Every Japan-bound lot that leaves our Medan warehouse gets one extra step most other shipments skip: a phytosanitary & ISOPROCARB certificate stapled to the invoice before it ever reaches the port. Miss it, and customs in Yokohama will not look at the rest of your paperwork, no matter how good the coffee is. That single requirement tells you most of what you need to know about importing green coffee to Japan from Indonesia: the country is generous about tariffs, precise about compliance, and unforgiving about missing documents.
Here is the short version. Green coffee beans enter Japan completely duty-free. Roasted coffee does not. FOB pricing tends to win out over CIF once a buyer has shipped a few times. And minimum order quantities run smaller than most first-time buyers assume. Below is the math behind all three, plus a cost most guides on this route leave out entirely.
Last updated: July 2026
Japan’s Coffee Tariff: Why Green Beans Enter Duty-Free
Green, unroasted coffee under HS code 0901.11 enters Japan at a 0% tariff across every rate column in Japan’s official 2026 tariff schedule: General, WTO, GSP, and every EPA route, including the one that applies to Indonesia. Roasted coffee under HS 0901.21 is a different situation entirely, carrying a 20% general rate and a 12% WTO bound rate for most origins.
| HS Code | Product | General Rate | WTO Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0901.11 | Green, not decaffeinated | Free | Free |
| 0901.12 | Green, decaffeinated | Free | Free |
| 0901.21 | Roasted, not decaffeinated | 20% | 12% |
| 0901.22 | Roasted, decaffeinated | 20% | 12% |
That is not a quirk. Japan’s biggest coffee manufacturers, the ones that supply supermarket shelves and office coffee services, roast domestically from imported green stock. Keeping green coffee duty-free and taxing the roasted product protects the margin that comes from roasting on Japanese soil. You are not paying to ship raw material into Japan. You are avoiding paying to ship a finished one.
For an importer, the practical takeaway is straightforward: as long as your shipment is genuinely unroasted, uncased, and correctly classified as HS 0901.11 or 0901.12, you owe nothing at the border on the product itself. What you will still pay is consumption tax on the CIF value plus duty, currently a standard rate applied to most imported goods. If you are considering a roasted or private-label shipment instead, the duty math changes substantially, and several preferential schemes may reduce that 12% further depending on your certificate of origin route. Confirm the current applicable rate with a customs broker before committing to a roasted-coffee order, since classification and treaty eligibility both affect the final number.
FOB vs CIF for the Japan Route: What Actually Changes
On the Indonesia-to-Japan lane, FOB (Belawan or Tanjung Priok) puts ocean freight, insurance, and everything on the Japanese side onto the buyer. CIF (Tokyo or Yokohama) puts freight and basic insurance on the seller, landing the coffee at a named Japanese port. Most repeat buyers move to FOB once they have a working forwarder relationship in Japan. First-time buyers tend to start on CIF, because it is easier to compare a single landed number against what a local roaster already pays.
Neither term changes who actually clears the shipment through Japanese customs. That responsibility sits with the importer of record in Japan regardless of Incoterm, along with filing the Food Sanitation Act import notification and coordinating any quarantine inspection. A seller managing CIF freight is not managing your compliance paperwork. That is worth confirming in writing before your first order, because it is the assumption that trips up the most first-time buyers on this route.
Which term is genuinely cheaper? Neither one, reliably. You are choosing who carries the freight risk and who has more room to push the rate down, not eliminating a cost. Buyers who ship container volume regularly and already have a customs broker in Tokyo or Yokohama usually save more on FOB. Buyers placing a single test order, where the freight line item is small relative to the total anyway, often find CIF simpler to budget against. For the underlying mechanics of each term, our full walkthrough of FOB, CFR, and CIF pricing covers the general trade-off in more depth than makes sense to repeat here.
MOQ: What Japanese Buyers Can Actually Order
Industry standard for Indonesian green coffee is 1 metric ton, or a full 20-foot container at roughly 19 to 20 MT. That is what most exporters quote by default, and it is more coffee than a new buyer usually wants to commit to sight unseen. ISC’s ladder starts lower: a 1 kg cupping sample, a 60 kg microlot, then 350 kg wholesale, before container volume. A first Japan order in the 60 to 350 kg range is usually the right size to prove a lot on your own equipment before you commit to a container.
Smaller MOQ matters more on this particular route than on most others. Japan’s specialty roasting scene runs on a large number of independently operated cafes and small-batch roasters buying by the bag, sitting alongside a handful of large manufacturers that buy by the container. If you are the former, a supplier quoting only container MOQ is quoting the wrong product for your business, whatever the quality of the coffee. Ask any supplier directly what their smallest test volume is before you ask about price. If the answer is “one container,” that supplier is set up for a different kind of buyer than you.
The Real Cost Nobody Prices In: FSA Testing at Small Volume
Japan’s Food Sanitation Act requires pesticide-residue testing against a strict positive list, a default limit of 0.01 ppm for any pesticide without a specific coffee limit set. That lab cost is close to fixed whether the lot is 60 kg or 19 tons. On a small test order, FSA testing can add a meaningfully higher cost per kilogram than the identical test run against a full container.
We draw the FSA composite sample the same way for every Japan-bound lot regardless of size: a sampling spear through a staggered pattern across every bag in the lot, combined into one composite, ground to a uniform powder before it goes to the lab. A quarantine officer in Yokohama does not care that your order was small enough to fit in a station wagon. The Phytosanitary Certificate and the FSA lab report (ISOPROCARB) are also two separate documents from two different Japanese authorities, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare respectively, and a shipment can be held for either one being incomplete, not just missing entirely.
Here is the honest math. A 60 kg sample and a 350 kg wholesale order can carry close to the same lab bill, because the multi-residue screen and the accredited lab’s minimum fee do not scale down with volume. That means the cheapest way to test the market is not always the cheapest per kilogram once you land it. Budget the FSA testing cost as close to a flat fee, not a percentage, when you are comparing a small first order against a larger one.
What This Means for Japanese Roasters and Importers
If you are buying to roast in Japan, buy green. The 0% tariff makes that the financially obvious choice, and it gives you control over freshness and roast profile that an imported roasted product cannot. If you are testing a new origin or supplier for the first time, size your first order to prove the coffee, not to optimize freight cost per kilogram, since FSA testing overhead will dominate a small shipment’s economics regardless. And decide FOB versus CIF based on whether you already have customs broker and freight relationships in Japan, not on which number looks smaller on a quote. Browse current green coffee beans by origin if you are comparing regions before requesting samples.
FAQ
Is there a tariff on green coffee beans imported to Japan?
No. Green, unroasted coffee under HS codes 0901.11 and 0901.12 enters Japan at a 0% tariff under Japan’s general, WTO, and EPA rate schedules, including the schedule that applies to Indonesia. Roasted coffee is classified and taxed separately, and at a much higher rate.
What is the minimum order quantity for Indonesian green coffee to Japan?
Industry standard is 1 metric ton or a full container, roughly 19 to 20 MT. Many exporters, ISC included, also offer smaller test volumes from 60 kg to 350 kg for a first order, so a buyer can prove the coffee before committing to container size.
Should I buy FOB or CIF for coffee shipped from Indonesia to Japan?
CIF to Tokyo or Yokohama is usually simpler for a first order, since the seller manages freight and basic insurance to a named Japanese port. FOB from Belawan or Tanjung Priok tends to work out cheaper once you have a customs broker and forwarder relationship in Japan and can shop freight rates directly.
Do I need a Phytosanitary Certificate and FSA testing separately?
Yes. The Phytosanitary Certificate satisfies Japan’s Plant Protection Act and addresses pests and contamination. FSA pesticide-residue testing is a separate requirement under the Food Sanitation Act. Both are mandatory for green coffee shipments and come from different Japanese authorities.
Why does almost all Indonesian coffee enter Japan green instead of roasted?
Because green coffee carries a 0% tariff while roasted coffee faces up to a 20% general rate. Roasting after import also lets Japanese buyers control freshness and manage Japan’s country-of-origin and ingredient labeling requirements more directly.
Sourcing Green Coffee for the Japan Market
Whatever exporter you use, ask for the current crop year, a lab-ready sample sized correctly for FSA composite testing, and a landed cost quote broken out by Incoterm before you commit past a test order. If you want to start with a Japan-bound lot, Indonesia Specialty Coffee ships samples from 1 kg for cupping up to 350 kg wholesale test volumes: request a sample or see the current pricelist.
