DHL's own tracking glossary carries the matching status under a slightly different name, "Clearance Processing Complete," and defines it as the shipment having "successfully cleared by the customs of the destination country." Whatever review or duty payment was pending is finished; the parcel is free to move again. What is not settled by that one line is when it will actually arrive — that is a separate question this page answers next.
This status closes the customs file. The delivery clock is a separate one.
DHL's tracking-status glossary lists twenty-four named events. The five below are the ones a parcel that clears normally passes through, in order, from the moment customs finishes to the moment a courier hands it over.
Notice what is missing from that sequence: a time attached to any of it. DHL names the events; it does not promise how many hours sit between them, which is the subject of its own section below.
“Once your shipment has cleared customs, it will be handed over to DHL for final delivery.”DHL, Customs Clearance & Customs Declaration FAQ, dhl.com, read 2026-09-02
Customs stops holding the file and the carrier's own delivery network takes over. Neither of the two DHL pages this guide draws on states a specific number of hours or days for that handover, on this status or the one after it.
Once a shipment leaves customs, how fast it reaches a door depends on the destination depot's own route that day, not on anything left over from the customs process. Our delivery timing guide covers what carriers do and do not commit to here.
A gap of a day or two between this status and the next scan is ordinary on an international parcel. Days with nothing at all, or a status naming a hold, is the point to actually check on — covered on our package stuck in customs guide.
The status on this page is the mirror image of one SMKlog's own checkout produces on the way out. Neither is the same document, and neither happens on the same side of the border.
On the four countries SMKlog sells self-service — Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia — checkout completes the US export declaration before the label is bought. The import clearance this page describes happens on arrival, run by the carrier or its broker in that country, not by us.
Whatever gets assessed during the clearance this page describes is billed to the person receiving the parcel, the same as it would be through any other checkout.
A destination outside the four launched lanes routes to manual review rather than the automated checkout path.
Tracking status names and definitions are set by each carrier and are revised without notice. Treat the wording above as what DHL published on the date shown; other carriers name and describe the same milestone differently.
The destination country's customs authority has released your parcel. DHL's own tracking glossary defines the matching status, "Clearance Processing Complete," as meaning the shipment "has successfully cleared by the customs of the destination country" — the review is over, any duty owed has been settled, and the parcel is no longer waiting on a government decision.
The parcel moves from a customs facility into the carrier's own delivery network. DHL states that once a shipment "has cleared customs, it will be handed over to DHL for final delivery," which on its own tracking glossary shows up as separate stops — arriving at a delivery facility, then going out with a courier — before a delivered scan closes the file.
Not necessarily. Neither DHL's tracking glossary nor its customs FAQ states a fixed number of hours or days between clearance completing and delivery; that gap depends on how far the parcel still has to travel locally and how a carrier's own final-mile network is running that day, not on anything to do with customs itself.
Yes, in the direction of a problem rather than back into customs review. DHL's glossary lists a separate status for an unpaid duty bill, "On Hold Awaiting for Payment of Shipment Related Fees," and that hold sits before clearance completes, not after — once a shipment reaches the completed status, the customs side of the file does not reopen.
No. On the four countries SMKlog sells self-service — Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia — our checkout completes the export declaration on the US side before the label is bought. The import clearance this page describes happens inside the destination country, handled by the carrier or its customs broker there, with any duty billed to the recipient rather than to us.