I’m at the airport about to return to the US and bought some candy and a water bottle in a shop I didn’t realize was duty-free. I’ve been avoiding duty-free/tax-free shops because I don’t understand how it works. How does duty free shopping work? And when can I open my bag?
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If you’re in the airport, they just don’t charge you tax in the first place. That’s why they check your passport and boarding pass before completing the transaction – to ensure that you’re eligible for a tax-free purchase.
You can open your bag whenever you want. The purpose of it is so that if you have a layover, your purchases are appropriately marked as duty-free when you go through security again (e.g. if you bought a bottle of liquor). If you intend to eat your candy and drink your water on the plane, the special seal doesn’t matter.
To you. It is just another shop. The duty free bit is that the shop is allowed to sell goods that the government waived duties on (import tariffs etc). So they can be lower priced than the same goods sold elsewhere in the country.
You can open the goods any time after purchase like any other goods. You can even consume the goods while waiting in the airport terminal. Since you are leaving the country, Japan doesn’t really care what you do with the goods since you”re not even bringing them back into Japan.
The goods that you need to pay a bit of attention to are things like cigarettes and liquor. But the problem is when ARRIVING not departing. Most countries only allow travelers to bring a limited amount of these goods when entering the country. (Generally 1 liter of liquor and 1 carton of cigarettes is safe. But some countries have started to not allow cigarettes at all).
If you do exceed the limit the worse case is that you have to give up the goods to customs upon arrival. The more likely case is that you will be charged duties at customs on arrival.
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