Consular Invoice
Categories: International, Forex
A U.S. company announces plans to ship 50,000 signed copies of a book by Justin Timberlake to Germany. That comes at the same time that the U.S. plans to ship 50,000 bushels of corn and 50,000 Ford Focus vehicles to Germany as well. That means a lot of people will be eating corn and, uh...learning about JT.
But it also requires a bit of paperwork. U.S. exporters must submit a document called a consular invoice to the German consulate that lists all of the products set for export before they're shipped abroad. The consulate will then authenticate this document. This process is called consularization.
This document is like a receipt, and it helps the importing nation know what products are coming in, what products will face tariffs and other taxes, and who is sending these products.
The Germans call a consular invoice: “Konsularfaktura.” It’s a good thing they didn’t win World War II…if only because that’s really hard to say.