Which route leaves a smaller loss on a rejected food import?
A rejection notice creates two connected decisions: how to handle the goods lawfully and how much of the money already paid can be recovered.
A supplier accepting a return does not eliminate international freight, bonded storage, documentation fees or destination admission conditions.
Disposal may finish sooner, and a supplier may accept a disposal certificate as a refund condition.
Those differences can change both the ultimate loss and the cash needed before any refund arrives.
This calculator compares one whole batch using the same comparison date, goods-payment balance, historical non-refundable costs and paid-tax balance.
It separates additional spending, supplier refunds and actual cash recovery of paid tax.
It then calculates net loss, loss per kg, peak future cash required and the shortage against cash available now.
The storage comparison links the expected completion date to daily storage charges rather than comparing just freight against a disposal quote.
Verify availability before comparing money
A lower cost does not authorize overseas removal or disposal.
Confirm the batch-specific route with the responsible Korean regional MFDS office and customs, check destination admission for overseas removal and verify the waste contractor’s scope.
Domestic food sales are excluded from every scenario.
This is a Korea-specific planning calculator using 2026 rules, not an approval or a legal opinion.
Korean 2026 handling rules and scope
Article 34(1) of the Enforcement Rule of the Special Act on Imported Food Safety Control requires action within one year after receipt of a rejection notice.
The listed actions include return to the exporting country or removal to another country, approved feed conversion where eligible, provision for a non-food public purpose and disposal.
This page compares overseas removal and disposal only; it does not determine feed-conversion eligibility or public-use value.
Enter the authority-verified deadline
The tool does not calculate the precise legal anniversary, holidays or an extension.
Enter the actual date verified against your notice and authority instructions.
Entering a date does not extend or alter the statutory obligation.
If the comparison date or planned completion is later than the entered deadline, the comparison is held for review.
Disposal requires procedural checks
Customs Act Article 160 requires customs approval before disposing of goods stored in a bonded area.
An exception from customs collection for prior-approved disposal does not itself establish a refund of tax already paid.
Remaining material may attract customs duty or additional handling costs; confirm those amounts and include applicable costs.
Define the same batch and starting balances
Use the same quantity and comparison date for both routes.
For a partial return or a split between return and disposal, first allocate verified goods, tax and costs to the relevant batch and run separate reviews.
Do not attach the whole shipment’s payment to a small discarded portion or apply a whole-shipment refund to only the returned portion.
Use invoices, declarations and supplier settlement records to support the allocation.
- Unrecovered goods payment: the amount paid for this batch that remains unrecovered.
Subtract refunds already received before entering the balance.
- Past non-refundable costs: freight, inspection and storage costs already incurred by the comparison date.
Exclude goods payment and paid tax, which have their own fields, and avoid duplicates.
- Unrecovered paid-tax balance: tax paid but not already recovered or credited.
Enter zero if no tax was paid and verify the scope with customs or your tax adviser.
- Cash available now: money currently available for this handling decision.
Do not add supplier refunds or tax receipts that have not arrived.
- Batch net weight: actual kg for the same goods.
Loss per kg is a reference ratio, not a statutory disposal rate.
Read quotes and supplier promises consistently
Enter international freight and return fees for the overseas route, and transport and treatment costs for disposal.
Use the other-cost field for supervision, administration, loading, residue or additional work without duplicating items already included in a quote.
Use actual payable totals, including non-creditable VAT.
Do not confuse a tax credit with a cash receipt, or subtract the same tax from a cost and also count it as recovery.
Confirmed zero is different from unknown
If the supplier confirms no refund, enter zero and confirm that evidence.
If the answer is pending, leave the confirmation off; a proposed amount can be explored as a hypothetical scenario.
The calculator does not turn an unconfirmed refund into a confirmed zero.
A positive receipt needs a date on or after the comparison date.
Supplier prepayment is allowed; paid-tax cash receipt is modeled on or after completion as a conservative timing assumption.
A written promise should identify the batch, accepted return or disposal condition, completion evidence, responsibility for banking charges and payment deadline.
For foreign-currency refunds, convert to the expected net KRW receipt using a separately verified exchange assumption and fees.
This tool neither fetches exchange rates nor assesses supplier solvency.
Refunds cannot exceed the unrecovered goods payment, and tax recovery cannot exceed the unrecovered paid-tax balance.
Additional compensation and insurance receipts fall outside these fields.
Net-loss and storage formulas
Common loss basis
Unrecovered goods payment + past non-refundable costs + unrecovered paid tax
Additional spending for each route
Transport + treatment or return fees + other costs + daily storage × storage days
Input-scenario net loss
Common loss basis + additional spending − supplier refund − paid-tax cash recovery
Storage days are calendar days between the comparison date and completion: the comparison date is excluded and completion day is included.
Same-day completion has zero storage days; next-day completion has one.
If a warehouse bills both arrival and departure, imposes a minimum or charges holiday premiums, reconcile the quote with this simple constant daily-rate model first.
Keep storage already incurred in historical costs so it is not counted again in future storage.
Money is modeled in whole KRW; per-kg display uses up to two decimals.
Step-by-step use
- Identify the batch, notice receipt date and quantity from the rejection notice and import records.
Enter the comparison date and the handling deadline verified with the authorities.
- Separate unrecovered goods payment, past non-refundable costs, paid tax and currently available cash.
Use an explicit zero for confirmed none; an empty amount remains missing.
- For each route, enter availability, completion date, transport, fees, other costs and whole-batch daily storage.
Select unavailable when that route cannot be used for this batch.
- Enter supplier and tax recovery amounts and receipt dates, and verify written promises and tax treatment.
Only two fully confirmed routes produce the cost difference and storage boundary.
- Check cash required even for the lower-loss route.
Save the review and verify the handling plan and assumptions with the responsible MFDS office, customs, supplier and contractor.
Worked example: a hypothetical 1,000 kg batch
Suppose unrecovered goods payment is KRW 10,000,000, past costs are KRW 1,000,000 and unrecovered paid tax is KRW 1,000,000.
The notice was received on 2026-10-20, comparison date is 2026-10-27 and a hypothetical authority-verified deadline is 2027-10-20.
This is not a legal calculation of your deadline.
All quotes and receipt amounts below are invented; they are neither market averages nor statutory rates.
Hypothetical return and disposal comparison, money in KRW| Item | Return | Disposal |
|---|
| Completion date | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-30 |
| Storage days | 10 | 3 |
| Fixed transport, treatment, other | 2,300,000 | 900,000 |
| Daily storage | 30,000 | 30,000 |
| Storage cost | 300,000 | 90,000 |
| Additional spend | 2,600,000 | 990,000 |
| Supplier refund | 8,000,000 | 0 |
| Paid-tax cash recovery | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Net loss | 5,600,000 | 11,990,000 |
| Peak required cash | 2,600,000 | 990,000 |
| Shortfall with 2,000,000 available | 600,000 | 0 |
Assume the supplier pays only under the return route on 2026-11-16 and paid tax is recovered on 2026-11-20 under both routes.
Return has KRW 6,390,000 less net loss but requires KRW 2,600,000 before recovery.
With KRW 2,000,000 available, the additional cash shortfall is KRW 600,000.
A lower final loss therefore does not establish immediate affordability.
The example button leaves every confirmation unverified so the invented scenario cannot silently become an evidence-backed result.
Interpret required cash and the lowest balance
All future fixed quotes are conservatively paid on the comparison date; storage is then paid daily through completion.
Supplier and tax receipts enter on the specified dates.
Outflows precede inflows on the same day when measuring the lowest cumulative cash position.
A supplier prepayment can help fund later storage, but does not remove the need to prepare fixed costs paid first on that date.
Goods payments and historical costs are included in loss, but are not added again to future required cash.
Also review the no-recovery reserve
Total additional spending is shown as the reserve needed if none of the expected receipts arrives.
If this exceeds peak cash required under the dated scenario, the difference reflects dependence on earlier receipts.
Recalculate if the supplier misses a date and review borrowing costs, actual instalments and account liquidity separately.
The saved TXT review includes daily outflows, inflows and closing cumulative balances, plus input amounts, dates, evidence flags and pending issues.
How many additional storage days reach equal loss?
When both routes are confirmed, the calculator examines the currently lower-loss route.
Holding the other route fixed and assuming refund amounts and conditions remain unchanged, divide the loss advantage by that route’s daily storage rate.
This produces the continuous number of extra days at equal loss.
The whole-day allowance rounds down and is limited again by the days between completion and the entered authority deadline.
In the example, 6,390,000 ÷ 30,000 = 213 days.
Although 348 days remain between return completion and the stated deadline, the smaller economic boundary is 213 days.
At that exact boundary the losses are equal; beyond it the ranking reverses.
If daily storage is zero, storage alone creates no finite break-even, while the handling deadline still applies.
This is a mathematical sensitivity, not a recommendation to wait.
Extra storage can change sailing prices, warehouse premiums, supplier-offer expiry and packaging or quality conditions.
If those assumptions change, obtain a new quote and recalculate.
A shorter supplier deadline or case instruction must be checked separately; this figure does not extend either one.
Three practical decision situations
Return freight increases
Keep the written supplier refund assumption and replace freight and waiting storage with actual revised quotes.
Check both ultimate loss and cash required instead of treating a large refund as sufficient reason to return.
A disposal certificate also qualifies for a refund
If the supplier confirms that arrangement in writing, enter the refund and receipt date under disposal too.
Include required supervision, photographs, weighing and completion-documentation charges without counting an included service twice.
The handling deadline is near
Confirm the actual removal or disposal slot, contractor availability and authority process before relying on the economic boundary.
Exclude unavailable routes, hold an overdue plan and resolve the schedule with the responsible authority.
Limits and cautions
- The calculator does not determine tax-refund eligibility, rates or payment deadlines.
Personal overseas-shopping return rules do not establish treatment for business food imports.
- It does not determine waste classification, contractor permit or notification exceptions, capacity, export permission or admission to a third country.
Customs approval and waste-handling requirements need separate checks.
- Accounting deductibility, legal damages, insurance, late interest, residue-sale proceeds, deposits and financing costs are excluded.
Do not combine additional compensation with the supplier goods-refund field.
- Editing monetary or date assumptions clears related confirmations.
Verify revised documents before reusing a previous lower-loss conclusion.
Inputs allow whole-KRW amounts up to 1 trillion, positive weights up to 1 billion kg with three decimals, dates in 2020–2099 and a modeled future span of 3,660 days; these are software limits, not legal thresholds.
Frequently asked questions
Must every rejected food import be disposed of?
Article 34 lists several actions, including return and removal to another country.
Confirm which route is permitted for your batch; this tool compares overseas removal and disposal only.
Does the tool automatically calculate the one-year deadline?
No.
Enter the notice receipt date and the actual deadline verified with the authority.
Holidays, adjustments and case-specific instructions are not automatically determined.
Does disposal approval guarantee recovery of all paid tax?
No.
An exception from tax collection is different from a refund of tax already paid.
Enter only a verified balance and actual cash recovery amount and date; confirm zero recovery explicitly when applicable.
Should an unanswered refund request be entered as zero?
Leave the amount missing and confirmation pending if it is unknown.
A proposed refund can be entered for a hypothetical scenario, but it does not produce a confirmed comparison.
Why is the original goods payment absent from cash required?
Net loss includes past payments.
Required cash measures additional money needed from the comparison date, so money already spent is not charged to the future cash requirement again.
What if a payment and refund occur on the same day?
Outflows are applied first when finding the lowest balance.
This conservative ordering avoids assuming that the incoming transfer always arrives before the payment is due.
May I wait for the displayed extra-storage allowance?
The figure assumes unchanged costs and recoveries.
It neither extends the authority deadline nor preserves an expiring supplier promise, freight slot or product condition.
Can I model third-country removal or partial batches?
Use the overseas route only after confirming third-country removal and destination admission for this batch.
For partial quantities, allocate verified balances and costs first, then review each batch separately.
Official sources and verification date
Current statute searches and individual articles were checked directly through the National Law Information OPEN API on 2026-10-27.
The Enforcement Rule is effective 2026-09-30, MST 290799; the Special Act is effective 2026-10-08, MST 285337; the Customs Act is effective 2026-10-02, MST 290673; and the Waste Control Act is effective 2026-09-18, MST 284397.
No precedent or interpretation ruling is cited, and all financial examples are hypothetical.
Prepare a handling plan from verified quotes and promises
Put your notice, refund promise and actual quotes on the same whole-batch basis.
The saved review preserves pending issues and assumptions so the authority and supplier can see which facts still need confirmation.
Recalculate when rules, approvals, quotes or receipt dates change.
Compare return and disposal loss and cash needs