Landed cost from India to Bangladesh: CIF to warehouse door
891 words · 8/6/2026
"Landed cost" is what the goods actually cost you sitting in your Dhaka warehouse — not the supplier's invoice, not CIF, not even the customs-cleared value. Get the full formula and you can quote customers with a real margin; miss any of the eight line items and your P&L lies to you.
The complete landed-cost formula
Landed cost (BDT, per unit)
= FOB (India) ← supplier invoice
+ Ocean/road freight ← forwarder
+ Marine insurance (~0.15% of CIF) ← insurer or forwarder
= CIF value (assessable base)
+ CD + RD + SD + VAT + AIT + AT ← NBR duties (see progressive-base article)
+ CHA/C&F agent fees ← clearing agent
+ Port handling / demurrage ← Chittagong / Benapole / Mongla
+ Inland transport to warehouse ← trucking
+ Warehouse receipt & put-away ← 3PL or own
+ Bank charges (LC opening, retirement, FX spread)
+ Financing cost of working capital ← days x rate
────────────────────────────────────────
= Landed cost in BDT, ready to sell
Then divide by units received (net of shrinkage) for per-unit landed cost, which is the number that goes into your gross-margin math.
Realistic numbers for a 20-foot FCL, Mumbai → Dhaka via Benapole
For a container of INR 25 lakh FOB value (~BDT 32 lakh at 1.28):
| Line | BDT | % of FOB |
|---|---|---|
| FOB (INR 25L @ 1.28) | 32,00,000 | 100.0% |
| Road freight Mumbai–Petrapole | 1,80,000 | 5.6% |
| Marine insurance | 5,100 | 0.2% |
| CIF | 33,85,100 | 105.8% |
| Customs duty stack (avg 45%) | 15,23,295 | 47.6% |
| CHA / C&F fees | 25,000 | 0.8% |
| Port handling (Benapole) | 45,000 | 1.4% |
| Trucking Benapole → Dhaka | 35,000 | 1.1% |
| Warehouse receipt | 12,000 | 0.4% |
| LC + FX charges (bank) | 55,000 | 1.7% |
| Financing (60 days @ 12%) | 66,900 | 2.1% |
| Landed cost | 51,47,295 | 160.9% |
So the container of goods that "cost" INR 25 lakh actually costs BDT 51.5 lakh in your warehouse. Mark it up from FOB and you are pricing at loss.
The line items importers most often miss
- Marine insurance — often bundled by forwarder invisibly; if you skip it and there is a claim, no recovery.
- Demurrage / detention — free-day windows at Benapole and Chittagong Port are tight (typically 4 days). Miss and it is BDT 3–8k per day per container.
- Bank FX spread — the spread between the interbank rate and your bank's LC rate is 0.5–1.5%. On a BDT 30L LC that is up to BDT 45,000 hidden cost.
- Working capital financing — money is tied up from LC opening to sale. At 12% and 60 days, that is 2% of CIF gone.
- Shrinkage — 0.5–2% of units arrive damaged or short. Cost the survivors, not the shipped quantity.
- CHA out-of-pocket — port stamps, transport within port, courier — usually invoiced separately.
- Compliance retention — some SROs require post-import bond or documentary retention that ties up capital.
Sea vs land vs air — quick decision matrix
| Route | Best when | Typical door-to-door | Landed premium vs sea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sea Nhava Sheva → Chittagong | Bulk, non-urgent, CIF > BDT 20L | 18–28 days | baseline |
| Road via Petrapole–Benapole | Time-sensitive, general cargo, LCL | 5–8 days | +8–15% |
| Air (Kolkata/Delhi → Dhaka) | High-value, low-weight, urgent | 1–3 days | +40–120% |
Land is usually the sweet spot for goods under 20 tonnes with 1–2 week urgency.
Building this into your pricing
Every SKU should carry a stored landed cost that recalculates on each shipment. Do not average across years — INR/BDT FX and freight move enough to invalidate old numbers. The Landed Cost module does this automatically per receipt, prorates shared shipment charges across SKUs by weight or value, and pushes the per-unit BDT cost into your margin dashboard.
Free landed-cost spreadsheet: the formula above, in Excel — download from the Duty Calculator page.
Sources
- Bangladesh Bank, Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions Vol. 1, Ch. 7 (LC)
- Chittagong Port Authority tariff schedule 2025
- Benapole Land Port Authority operational circulars
- ICC Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP 600)
Numbers above are illustrative for a mid-2026 shipment. Your actual freight, bank spreads, and CHA fees will differ — get real quotes before finalising a customer price. This article is educational, not commercial advice.
Where the unsold remainder goes
No consumer-goods consignment sells through entirely at first price. Size breaks, returns and cosmetically damaged units typically account for 5-15% of a shipment, and they clear through Bangladesh's resale and liquidation channels rather than primary retail — online through independent marketplaces such as Resale.bd, or offline through trade buyers in Dhaka and Chattogram. Recovery on that portion belongs in the margin model before the order is placed; the mechanics are set out in the resale and secondary market guide.