Customs urges travellers to fill declaration form while carrying money and valuables, warns against refusal

The General Authority of Customs (GAC) has issued a travel advisory for carrying money, valuables and financial instruments. “Any person upon entering or leaving the state and in possession of any currency, financial bearer negotiable instruments or precious metals or stones equivalent to or exceeding QR 50000 or it's equivalent in for­eign currencies, must fill the declaration form, and any additional in­formation requested by the customs officer must also be provided,” GAC tweeted. The form, according to the tweet, is filled in at the customs declaration office at all air, sea or land travel outlets.

The implementation of this system comes in application of the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law No. 20 of 2019 and Cabinet Resolution No. 41 of 2019 to issue it's executive regulations.Items to be declared, according to GAC, are currencies including Qatari currencies or other foreign currencies and negotiable currencies or financial instruments. These are cheques, promissory notes, and money orders that are either in bearer form, endorsed without restriction, made out of to a fictitious payee, or otherwise in such form that title thereto passes upon delivery. These also include incomplete instruments including cheques, promissory notes and money orders signed, but with the payee's name omitted. Precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals along with precious stones like diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls and others also should be declared. GAC has warned against false declaration saying giving incorrect information will draw action. “False declaration or refusal to provide additional information to the customs authorities on the source of the currency, financial bearer negotiable instru­ments or precious metals or stones equal to or greater than QR 50,000 or it's equivalent in foreign currencies exposes you to penalties that may amount to imprisonment or fines, as well as the seizure of such funds,” GAC said. These, according to the information available on GAC website, are subject to penalties that may reach imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years or fines not less than QR 100,000 and not more than QR 500,000 or twice the value of the transferred funds, whichever is more, in addition to confiscating such funds.