoted on request.