How much capital a first import from China needs

A first import from China ties up between 1.5 and 2.5 times the value of the factory invoice: on a 6,000 USD order you have to pay out around 9,659 USD before selling the first unit —goods, commission, inspection, freight, duty, DTA, VAT and customs clearance— and that money does not come back until the product sells, between 55 and 150 days later. Capital is not the price of the goods: it is everything that goes out before a dollar comes in, plus the buffer to withstand how long the goods take to sell.

The opening mistake: budgeting the goods and not the operation

Almost everyone budgets the factory invoice and discovers the rest of the line items when they can no longer decide anything. Goods and services are paid when the order is confirmed; freight, when the cargo is consolidated; taxes and clearance, at the destination customs; and storage and the cost of money are paid every week the product does not sell, without appearing as a line item.

Capital needed = goods + services + freight + taxes + certification + storage + selling buffer. The selling buffer is the one that is almost never calculated and is usually the largest.

The cash timeline: when each dollar goes out

The money does not go out all at once or come back all at once: the peak of tied-up capital is reached at clearance, when you have already paid for everything and have not sold anything yet.

Example: 3,000 units of an accessory at 2.00 USD ex-works —a 6,000 USD invoice—, 2.4 m³, consolidated sea freight to Mexico City, 7% band. Freight, duty and clearance are assumptions, not rates.

The total is 1.61 times the invoice and at that point you have sold nothing. If the VAT is not recoverable —DDP with a third party as the registered importer— those 1,185 USD stop being treasury and become cost. The payment goes in two parts: goods, commission and services first; freight later, when the cargo is already in Shenzhen and the real weight is known. MeliPrep bills it at cost.

The goods take between 35 and 65 days to arrive by sea, and from that point the clock nobody measures starts: the selling clock. By air freight it drops to 15 or 35 days, and the sea range varies by customs office and season. A product that turns in 45 days returns the capital in under four months; one that turns in 120 returns it in more than six, and that time is paid for even if you issue no invoice.

The cost of capital: the line that makes a slow product look profitable

Tied-up capital has a price even if it appears on no invoice: capital tied up × annual rate × days ÷ 365. Ignoring it does not make the money free: it makes slow-moving products look better, because their real cost is spread over months nobody accounts for.

With the example: 8,474 USD tied up —everything except the recoverable VAT—, 120 average days and a 24% annual rate, an assumption of the example and not a market rate: use the cost of your credit line or the return you give up.

8,474 × 0.24 × 120 ÷ 365 = USD 668.63, about USD 0.22 per unit

Across 3,000 units, 0.22 USD per unit is more than labelling each one. And doubling the selling time doubles the line: the same 8,474 USD tied up for 240 days costs 1,337 USD, or 0.45 USD per unit. Two references with identical landed cost and price are not equally profitable if one takes twice as long to sell: the second needs more margin per unit, and it is not on the product sheet.

How much to order the first time: less than you think

The first order should be the smallest the supplier will accept and one that lets you read demand: its job is not to make money, it is to answer whether the product sells. The trade-off is real: a small order has a worse unit price and worse freight, because the MOQ is negotiated by volume and transport is charged by m³ with fixed costs per shipment.

But that saving is calculated on units you may not sell. Buying 5,000 units of a product that does not work turns liquid capital into idle goods, which costs money every week. Buying 1,000 costs more per unit and leaves money for the second order.

On a first order, information is worth more than unit economics: it answers whether the product sells at the calculated price, whether returns behave as you assumed and whether the supplier repeats quality. And you should order what you can sell within the replenishment window: if restocking takes 45 days, the first order covers 45 days of sales plus a margin, and nothing more.

The three decisions that turn a first import into a cash crisis

A product that does not sell is not a margin problem, it is a liquidity problem.

1. One SKU in depth instead of several shallow SKUs. Spreading the capital across three references bought in small quantities costs more per unit and gives worse freight, but it prevents one wrong product from taking the whole budget.

2. A calendar that lands the goods after the season. For Buen Fin, in mid-November, the cargo has to leave China at the end of August; an October order arrives in January. In China the equivalent shutdown is Chinese New Year: in 2027 it falls on Saturday 6 February and, although the law guarantees eight days of holiday, production does not return to normal until two to four weeks later. A January order is manufactured in March and arrives in May.

3. Spending the marketing budget on inventory. If all the capital becomes stock, nothing is left to generate the demand that moves it. And idle stock does not wait for free: storage is billed per unit and per day in platform warehouses, with long-term storage surcharges, while the capital stays tied up.

What it means to have enough capital

Enough is not what the order costs: it is three amounts at once, and the largest is not the invoice.

1. Paying for goods, services, freight and taxes. In the example, 9,659 USD on a 6,000 invoice: 1.61 times, and the figure is only known at the end, because duty is paid at clearance.
2. Surviving three months without selling a single unit. Fixed obligations have to be covered with money that is not in goods. If stock is your only liquid asset, you do not have a business: you have a warehouse.
3. Placing the second order while the first is selling. The replenishment lead time is five to ten weeks; waiting until you run out of stock means being off catalogue for that time.

Enough capital is on the order of 2 to 2.5 times the value of the invoice, available and not committed. The multiplier is not an industry rule: it comes from adding the outlay before the first sale, the three-month buffer and the second order.

Mexico, Argentina and Brazil: what changes in the cash

The mechanism is identical in all three countries; what changes is how much goes out at clearance, when it is recovered and what happens if you are late.

In Mexico, the 16% import VAT is recoverable if you import with your RFC and you are the registered importer; on DDP with a third party as the registered importer you do not receive an invoice in your own name and it is a final cost. The DTA, 8 per thousand, is not recovered. And tariff rates stopped being stable: the December 2025 decree raised the rates on 1,463 TIGIE tariff lines to 5%–50% for countries without a treaty, in force until 31 December 2026. The amount you will pay at clearance can differ from what you calculated when you placed the order. Goods not removed from the customs warehouse also cause tacit abandonment: two months, plus 15 working days under article 32 of the Customs Law, before they pass to the Federal Treasury.

In Brazil, the tax burden is a cascade and not a single rate: on the customs value are applied the Import Tax according to the NCM, the IPI, the import PIS and COFINS, the Siscomex, the capatazias and the AFRMM, which charges 8% on long-haul sea freight; the state ICMS is calculated on a gross-up basis and changes from state to state. On consumer goods that can multiply the invoice several times over, and it is paid at clearance. Add ANATEL homologation and Inmetro certification where applicable, both paid before shipment: capital tied up from day one. After 90 days without the owner recovering the cargo, a perdimento process is opened.

In Argentina, payment abroad is processed through the bank under exchange rules amended several times: confirm with your bank the requirement in force on the day of payment. Goods can remain in a bonded warehouse under suspensive customs destination, and that storage is billed. The payment calendar has to be built with room to spare: you do not control the exact day each line goes out.

The honest close: if it only adds up when everything goes well, the order is too big

The test of whether the order is the right size is not the expected margin, but what happens if the product does not sell: if the arithmetic only works when everything goes right first time, the order is too big and has to be reduced. There is a size at which getting it wrong is learned from instead of ending the operation.

A first order is not there to make money: it is there to buy information with money. What you have to pay out —one and a half to two times the invoice, including taxes— is worked out with a table; what you have to have available so as not to depend on a fast sell-through —double or two and a half times— is decided before you send the link.