Importing shisha charcoal to Lebanon: start with the code, because the usual one is wrong here

By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · Reviewed by Budi Hartanto, shipping specialist · Last updated 24 August 2026

Import status in one paragraph

Coconut shell charcoal is an ordinary commercial import into Lebanon, and its heading is 44.02 — whose printed Lebanese description names shell and nut charcoal outright. But the six-digit subheading almost every guide quotes for this product, 4402.20, does not exist in the Lebanese tariff. That is the single most useful thing on this page and it is checkable in about a minute. What this page will not give you is a duty figure, a tax figure or a fee — a deliberate rule for this market, and one we applied before looking rather than after.

Lebanon's heading 44.02 has two subheadings, and neither is the one you were given

Read on 24 August 2026 from the Directorate General of Lebanese Customs' own Chapter 44 tariff table, the heading and its complete subheading run print as follows. The Arabic is the authority's text; the English is our translation of it.

Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions, which is why the answer is not obvious. Shell charcoal is expressly named inside the heading text, so there is no question that your goods belong in 44.02. But Lebanon publishes no "of shell or nut" subheading beneath it, so at six digits the goods fall to the residual line, 4402.90, "other". Being named in the heading and landing on the residual subheading is not a contradiction — it is what a tariff looks like when it has not adopted a later nomenclature revision.

Why this is worth a paragraph rather than a footnote

Because the wrong code is what the internet currently hands you. For this query in Lebanon the generated answer that sits above the organic results states that charcoal "typically falls under Heading 4402 (e.g., 4402.20 for coconut/nut shell charcoal or 4402.90 for general wood charcoal)", and cites a supplier's blog for it. That sentence is a reasonable description of the international nomenclature and of plenty of national tariffs. It is not a description of Lebanon's, and the destination tariff is the only one that governs your buyer's declaration.

A subheading that does not exist in the destination tariff is not a small clerical matter. It is the field the entry is built on: it drives the classification, and everything assessed afterwards is assessed against it. A declaration citing 4402.20 at Beirut is citing a line the Lebanese schedule does not contain, and that is found at the counter rather than in a spreadsheet. The general argument about which six-digit line this product belongs on is on our 4402 20 versus 4402 90 page; Lebanon is the case where the question answers itself, because only one of the two is printed.

What Lebanese Customs publishes — and what it does not

This is worth setting out plainly, because the shape of what an authority publishes tells you where your answers will have to come from. Lebanese Customs runs a substantial public site. Its published sections, read on 24 August 2026, cover the integrated national tariff and its amendments, the general rules for interpreting the Harmonized System, complementary notes, exemptions, a government controls list, all trade agreements, tariff classifications, seven kinds of trade statistics, laws and decrees, administrative memos, and a traveller's guide.

There is no import-procedure section. No clearance walkthrough, no declaration guide, no entry-ports page, and nothing describing the sequence a commercial consignment actually follows. The site's FAQ is written for travellers — duty on a personal mobile phone, where to pay it, personal-effects allowances. So the procedural half of an import question is not answered where an exporter would look for it, and any guide that presents a tidy Lebanese clearance sequence is not getting it from the authority, because the authority does not publish one. Compare Jordan next door, which publishes its import procedure product by product as a treaty obligation. Two neighbouring customs administrations, two completely different postures towards publication.

The governing instrument does exist and is published: the Customs Law, Decree No. 4461 of 15 December 2000, downloadable from the Laws and Decrees section. We name it and quote nothing from it, for an honest reason — the file is a 161-page image-only scan with no text layer, so we could not read it, and we would rather tell you that than paraphrase a statute we have not opened.

One thing the authority does publish, and it is current

Among its announcements is a live instruction to importing companies and institutions: they must complete and return a designated form to Customs. Two details in it are the kind that get a submission bounced rather than merely delayed — the financial-number field must be entered in full, described in the notice as obligatory and necessary, and the data must be filled in Arabic following the format of an attached table while the numerals themselves are written in Western digits. This is an obligation on the Lebanese buyer rather than on an Indonesian shipper, which is exactly why it is worth your knowing about before you accept an order from a first-time counterparty. We have not opened the form itself, so we make no claim about the rest of its fields, and announcements move — check the news index rather than trusting our reading date.

Restrictions: what we checked, and the half we could not

Lebanese Customs publishes a restrictions-and-prohibitions table in two parts. We loaded the one covering the Ministry of Public Health and the Industrial Research Institute and read it in full: 1,049 rows, 534 distinct six-digit codes, spanning 54 chapters from chapter 02 to chapter 96. Chapter 44 does not appear on it at all — the list runs from chapter 42 straight to chapter 48. Because the lookup demonstrably works and returns hundreds of real codes, that absence is a reading rather than a failed query, which is the distinction that makes it worth publishing.

The second list did not load for us, across two attempts, so its contents are unread. We are therefore not telling you that charcoal is unrestricted in Lebanon — only that it does not appear on the health-authority list, and that we could not open the other one. That is a narrower statement than you will find elsewhere, and it is the one the evidence supports. Put the question to your buyer's clearing agent in writing.

Arrival, and the half of this that is settled at origin

Beirut is the country's principal sea gateway, and the port authority publishes its own site covering the port, its free zone, its statistics, its shipping agencies and its tenders, alongside a container terminal operator with a track-and-trace facility. It is actively maintained. One practical note for anyone trying to verify this themselves: the port authority is not on a government domain — it sits on a commercial one, which we found through Lebanese Customs' own list of official links after four plausible government-domain guesses failed to resolve. When you need a Lebanese agency, follow the authority's link list rather than guessing the pattern.

We publish no sailing time for this route. No carrier primary was reachable for Lebanon in preparing this page, and a transit figure repeated from a directory is exactly the sort of number that ages badly on a market like this one — routings in the eastern Mediterranean are in flux. Confirm current transit with your carrier, or with our export desk at the time of booking.

What does not change with the destination is that charcoal ships as declared dangerous goods, and that this is decided at origin rather than on arrival — classification, carrier acceptance, the weathering and packing conditions and the accompanying declaration are covered in the shipping and dangerous-goods section, the classification in UN 1361 under IMDG 42-24, and the paperwork in the export document set. The universal document set is on our import documentation page. The point that bears specifically on a Lebanese entry: the goods description on the dangerous-goods declaration, on the invoice and on any certificate of origin all have to agree with each other and with the tariff line your buyer declares — and on this route that line is the residual one.

Why this page publishes no cost figure

Lebanon is one of four markets where this site publishes no duty, tax or fee. Rates here move faster than a reference page can honestly track, and a number we would not stand behind in three months is worse for you than no number at all. So we did not merely omit them: we did not look them up. Six rate pages across Lebanese Customs and the port authority were located during this research and deliberately left unopened. A figure held in mind has a way of turning into a hedge, an "approximately", a range — and a range on a page like this reads as guidance.

We will say where they live, because withholding a figure and withholding its location are different things. Lebanese Customs publishes its integrated national tariff, its amendments, its general exemptions and reduced rates, and a page of duties and taxes on special commodities; the Port of Beirut publishes its own tariffs separately. That is the authoritative source, and it is the one your clearing agent will quote against.

What we publish instead of figures is method: our landed-cost methodology works the same in Lebanon as anywhere, only the inputs differ. Ask for a written, dated, itemised quotation against your buyer's actual declaration, each line marked as duty, tax, or port and handling, so a later change shows up as a change instead of vanishing into a total. And be careful with landed totals you find published for this market: a single figure that cannot be traced to an instrument is an estimate wearing a quotation's clothes. Lebanon's row in the master import guide's country index carries the same withholding, beside the eight markets whose figures are published.

What Lebanese importers must verify is the method in full: the five things to ask for in writing before booking, a dated demonstration of two published customs-dollar figures disagreeing on one results page, and what the record does and does not settle about entering through another country's port.

Questions Lebanese importers ask

Which code should our broker declare?

Take it from the Lebanese schedule rather than from an international reference. Heading 44.02 expressly covers shell and nut charcoal, and beneath it Lebanon prints only 4402.10 for bamboo and 4402.90 for other — so this product sits on 4402.90. Confirm it with your clearing agent against the current table, which is where any future amendment would appear first.

What will this cost to clear?

We do not publish that for this market, and we did not look it up. Lebanese Customs publishes the tariff and the exemptions itself, and the Port of Beirut publishes its own charges — go there, or have a licensed clearing agent quote against your actual declaration, itemised.

Is charcoal restricted or prohibited in Lebanon?

Not on the health-authority restrictions list — we read it in full and chapter 44 does not appear anywhere on it. We could not load the second list, so we stop short of a blanket answer. Ask your clearing agent to check both, in writing, before you book.

Where do we find the actual clearance procedure?

Not on the Customs site — it does not publish one. That is the honest answer and it is worth more than a plausible sequence assembled from forwarder blogs. A clearing agent licensed in Lebanon is the source, and the things you can verify independently are the ones on this page: the tariff line, the controls list, and the authority's own announcements.

Quoting a Lebanese buyer and want the origin-side half of the file right first time? Message us on WhatsApp at +62 821 3924 038 and we will put together the country-correct document pack — the goods description, composition and process particulars, and the dangerous-goods paperwork in the form the sea leg needs.

Sources, all read 24 August 2026 unless stated: the Directorate General of Lebanese Customs — its Chapter 44 tariff table (read for codes only), its Government Controls list, its Laws and Decrees index, its published section inventory and its announcements to importing companies; and the Port of Beirut authority's own site. The classification finding was first established 12 August 2026 and has been independently re-read twice since, most recently for this page. Duty, tax, levy and fee figures are deliberately not published here, and no Lebanese rate was looked up in preparing this page. Lebanon's tariff and its published procedure can both change without notice: treat every dated fact above as a starting point for your buyer's own verification with a licensed clearing agent. Import guidance, not legal, tax or financial advice.