NamRA Agent Liability 2026: What Importers Must Know

NamRA Agent Liability 2026: What the March 2025 Enforcement Update Means for Importers

The law has not changed. Section 110(1) of the Customs and Excise Act No. 20 of 1998 has always made clearing agents jointly and severally liable with the importer for unpaid customs duties on every declaration they sign. What changed in March 2025 is that NamRA began enforcing it — actively pursuing agents under Sections 108, 110, and 124 for outstanding duties and penalties, not waiting for importers to resolve the liability first.

NamRA Commissioner Sam Shivute directed the customs enforcement division to treat active enforcement of agent liability as a priority. If your clearing agent carries an outstanding Section 110 liability from any past shipment — any client, any commodity — NamRA can now move against them directly. Understanding what this means operationally, and how it reaches your cargo, requires reading the three relevant Act sections in sequence.

What the Law Has Always Said

The Customs and Excise Act No. 20 of 1998 establishes three interlocking provisions that together define clearing agent liability. All three existed before March 2025. What changed was enforcement posture, not the legal foundation.

Section 108(1): Agent Appointment

Section 108(1) requires a formal written appointment before any customs agent may act on behalf of an importer. The appointment must name the licensed agent, specify the scope of authority, and be retained by both parties.

A clearing agent who submits a SAD 500 declaration without a formal appointment letter in place is operating outside the strict requirements of the Act. An importer who has never provided a written appointment to their clearing agent has declarations on file that are technically non-compliant — which surfaces as a problem when NamRA conducts a post-clearance audit.

The practical step: request a copy of the appointment letter from your clearing agent. If they cannot produce one, draft and sign one before the next shipment. The appointment is a one-page document, not a complex legal instrument.

Section 110(1): The Liability Provision

Section 110(1) makes the clearing agent jointly and severally liable with the importer for all customs duties, penalties, surcharges, and forfeitures arising from any declaration the agent submits. "Jointly and severally" means NamRA can pursue either party — importer or agent — for the full outstanding amount, without first exhausting remedies against the other. There is no cap. There is no minimum threshold. Every declaration the agent signs creates this joint liability relationship.

Before March 2025, NamRA's standard practice was to pursue the importer first and resort to agent liability only in extreme cases. The March 2025 enforcement directive changed this — agents are now pursued directly and simultaneously with importers on outstanding duty recoveries.

Section 124: Duty Payable Immediately

Section 124 specifies that customs duty becomes payable immediately when the liability arises — not when NamRA issues a demand, not when the importer acknowledges the assessment, not when a dispute is resolved. If NamRA reassesses a past shipment and determines additional duty is owed, the liability dates from the original clearance. Interest accrues from that original date.

This provision closes the argument that an agent's liability only begins when a demand is formally issued. An agent who cleared goods 18 months ago — under a declaration that NamRA subsequently reassesses — owes any additional duty from the original clearance date, with interest running from then.

What Changed in March 2025

Before March 2025, Section 110 liability existed in the Act but was infrequently enforced against agents. The practical experience of most Walvis Bay clearing agents — and most importers — was that duty disputes were a matter between the importer and NamRA, with the agent as a facilitator.

The March 2025 enforcement directive changed the operational reality in specific ways:

• NamRA began issuing demands directly against clearing agents for unpaid duties on historical declarations, in cases where importers had not settled
• NamRA exercised the right under the Act to detain cargo belonging to an agent's current clients to recover outstanding duties from past shipments by other clients of the same agent
• Some clearing agents responded by requiring confirmed duty payment from importers before ASYCUDA World submission — adding a step to the process but eliminating their Section 110 exposure on each file
• A number of agents with accumulated unpaid duty liabilities from past clients faced NamRA demands against their own assets, not just their clients' cargo

For importers, the critical consequence of the second point: if your clearing agent is managing outstanding Section 110 liability from another client's past shipment, NamRA has legal authority to detain your cargo — cargo that has nothing to do with the underlying debt — to satisfy that liability. This is not a theoretical risk. It produced real cargo detentions at Walvis Bay during 2025.

What "Detention of Goods" Means Operationally

Under the Customs and Excise Act, NamRA can issue a detention order against cargo associated with a clearing agent's portfolio while outstanding duties are under recovery. Detention does not require a court order. NamRA notifies Namport directly. Walvis Bay Container Terminal holds the cargo on NamRA's instruction.

Storage accrues normally at N$800–1,200 per day for a 20ft container — while the underlying liability dispute between NamRA and the clearing agent is resolved. The importer is not the liable party, but the importer pays the port charges.

From the importer's position: your cargo is detained, you are not at fault, storage is accruing, and your options are either to apply to NamRA for release as an innocent third party — a formal process, not a phone call — or to wait for your agent to resolve their NamRA liability. Neither is fast. The better position is never to be there.

Why Your Choice of Agent Is Now a Financial Risk Decision

Before March 2025, the risk of a poor clearing agent was primarily operational: slow service, incorrect declarations, reactive channel management. The financial risk was largely contained to your own shipment.

After March 2025, the financial risk extends to the clearing agent's entire portfolio. An agent managing a large number of active files, some of which carry unresolved duty liabilities, carries a pool of potential Section 110 exposure. Any of those files can generate a NamRA demand against the agent. The detention mechanism means NamRA can reach any active cargo in that agent's portfolio — including yours — to recover debts from unrelated past shipments.

Three direct questions to put to your current or prospective clearing agent:

Does the agency have any outstanding NamRA demands or active Section 110 disputes? A legitimate agent answers directly. An evasive or vague answer is itself information.

What is the agency's policy on duty payment before ASYCUDA submission? Requiring confirmed payment before filing eliminates the agent's own Section 110 exposure per file. Extending unlimited credit to importers and absorbing the liability is a different risk profile. Both are choices; the point is that the agent should have a defined position on it.

How many NamRA licensed agents are on staff, and what is the total active file count? An agency running 400 active files under two licensed agents carries structural capacity risk that translates directly into compliance gaps — and compliance gaps are the source of Section 110 liability.

How to Protect Yourself as an Importer

Formal appointment letter: sign the Section 108(1) appointment letter before the first declaration is submitted. Keep a copy. This is required documentation under the Act and is the starting point for any regulatory or legal dispute.

NamRA licence verification: confirm the individual licence number of the agent who will personally submit your declarations. Verify it directly with NamRA at the Walvis Bay customs office or Windhoek head office. The licence is issued to a person, not a company. Ask that the specific licensed agent managing your file is named — not "the team."

Separate your clearance from high-risk portfolios: an agent who specialises in contested, high-value, or complex commodity types carries a higher Section 110 exposure profile than an agent primarily handling routine commercial cargo. If you import straightforward FCL general cargo, your risk exposure is not the same as your agent's — but your cargo sits in the same detention pool if NamRA acts.

Written fee and payment terms: agree in writing how duty payment is handled before the first shipment. If the agent extends credit, understand the volume of that exposure and the payment terms before the first file is opened.

We document our Section 108(1) appointment letters as standard practice, make individual licence numbers available on request, and require duty payment confirmation before ASYCUDA submission on new client relationships. These are not additional safeguards — they are baseline compliance under the Act.

The Criminal Dimension: Unlicensed Agents

Section 108(1) creates a criminal offence for unlicensed customs practice. Any person submitting SAD 500 declarations without a valid NamRA agent licence commits an offence under the Act. In the March 2025 enforcement environment, NamRA is actively identifying unlicensed ASYCUDA submissions — including cases where declarations appear under a licensed agent's credentials but were prepared and managed by unlicensed staff operating under that licence.

For the importer using an unlicensed operator:

• The unlicensed agent has no legal standing to accept Section 110 liability
• All liability for incorrect declarations falls directly on the importer
• A post-clearance audit that surfaces unlicensed submissions can result in penalties against the importer directly, regardless of whether the importer knew the agent was unlicensed
• NamRA's audit process does not treat "I didn't know" as a mitigating factor

Verifying the individual NamRA licence number before the first shipment — and confirming it with NamRA directly — eliminates this exposure. It takes a phone call or email to NamRA's Walvis Bay customs office.

Related Guides

For a full breakdown of clearing agent fees at Walvis Bay, the NamRA licence verification process, and the red flags to watch for before appointing an agent: see the clearing agents guide at /resources/clearing-agents-walvis-bay-namibia

For the questions to ask a clearing agent before appointing them — including compliance history checks and ASYCUDA access verification: see how to choose a customs clearing agent in Namibia at /resources/choosing-customs-clearing-agent-namibia

For the complete 8-step import process at Walvis Bay — document checklist, ASYCUDA channel timelines, and the five mistakes that hold cargo: see the complete 2026 import guide at /resources/how-to-import-into-namibia-walvis-bay-2026