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Bangladesh Customs

department · partial (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head
—
Role
Commissioner (Chattogram Custom House, the principal revenue-collecting commissionerate)
Annual budget
—
Staff
—
Established
1972
Legal basis
Customs Act, 2023 (Act No. LVII of 2023; gazetted 2023, effective 6 June 2024), which replaced the Customs Act, 1969 (Act No. IV of 1969, applied to Bangladesh by President's Order No. 48 of 1972); supplementary legal instruments include the Customs (Import and Export) Rules, the Harmonised Customs Tariff (revised annually with the national budget), and the Customs Act, 1969 amended versions in force during the transition period

Chattogram Custom House, handling the bulk of Bangladesh's import duty revenue, collected Tk 66,062 crore in July-April FY2025-26 (up 7.81 percent year-on-year) but is running approximately Tk 16,000 crore short of its annual target; the Petrobangla/BPC duty arrears of approximately Tk 34,000 crore remain unresolved and continue to distort collection figures; ASYCUDA World-A-Challan integration (live July 2025) enables 24/7 online duty payment but intermittent server performance has caused Chattogram port clearance backlogs; the Customs Act 2023 is in effect since June 2024.

Recent activity

Provenance & notes

Bangladesh Customs operates as the customs administration arm of NBR, not as a standalone department with a single director general; it is organized into commissionerates (Chattogram Custom House at chc.gov.bd being the largest, plus Dhaka Custom House at dch.gov.bd, Benapole, and others). The Customs Act 2023 (effective 6 June 2024) replaced the Customs Act 1969 and introduced Bangla-language statute, AEO, MRA, post-clearance audit, and WTO TFA alignment. The current_head field is null because Bangladesh Customs has no single named head: each commissionerate has its own Commissioner; the Chattogram Custom House Commissioner (Mohammad Shafi Uddin per the chc.gov.bd officer list, though this could not be independently verified from a second primary source as of 2026-05-17) leads the most significant revenue unit. head_since is null for the same reason. staff_count and annual_budget_bdt are null: no centralized staffing or operational budget figure for Bangladesh Customs as a whole appears in available primary sources; the NBR Capacity Building document at nbr.gov.bd references sanctioned post categories but the numerical totals are not in the publicly accessible excerpt. verification_status is 'partial' because: (1) the current Chattogram Commissioner's name could not be confirmed from two independent primary sources; (2) a centralized staff count is not publicly available; (3) the BPC/Petrobangla duty arrear figures are cross-confirmed by TBS News and The Daily Star (two independent primary sources) and are therefore verified; (4) revenue collection figures are cross-confirmed by The Daily Star and The Financial Express. The Customs Act 2023 establishment date of 1972 in established_year reflects the formal establishment of Bangladesh Customs as a distinct agency under NBR Order 1972; the current governing statute is the Customs Act 2023.

Sources