Freight services
Shipping Medicines and Medical Equipment to South Sudan
One DDP price covering freight, clearance, duty and taxes, the compliance work and delivery to your facility door. Medical cargo is the most regulated thing that moves on this corridor, and handling that is the service rather than an extra.
Who this is for
Hospitals and clinics, pharmacies and wholesalers, pharmaceutical importers and distributors, laboratories, NGOs and UN agencies running health programmes, ministries and county health departments, medical equipment suppliers, and veterinary practices.
If you are moving health products into South Sudan and the paperwork is the part that worries you, this page is written for you.
What we move
Medicines and biologicals
- Prescription and over the counter medicines
- Antimalarials, antibiotics, antiretrovirals and tuberculosis medicines
- Vaccines and other products needing an unbroken cold chain
- Infusions, injectables and intravenous fluids
- Veterinary medicines, which have a page of their own
Diagnostics and laboratory
- Rapid diagnostic tests and test kits
- Reagents, controls and calibrators
- Analysers, centrifuges, microscopes and incubators
- Sample collection consumables, slides, tubes and media
- Laboratory refrigeration and freezers
Medical devices and equipment
- Imaging equipment, ultrasound, X ray and accessories
- Patient monitors, defibrillators, ventilators and oxygen concentrators
- Surgical instruments, operating lights and theatre equipment
- Dental chairs, units and instruments
- Dialysis, physiotherapy and rehabilitation equipment
- Hospital beds, trolleys, cabinets and furniture
Consumables and protection
- Gloves, gowns, masks and other protective equipment
- Syringes, needles, cannulae, catheters and sharps containers
- Dressings, sutures, gauze and bandages
- Disinfectants and sterilisation supplies
Some of these carry rules beyond the ordinary clearance process, and a few are outside what we can carry at all. Both are covered further down.
One DDP price
Most quotations for medical cargo arrive as a freight rate, after which the real costs appear one by one: clearance, duty, taxes, permit fees, storage while a document is chased, delivery. By the time the consignment reaches a clinic store, nobody can reconcile what was quoted with what was paid.
We quote DDP, delivered duty paid: one figure, agreed before anything moves.
The price covers:
- International freight from origin, by air or by sea and road
- Port or airport handling and release
- The transit movement through Kenya and Uganda where the cargo is coming from abroad
- Customs clearance into South Sudan
- South Sudan import duty and taxes
- The compliance work set out in the next section
- Delivery to your facility, not to a warehouse in Juba
- The delivery evidence pack
The price does not cover:
- Statutory fees payable to an authority for a licence, registration or marketing authorisation, which are passed through at cost with the receipt
- Cold chain beyond what was agreed, if a consignment arrives needing more than you told us
- Storage or demurrage caused by documents that never arrived
- Goods we cannot lawfully carry, covered below
Send us the product list, the quantities, the origin and the destination facility, and you will get one number and a written scope of what it includes.
Get a quotation
Tell us what you are shipping
Send us the cargo description, weight or volume, and the pickup and delivery addresses. We reply with a written rate, the transit time and the documents you will need.
When it has to fly
Health cargo is often time sensitive in a way general freight is not. A stockout at a clinic, an outbreak response, a product with a short remaining shelf life, a cold chain consignment that cannot survive the road time, a replacement part for an analyser that has stopped a laboratory. For all of those, we handle air freight, and the DDP price is quoted the same way: one figure, duty and taxes included, delivered to the facility.
Air is usually right for medical cargo. The goods are valuable relative to their weight, the cost of not having them is measured in patients rather than in money, and every day saved is a day of cold chain risk removed. Air freight is charged on chargeable weight, the greater of actual and volumetric weight, so dimensions matter as much as the scale reading.
One honest caveat, and it applies to every mode. Air shortens the journey, not the clearance. If a consignment needs a permit, a certificate or an authorisation, flying it in does not remove that requirement. What shortens the clearance is starting the regulatory work early, which is the whole argument of this page.
Where the cargo is heavy, bulky or not urgent, we will say so and quote the surface option instead. A pallet of hospital furniture does not need to fly, and we would rather tell you that than take the higher rate.
Nairobi to Juba air freight · Air versus road compared
The compliance work, done for you
This is the part most importers find hardest, and it is the part we take on.
We will:
- Classify every line properly, because medical consignments are rarely one tariff code and getting it wrong changes both the duty and the permits that apply
- Establish the customs value and assemble the evidence that supports it
- Identify every permit, licence, registration and certificate your consignment needs, before you place the order rather than after it lands
- Prepare the applications, lodge them with the right authority, and follow them up until a decision is issued
- Liaise with the Drug and Food Control Authority, the standards and customs authorities, and your supplier, so you are not relaying messages between them
- Chase your supplier for the technical documents the authorities will ask for, which is usually where the delay really sits
- Handle the transit declaration and bond through Kenya and Uganda
- Make the customs entry, pay the assessment and obtain release
- Keep the complete file so your auditors, your donor or your regulator can follow it
You will not need to understand HS classification, form C17, a transit bond, a certificate of conformity or a marketing authorisation dossier. That is the point of the service.
The two things that stay with you
We will tell you this at the start rather than after you have ordered, because no forwarder can change it and anyone who says otherwise is selling you a problem.
1. The importer must be licensed. South Sudanese law provides that regulated products cannot be imported for commercial or public use without a licence from the Drug and Food Control Authority, specifying the product range and the period it covers.
That licence attaches to the importing organisation. We can prepare and lodge the application, chase it and advise on what the Authority asks for. We cannot hold it for you.
2. The product needs to be authorised. The Act provides that regulated products are not to be imported or sold unless listed or covered by a marketing authorisation granted by the Authority. Again: we can do the work. The Authority makes the decision, and we will not promise you an outcome or a date.
If you do not have either, say so on day one. It is a solvable problem with a lead time, and it is a catastrophe discovered at Nimule with a reefer running. Some clients import through a licensed partner while their own application is in progress, and we are happy to work that way.
The regulatory map
Five separate things can apply to a medical consignment. They are granted by different bodies, on different timescales, and none of them substitutes for another.
| Requirement | Who decides | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Importer licence | Drug and Food Control Authority | Whether your organisation may import regulated products at all |
| Marketing authorisation or listing | Drug and Food Control Authority | Whether that specific product may be imported or sold |
| Import permit | Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment | Permits are mandatory for medicines and medical products |
| Certificate of Conformity | South Sudan National Bureau of Standards | Standards certification, obtained in the country of export before shipment |
| | Customs entry and assessment | National Revenue Authority | Classification, valuation, duty and taxes |
The Authority sits under the Ministry of Health.
The ordering matters. A Certificate of Conformity is obtained before the goods ship and cannot be arranged afterwards. A marketing authorisation can take far longer than the shipment. An import permit is specific to a consignment. Starting them in the wrong order is how a container ends up sitting while three separate clocks run.
Cold chain
If your consignment has a temperature requirement, it changes everything about how it moves, and it is the one area where a saved day is worth more than a saved dollar.
Tell us the range before you book. Two to eight degrees, below zero, controlled room temperature, and anything with a tighter tolerance are four different jobs with four different costs. A product shipped on the wrong assumption is a write off, not a delay.
Qualified packaging. Validated shippers rated for the transit duration you actually need, not the one everybody hopes for. A box qualified for 48 hours on a route that realistically takes longer is a false economy with a predictable ending.
Temperature monitoring throughout. Data loggers travel inside the consignment and the record comes to you with the delivery pack, so you can see the whole journey rather than take our word for it.
Excursions are reported, not buried. If a consignment goes out of range, you hear it from us with the data, and you decide what happens to the product. Your quality team makes that call, not your freight forwarder.
Dry ice is a dangerous good. It is routine on cold chain air shipments and it is declared and documented as the regulated substance it is. Undeclared dry ice gets consignments offloaded.
Air is usually the answer, because every extra day is a day of cold chain risk, and the freight premium is small against the value of what is inside. Nairobi to Juba air freight
Handover is the weak point. We agree in advance who receives the consignment at the facility and that they can take it straight into their own cold store. A reefer box sitting in the sun outside a locked pharmacy has defeated the entire chain.
What we cannot carry
Said plainly, because finding out late is expensive.
- Controlled substances and narcotics under international control. These need permissions that go well beyond ordinary import licensing, and we do not take them on the basis that the paperwork will follow.
- Products whose import is prohibited, or which are not permitted for the use proposed.
- Goods with insufficient remaining shelf life. Regulators commonly require a minimum proportion of shelf life remaining on arrival. Confirm the current requirement with the Authority for your product before shipping, because a consignment refused on dating is rarely salvageable.
- Anything you are unwilling to describe accurately on the invoice and packing list.
Packing and handling
Medical cargo fails in specific ways, and most of them are preventable.
Glass and primary packaging. Ampoules, vials and reagent bottles are cushioned on all six sides in their original cartons. Original manufacturer packaging stays intact, because repacking a regulated product is not a decision a forwarder should be making.
Diagnostics and reagents. Kept upright, kept in range, and kept away from anything that could contaminate them. Reagent kits are shipped as supplied rather than split, so lot numbers stay with the materials they belong to.
Electronics and instruments. Analysers, monitors and imaging equipment are crated with internal bracing and moisture barriers, with shock indicators where the value justifies knowing whether a unit was dropped. Where we crate in solid wood the timber is debarked, heat treated and marked to the international standard.
Batteries inside devices. Defibrillators, monitors and portable analysers very often contain cells that are regulated for transport. Tell us. An undeclared battery can get an entire consolidated load offloaded.
Oxygen and compressed gas. Cylinders and concentrators are different problems. Say which you have.
Sterile and single use items. Kept dry and kept sealed. A compromised sterile barrier makes the product unusable even though it looks perfect.
Marking. Every piece marked with the consignee facility and a piece number, with the packing list written from the actual packing so an inspection takes an hour rather than a day.
Delivered to your door
Medical cargo does not help anybody sitting in a warehouse in Juba. We deliver to the facility: the hospital store, the pharmacy, the clinic, the laboratory, the county health department, the programme warehouse.
That includes well beyond Juba. We run on to Kapoeta, Torit, Bor, Bentiu, Malakal, Rumbek, Wau, Aweil, Yambio and Yei, and to smaller places where the route allows it. Field movements are quoted per consignment, because the season and the state of the road decide the route and the timing. We will tell you what is realistic for the time of year rather than a date that suits the sale.
Tell us at quotation stage who will receive the consignment, whether the facility has cold storage, and whether there is anybody there outside working hours. A delivery that arrives when the store is locked is a cold chain problem waiting to happen.
Proof of delivery
Every delivery comes back with:
- A signed delivery note naming who received it at the facility and when
- Photographs taken at the delivery point
- Video of the handover where you want it
- The piece count checked against the packing list at the gate
- The temperature record for the whole journey where the consignment was cold chain
For a health programme that pack is usually what closes out a distribution report, satisfies a donor, or answers a regulator. We assemble it as a matter of course rather than on request.
What we need from you
- The commercial invoice, showing what was actually paid, in the currency paid
- The packing list, produced from the actual packing, with piece counts and weights
- Product details: name, strength, presentation, pack size, manufacturer and country of manufacture
- Batch numbers and expiry dates for medicines and reagents
- Certificates of analysis, where the product has them
- Good manufacturing practice certificates for the manufacturer, where required
- Your importer licence and any product authorisation, or a clear statement that you do not yet have them so we can start that conversation early
- The temperature requirement, stated explicitly rather than assumed
Send these as the supplier issues them, not when the cargo arrives. Almost every slow medical consignment we see was slow because a document existed somewhere and nobody had sent it.
What South Sudan customs will ask for · How classification works
Planning the timing
Medical importers routinely plan around the shipping time and are surprised by the approvals. Plan it the other way round.
- Start the regulatory work when you raise the purchase order. Not at booking, and certainly not on arrival.
- Treat a Certificate of Conformity as a production lead time item, because it is obtained before shipment and cannot be fixed later.
- Assume a first consignment of a new product takes longer than a repeat order of something already authorised.
- Do not let a clinical date depend on an approval that has not been granted. If the timing genuinely cannot move, tell us and we will tell you honestly whether it is realistic.
- Air shortens the journey, not the clearance. Flying a consignment in does not remove a permit requirement.
Importing medicines for the first time
Plenty of clinics, pharmacies and new distributors import for the first time without any idea where to begin, and there is no reason they should.
Send us: what you want to buy, the quantities, who the supplier is, where it is going, and whether you already hold an importer licence.
We will come back with: what the consignment needs in order to be lawful, what we can handle for you, what has to be in your own name, a realistic view of the timing, and one DDP price.
If what you are proposing is not going to work, you will hear that from us straight away. It is a cheaper conversation than the alternative.
Related
- Veterinary medicine and animal health products
- Humanitarian cargo and exempted goods
- South Sudan customs clearance
- Certificate of Conformity
- South Sudan import documents
- Nairobi to Juba air freight
- What we do not ship
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What does the DDP price actually include?
International freight, handling and release at the port or airport, the transit movement through Kenya and Uganda, customs clearance, South Sudan import duty and taxes, the compliance work, delivery to your facility and the delivery evidence pack. One figure, agreed before anything moves. Statutory fees payable to an authority for a licence or registration are passed through at cost with the receipt.
Do you really handle all the compliance?
We do the work: classification, valuation, identifying every permit and certificate your consignment needs, preparing and lodging the applications, liaising with the Drug and Food Control Authority and the standards and customs authorities, chasing your supplier for technical documents, and making the entry. Two things cannot be done for you, and we say so up front: the importer licence has to be in your organisation's name, and the Authority decides on product authorisation. We can prepare and chase both.
We are not licensed to import medicines yet. Can you still help?
Tell us on day one. It is a solvable problem with a lead time, and a catastrophe discovered at the border with a reefer running. We can prepare and lodge the application and advise on what the Authority asks for. Some clients import through a licensed partner while their own application is in progress, and we are happy to work that way.
Can you handle cold chain shipments?
Yes, but tell us the temperature range before you book rather than after. Two to eight degrees, below zero and controlled room temperature are different jobs with different costs. We use validated shippers rated for the transit duration you actually need, data loggers travel inside the consignment, and the full temperature record comes to you with the delivery pack. If there is an excursion you hear it from us with the data, and your quality team decides what happens to the product.
Will you tell us if a shipment goes out of temperature range?
Always, with the data. Burying an excursion would make us a liability rather than a supplier, and the decision about whether the product is still usable belongs to your quality team, not to your freight forwarder.
Can you ship controlled substances?
No. Narcotics and substances under international control need permissions well beyond ordinary import licensing, and we do not take them on the basis that the paperwork will follow. Tell us what is in the consignment and we will tell you what is possible.
Is there a minimum shelf life requirement?
Regulators commonly require a minimum proportion of shelf life remaining on arrival. We will not quote you a figure we cannot tie to a current requirement, so confirm it with the Authority for your product before shipping. A consignment refused on dating is rarely salvageable, which makes it worth a phone call.
Do you deliver to facilities outside Juba?
Yes, including Kapoeta, Torit, Bor, Bentiu, Malakal, Rumbek, Wau, Aweil, Yambio and Yei. Tell us who will receive the consignment, whether the facility has cold storage, and whether anybody is there outside working hours. A delivery that arrives at a locked store is a cold chain problem waiting to happen.
What proof of delivery do we get?
A signed delivery note naming who received it at the facility, photographs at the delivery point, video of the handover where you want it, the piece count checked against the packing list, and the full temperature record where the consignment was cold chain. For a health programme that pack usually closes out a distribution report or answers a donor.
How far ahead should we start?
Start the regulatory work when you raise the purchase order, not at booking. A Certificate of Conformity is a production lead time item because it is obtained before shipment and cannot be fixed later. A first consignment of a new product takes longer than a repeat order of something already authorised. Air shortens the journey, not the clearance.
Before you rely on this page
This page is published as general guidance for people shipping cargo to South Sudan. It is not legal advice and it isn't customs advice. Duty rates, fees, permits and procedures are set by the authorities named above and they change. South Sudan sets its tax and duty rates in an annual Financial Act, so what applies to your goods depends on the date they are entered.
We don't publish duty rates, penalty amounts or clearance fees that we cannot tie to a current official source. Where a figure matters to your costing, confirm it with the relevant authority or ask us to check it for your specific goods and HS code before you ship.