Support

Refer 10 friends who sign up and you get 1 month of Captain free. Progress is tracked on the Refer & earn card in the You tab.

A friend signing into the app with your referral code. Every 10 signups earns you 1 month of Captain free, repeating each time you reach another multiple of 10 (20, 30, 40…).

Free time is applied automatically once a milestone is hit — as a credit if you're already Captain, or as a free period starting immediately if you're not.

Only pre-approved, verified retailers for that Smugglbear's home country — no marketplaces, resellers, or third-party sellers. In India that includes Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Tata CLiQ and Nykaa. On Amazon, only listings sold and shipped by Amazon itself qualify.

The URL didn't match an approved retailer domain for that country. Paste a direct product link from a whitelisted store, or browse the in-app catalog instead.

Yes — each destination has a duty-free general allowance (₹75,000 for India). Going over adds an estimated customs duty to your total at checkout.

Some catalog items — usually a newly added store or destination — don't have a confirmed price yet. Tap “Request a quote” and real Smugglbears who can actually get it send back their price; you'll see every real offer, sorted so you can compare, and have 24 hours to pick one before it expires (Captains can re-request if it does; everyone else can't).

That's fine — nobody's forced to bring dutiable goods into the country. At customs, you can simply decline to import the item: it either gets left with customs, or the traveler carries it back out of the country with them, instead of paying the assessed duty. Paying the estimated amount shown at checkout is only needed if you actually want to bring the item in.

No — every item comes from genuine, whitelisted retailers, not just duty-free stores, and we're constantly adding more brands and destinations to the catalog.

It's the easiest way to shop while traveling — no shipping to a home or hotel address, no coordinating delivery logistics yourself.

No — it depends on your destination's allowance and what you're carrying. Go over the limit (₹75,000 for India, for example) and an estimated customs duty gets added to your order, shown upfront before you pay so there's never a surprise at checkout. See Customs Duty & Country Limits for the full breakdown.

Email hello@smuggl.in with the retailer's name and we'll look into whitelisting it.

Not for our initial launch. We're evaluating this carefully as we expand.

Nothing you need to do — the handoff window shifts automatically to match the new landing time.

A 72-hour countdown starts. Your Smugglbear can enter a new PNR to rebook and stay on the order. If they don't rebook in time, the order auto-cancels and you get a 100% refund.

Against the same aviation lookup used at trip setup — last name + PNR, checked for a confirmed route and landing time.

A 72-hour “ghost shopper” timer starts at landing. If you don't schedule or respond to a handoff in that window, the held payment auto-releases to your Smugglbear.

They must mark items purchased before departure. If the deadline passes with nothing bought, the order auto-cancels, you're refunded 100%, and both of you get notified. It also counts as a strike on their Smuggl score.

For every item they're actually carrying (not denied or out of stock), they take a real photo of that specific item, plus one photo of the store receipt/bill and the amount from it, and confirm the pre-flight condition check — all before the order can be marked purchased. Each item needs its own photo; one photo can't stand in for the rest of a multi-item order.

A 5.0-point reliability rating built from reviews after each smuggl. Strikes — like missing a purchase deadline — knock roughly 0.1 off a Smugglbear's score.

Yes — if an item won't fit their bag or is out of stock at the store, they can exclude just that item. You're only charged for what they carry.

Each Smugglbear sets a bag capacity when publishing their trip — Carry-on only, 1 checked bag, or 2+ checked bags. They can also fine-tune exactly what they're willing to carry within that, category by category (or decline one outright), any time before or during the trip — shown live under the ⓘ next to their bag size.

Tap a shared trip link, or Become a Smugglbear in the You tab. Sync your flight by forwarding your confirmation email, scanning your boarding pass, or entering your PNR + last name — we verify it against a live aviation lookup, no manual date or airport entry.

It skips the usual sign-up tour entirely — sign in and you land straight on flight sync, live on their crew's route in under a minute.

A running total of your destination's duty-free limit against everything you've agreed to carry this trip, so you always know how much headroom is left before customs duty kicks in.

Automatically, straight to your registered bank/UPI, the moment a handoff completes — no manual step, no waiting on a schedule.

Depends why. Cancelling for a reason outside your control (item unavailable, a religious restriction) has zero consequence. Cancelling because you simply can't get the item can affect your Smuggl score and part of that order's reward if it happens often — an occasional one won't. Cancelling your whole trip refunds any funded orders and carries no penalty.

Yes — enter your SWIFT routing code during payout setup if you're settling to a foreign or NRE account.

Your Smuggl score is a 5.0-point reliability rating built from reviews after each smuggl. Strikes — like missing a purchase deadline — knock roughly 0.1 off your score.

Yes — if an item won't fit your bag or is out of stock at the store, you can exclude just that item. You're only paid for what you carry.

It confirms your real nationality, which determines the correct duty-free allowance for wherever you're headed — some countries give residents a bigger allowance than foreign tourists. Required once before your first trip, not on every trip.

Usually about a minute once you finish the passport photo and selfie — the app checks automatically and moves you on the moment it's approved, no need to keep checking back.

That's normal for some passports/documents — it can take longer than the usual minute. Feel free to back out and come back later; nothing is lost, and the app picks up right where it left off.

You can try again with a fresh attempt — a decline usually means the photo or document wasn't clear enough. If it keeps failing, contact help@smuggl.in and our team will look into it.

Tap “Start over” to launch a fresh attempt. This is safe even if an earlier one is still processing — whichever one you actually finish is the one that counts.

Held on a pre-authorization hold from the moment your Smugglbear accepts, until you release it at handoff.

In person, at the handoff: inspect the item, then enter the 4-digit PIN. That instantly releases the hold to your Smugglbear.

No — the PIN handshake is deliberately in-person only. It's what confirms the item actually changed hands and matched the photo evidence.

Tap “Dispute Item” instead of entering the PIN. Your Smugglbear then needs to confirm they have it back before you're refunded — not instant, but it usually settles right there at the handoff.

When an order's dutiable value crosses your destination's duty-free threshold, Smuggl estimates the customs duty your Smugglbear would owe at the border and adds it to the total held under the pre-authorization hold — so they're never stuck paying it out of pocket to clear customs. It shows as its own line item in the cost breakdown before you pay.

Yes — a platform fee applies on completed orders, on top of the item's own price. The exact amount for your specific request is always shown as its own line item before you confirm and pay, so there's never a surprise at checkout. Our optional Captain subscription reduces this fee.

GST is India's tax on services — the law requires us to charge it on our own platform fee, so we split it out as its own line instead of folding it in. It's only ever charged on our fee, never on the item itself, at the standard 18% rate for platform/commission services, and it's passed straight to the government, not kept by Smuggl.

It only shows up when your Smugglbear is settling to a foreign bank account rather than an Indian one. Paying them means a real international bank wire, which carries a fixed cost charged by the bank — about $10.50 for most currencies, or $14 for a US-dollar transfer — charged to you at cost, never marked up, and never deducted from your Smugglbear's reward.

Pick a reason (wrong item, damaged, or other) and submit. Your Smugglbear then needs to confirm they have the item back before you're refunded to your original payment method — you'll get a notification either way, and it's usually resolved on the spot at the handoff.

There's nothing to appeal on your end — once you report it, it's out of your hands. If your Smugglbear disagrees and contests the report instead of confirming it, our support team reviews it by hand rather than it just resolving automatically.

This is the “resale is the shield” rule: since it was bought new from a whitelisted, verified storefront, your Smugglbear keeps the item once they confirm the dispute and can resell it locally. They receive zero payout on that item, but aren't left holding a loss beyond their time.

Per-item — disputing one item in a multi-item order only refunds that item; the rest of the order proceeds normally.

Resell it through their own local channels — electronics buyback apps like Cashify, general resale marketplaces like OLX or Quikr, or a store return where the retailer allows one. Smuggl doesn't broker or handle that resale itself — once a dispute closes it out, it's the Smugglbear's item and their call what to do with it.

Most matches happen through your real contacts — 1st- and 2nd-degree connections in your trust graph — not strangers, and every smuggl leaves a rating on the other person's Smuggl score. Someone who mishandles orders or files bad-faith disputes scores lower and stops getting matched — that's the platform's real check on bad behavior, not a manual appeals process.

Two possible reasons: your item genuinely cost more than our catalog price (usually catalog drift, or a promo that ended), or your Smugglbear reported real customs duty at the border that came in higher than the amount already held for it. Either way it shows up as a real “Payment request” on your Requests tab — you're never charged automatically.

4 hours. Your Smugglbear has already paid the extra amount out of their own pocket at the store or the border, so the window is kept short on purpose — open the app, review it, and pay if it looks right.

If it goes unanswered for 4 hours it expires — but you still owe it, it doesn't just disappear. If you genuinely think the number is wrong, don't just ignore it: email help@smuggl.in and our team will look into it by hand.

No — any real, unpaid payment request blocks new checkouts until it's cleared. It also blocks your current handoff: your Smugglbear won't hand over the item and your handoff code stays hidden until it's paid.

Yes — a reported amount that's far outside what's plausible for either case is automatically held back from ever billing you at all. It gets flagged for our own team to review by hand instead, so a mistaken or inflated number never gets auto-billed to your card.

₹75,000 total value per trip for an Indian-resident Smugglbear (₹25,000 for a foreign-national Smugglbear, under the Baggage Rules) — go over that and a flat 38.5% customs duty applies to the excess, shown as an estimated add-on to your order total before you check out. This is the effective baggage-rate figure for planning purposes; the exact duty owed is determined by Customs at clearance, and allowances/rates can change — Smuggl's in-app figure is indicative only, not a guarantee of the final amount.

It depends on whether you hold an OCI or PIO card, which is exactly why we ask during your payout setup. Hold one, and you keep the full resident ₹75,000 allowance no matter what passport or bank account you use. Don't have one, and you're treated as a foreign national, capped at ₹25,000.

No — your one laptop or tablet per trip is fully exempt from customs duty no matter how expensive it is, separate from and on top of the general ₹75,000 allowance. Ordering both a laptop and a tablet on the same trip? Only the pricier of the two is exempt — the other counts toward the ₹75,000 threshold along with everything else in the order.

No — each destination sets its own. Smuggl currently tracks real thresholds for UAE (AED 3,000), Singapore (S$500), the UK (£390 — crossing it taxes the full order value, not just the excess), and the US ($800, with a hard $1,800 cap Smuggl won't let an order cross at all). More destinations get added as they're verified.

Yes — a few regulated categories carry their own quantity caps on top of the general value allowance, rather than counting toward it by value. Every destination Smuggl supports has its own verified numbers, shown live on your trip's allowance gauge.

A few, to keep every order realistic to actually clear customs with: one phone, laptop, tablet, and pair of headphones per Smugglbear per trip; a hard block on any US-bound order whose dutiable value would cross $1,800 (past that, it needs a real per-item tariff lookup Smuggl can't estimate reliably, so it blocks rather than guesses); and outright blocks on pasted links for items like vapes, drones, and gold/silver/platinum bullion.

We'd recommend it. Going over adds an estimated customs duty to your total, and it's your Smugglbear who has to actually clear that at the border. Staying under the threshold (₹75,000 for India, or the destination equivalent) per Smugglbear keeps the handoff simple and avoids surprises.

Each Smugglbear's dutiable value is checked independently, so splitting keeps every parcel under the threshold instead of one person absorbing the whole order's duty. It also limits your risk — if one Smugglbear's flight is disrupted or they can't buy an item in time, only their portion is affected, not the rest of your order. Smuggl already prompts this automatically once an order crosses a hard limit like the US's $1,800 cap.

It's a reasonable way to manage risk — one big-ticket item (say, a laptop) pushes a single Smugglbear's dutiable value up fast, while spreading it away from your smaller everyday items keeps everyone's total lower and each Smugglbear's duty exposure smaller and more predictable.

Pay up front, held until handoff, only request items from Smuggl's approved retailers, stay reachable for your Smugglbear's handoff (a 72-hour “ghost shopper” timer starts once they land), and actually inspect the item honestly before releasing the PIN — a false dispute against a Smugglbear who delivered correctly damages their Smuggl score.

Buy only from whitelisted, verified retailers, mark items purchased before their flight departs, stay within the bag capacity they declared, show up for the handoff at the agreed time, and hand over the correct item as ordered — missing a deadline or ghosting a handoff counts as a strike against their Smuggl score.

One phone, one laptop, one tablet, and one pair of headphones per trip into India — Smuggl caps each to a single unit, with no “add another” once one's in the cart. Only laptop/tablet go duty-free regardless of value, on top of the general ₹75,000 allowance — phone and headphones don't have that exemption, they're just capped at one unit each to keep orders realistic; their value still counts toward the general allowance like anything else.

In carry-on, not checked luggage — it's safer against theft/damage, and most airlines require lithium-battery devices in the cabin anyway. Keep original packaging or a receipt handy in case customs asks to see it, and don't ask a Smugglbear to carry more than one of the same device across separate requests — that reads as commercial importing, not personal duty-free.

Anything illegal, counterfeit, or restricted in the origin or destination country — weapons, controlled substances/narcotics, and counterfeit goods, full stop. On top of that, pasted product links are blocked outright for vapes & e-cigarettes, drones, and gold/silver/platinum bullion, bars, coins, or ingots. Every item also has to come from Smuggl's own whitelisted retailers — never a marketplace or reseller — which rules out counterfeits and grey-market listings by design.

Every country layers its own additional prohibited/restricted list on top — firearms, certain foods, some medicines, and more — that Smuggl doesn't try to enumerate for every destination yet. If you're unsure about a specific item outside Smuggl's standard categories, check that destination's own customs site before requesting it.

Yes — both are required before your first trip, not just before your first payout. A resident Indian needs a real PAN; an NRI paying into an NRO account needs one too. Everyone else (an NRI on an NRE/foreign account, or a foreign national) gives their own country's tax ID instead — except a handful of countries with no personal income tax, where it's genuinely optional.

Only if you're a non-resident (NRI or foreign national) and the specific delivery is actually going to India — Indian law (TDS) requires it in that case, from the first rupee, with no minimum threshold. A trip with no India-bound delivery has zero withholding, regardless of what else you've earned. A resident Indian's own withholding only kicks in above an annual threshold, same as any other Indian income.

It matches you to more requests from India and gives you a backup way to get paid — required before you can publish a trip, so you're never blocked from a request that needs it later.

It's not about your payout — it sets your customs duty-free allowance. Say yes and you keep the resident ₹75,000 limit even on a foreign passport or account; say no and you're capped at the foreign-national ₹25,000 limit instead. See Customs Duty & Country Limits for the full breakdown.

No — that fee is charged to the shopper who books you, shown in their own cost breakdown, and never deducted from your reward. The only real effect on you is that it can make your trips slightly less attractive to price-sensitive shoppers, since it raises what they pay.

NRO, if you have one — it matches you to more shoppers (who can pay you directly via UPI) and your trips don't carry the international transfer fee that NRE or other foreign accounts do. Only use NRE if you genuinely don't have an NRO account to give.

Only if you're a non-resident (NRI or foreign national) and the specific delivery is going to India — Indian law requires it in that case, from the first rupee. No India-bound delivery means zero withholding. If you're a resident Indian, withholding only kicks in above an annual threshold, same as any other income.

Only on their own personal travel. Crew must not use Smuggl to carry goods while on duty — working a flight, in uniform, or on a working rotation. It's on you to confirm you're personally traveling, not on duty, before accepting a trip.