To get a medical shipment cleared through Customs, one must have the following documents:

 1. A notarized copy of the registration certificate

 2. A notarized copy of the permit to register

 3. A notarized copy of the registration certificate for the fiscal offices

 4. A notarized copy of the permit to open a bank account

 5. A notarized copy of the bank certificate

 6. A notarized copy of the registration certificate for the State Statistical Committee

 7. A permit from the Ministry of Health for the import of humanitarian medical freight

 8. A permit from the Department of Health and Epidemiology for the import of humanitarian medical shipments

 9. A permit from the Committee of State Standards for the import of humanitarian medical shipments

10. A copy of the excerpt/certificate from the protocol of the meeting of the Humanitarian Aid Commission, permitting the import of humanitarian shipments

11. A certificate of donation with translation into Russian 

12. The shipment transport documents

13. The shipment invoices

14. A notarized authorization for the person clearing customs with the shipment to represent organization (of the shipper)

To receive these documents, you must:

I. Receive the papers of the donor: a detailed description of the shipment (the names of the medications and medical supplies, the quantities), the invoices (the quantity of each item and the price on a special form), donor's certificate (on a sum less than 200,000 ECU)

II. Ministry of Health (Minzdrav)

  To present the documents to Minzdrav, you need to fill out 3 special forms (one for medications,   one for medical supplies, and one request-form), each in triplicate. To fill them out, you need to sort the medications according to their chemical composition and ascertain their TNVED codes (codes for imported  merchandise) and the registration numbers of the medications; there is an analogous procedure for medical supplies (but not requiring registration numbers).

To receive a permit from Minzdrav, you need to present:

- the three abovementioned forms, each in triplicate (before being presented to Minzdrav, these forms must each be controlled and stamped by the Narcotics Commission of Russia)

- a notarized copy of the statute or of the registration certificate,  justifying the right of the humanitarian organization to receive and to distribute humanitarian aid

- a document certifying the humanitarian nature of the shipment (donor's certificate), with a translation into Russian

- a letter from the territorial department of health supporting the  particular humanitarian action with a commitment to assure the non-commercial nature of the shipment's distribution

- copies of the transport document

- a letter of agreement between the humanitarian organization that is seeking to clear the shipment, and the particular recipient of the shipment

- a plan for distribution of the shipment, if there are multiple addressees/recipients, with all the addresses and registration information

- an excerpt/certificate from the protocol of the Commission on Humanitarian Aid

- specifications (of the contents) of the shipment, with a translation into Russian

- a document certifying the cost of the shipment in US dollars

- a list of all the documents being presented

Once all these documents are presented, one has to wait 2-3 weeks to receive a permit (receive permission) from Minzdrav.

III. Excerpt/certificate from the protocol of the Commission on Humanitarian Aid

- a letter under the name of the president of the commission requesting acceptance of the humanitarian nature of the shipment

- a donor's certificate translated into Russian

- transport documents

- Minzdrav's permit/permission

- a letter from the territorial department supporting the particular humanitarian action with a commitment to assure the non-commercial distribution of the shipment

- a distribution plan for the shipment, in case of multiple recipients/addressees

- registration documents from the organization seeking to clear the shipment

Once these documents are accepted, it takes 10 days to get a resolution/decision from the work group: after a positive resolution/decision, it takes another 15-30 days to get the results of the meeting of the commission and in the case of a positive decision, one then gets the certificate in question.

IV. Permission from the Health Department

This permit is easier to get. One presents a request letter and all the documents so far obtained (documents from Minzdrav, shipment documents, organization documents) and on arrival of the shipment, the health inspector has the right to examine them. But experience has shown that, normally, humanitarian shipments don't have problems with the health services.

V. Permission of the Committee on Standards

The requirements of the committee on standardization pertain only to medical supplies. To receive permission, one must present a letter of request and documents concerning the medical supplies -- Minzdrav's permission, the permission of the commission, shipment documents, the letter of commitment and documents of the organization with contracts concerning humanitarian programs. Normally, receiving this permission is fairly easy, but it depends on the inspector who works with the documents. "Doctors without Borders" has always worked with the same inspector, with whom there have been no problems, but once she was on vacation  and no one received  permission for a month,  because the inspector studied our materials from the point of view of their registration with the standardization offices. One should mention that the legislation regarding this is very vague, and the decision each time depends on the good will of the inspector. 

VII. With all the above permissions in hand, the shipment can cross the Russian border (without permission from Minzdrav, this procedure is completely impossible). The shipment arrives at a customs station (which one determines in advance), and the clearing procedure begins:

1) receipt of the transport documents (nakladnaya)

2) registration at customs (in Moscow, there are four: North, South, West and East, and dividing up the traffic according to respective geographical origin) To register with customs, you need to present documents showing the status of your organization: the statute, certifying the inspection of imports a bank  certificate. certificate of registration, registration permit/permission, permission to open a bank account, and a request to be registered as a participant in foreign economic activity. But this one only has to do once per year. Each customs office has many stations; you need to choose the most suitable.

3) assembling the declaration. You present all the collected documents and declare the shipment as humanitarian. To pass through this process successfully, you need to compute  in advance the weights, prices and quantities of medications, and of medical supplies according to their TNVED codes (you group the medications and supplies by code and count their weights, prices in dollars and rubles, and quantities). It's a fairly complicated mathematical task.

4) registration of the declaration-- it's necessary to register the declaration the same day it's made

5) customs inspection. This procedure lasts at least a day, because humanitarian shipments are examined in their entirety (100%). You need to have, to facilitate and accelerate the process, a translation of the packing lists.

6) in cases where the inspection is passed in good order and all the documents are in order, the customs station provides four bulletins: to the department of price controls, to the department of document/visa control, to the department of tariff-free control, and to the department of payment control. All these departments are found at the customs office that manages the given station. To pass through all these departments, it is necessary to have a request with the name of the head of customs and the whole collection of documents and many copies of the declaration. Each department examines the bulletins, and the last department, that of payment control, gives final permission to clear the shipment as humanitarian.

7) return to the station with all the bulletins stamped at customs. At the station, one receives the last control of documents/visas  and of payments, and receives the final stamp, "shipment allowed to enter free circulation." This whole process, in the ideal case, takes from two to three weeks, if the laws and the requirements don't change from the start of the process, and if one encounters a minimum of crazy bueaucrats. During the whole clearance process, the shipment remains at customs and its storage has to be paid for. To avoid unnecessary expenses, it is necessary to deposit the shipment with a customs control that has a storage area where the price of storage is the as low as possible -- the lower of the price of storage of a truck or of its contents.

Thus the process of clearing a humanitarian shipment takes, all together, some months, during which you prepare/acquire all the permissions and effect the procedure of clearance through customs. It should be mentioned that the assembly of the declaration is also a procedure that requires a fee.. After receipt of the shipment at customs, in a month, it is necessary to provide to the customs office where the shipment was  cleared a report on the distribution of the shipment on a special form. The deadline of a month for the report is very strictly enforced. The commission on humanitarian aid also requires a report, but it's a somewhat voluntary matter of form. In cases where the report does not arrive back in customs within a month, they have the right to levy the taxes not paid through the bank and with the help of the tax inspector.