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 you hit a milestone: 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 from a newly added store or destination) don't have a confirmed price yet. Tap “Request a quote” and Smugglbears who can get it send back their price; you'll see every 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).

Then keep your order under the duty-free limit, or remove the item before you pay. Once an order is over the limit, the estimated duty is held with your payment, and your Smugglbear pays the actual duty at customs and is repaid from it. Anything they didn't need comes back to you.

If your Smugglbear declared it and customs didn't release it, they report it in the app with the customs document, which we check automatically. The item was bought and declared for you, so its cost isn't refunded and your Smugglbear is repaid what they paid. They earn no reward for it, so that item's share of the reward comes back to you, and the rest of your order goes ahead as normal. If they have no customs document, they drop the item instead and you're refunded in full for it. Customs penalties and fines are never billed to you.

No. Items come from whitelisted retailers as well as duty-free stores, and we keep 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, and no delivery to coordinate 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 is added to your order, shown before you pay. See Customs Duty & Country Limits for the full breakdown.

In the app, open Retailer Request and tap See supported stores to check our list. If your store isn't there, type its website under Don't see your store? and tap Request this store. You can also paste a product link from that store and request it from there. Check back in 48 hours to see if it's been added.

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.

Your Smugglbear enters the new PNR, flight number and departure and arrival times. The new flight is checked against the airline's published schedule, and the times they enter become the trip's schedule for the meetup and handoff deadlines. The PNR itself isn't checked with the airline. It's kept on record in case of a dispute.

Yes. When a trip is published or rebooked, Smuggl checks the flight number, route and date against the airline's published schedule. A trip that clearly doesn't match, like a flight number that flies between different airports, can't be published. This confirms the flight exists, not the Smugglbear's own booking.

72 hours after landing, if your Smugglbear has proposed a meetup and messaged you without a reply, you get a final warning by app, SMS and email. You then have 24 hours to accept a meetup, or you can tap “I still want my order” once for 48 more hours. If no meetup is accepted by the deadline, the held payment releases to your Smugglbear automatically. This is final; there's no appeal.

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.

It's cancelled automatically when their flight departs and you're refunded in full. Nothing has been bought at that point.

For every item they're carrying (not denied or out of stock), they take a 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 of this has to happen 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 raise or lower how much they'll carry category by category (even above their tier's default, up to the highest tier's ceiling) or decline a category outright, any time before or during the trip. It's shown live under the ⓘ next to their bag size.

Tap a shared trip link, or Become a Smugglbear in the You tab. Add your flight by syncing your Outlook inbox, forwarding your confirmation email, scanning your boarding pass, or typing in the airports, airline, flight number and times yourself. We check the flight against the airline's published schedule before your trip goes live.

It skips the usual sign-up tour. Sign in and you land straight on flight sync, live on their crew's route in under a minute. You're also connected to them, so you can see each other's trips even if you're not in each other's phone contacts.

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.

Your trip closes once it has landed and there's nothing left to hand over, so your dashboard is ready for your next trip. An order still waiting for its handoff keeps the trip open until it's done.

Automatically, straight to your registered bank/UPI, the moment a handoff completes, with no manual step and no waiting on a schedule. It covers your reward, the item cost from your receipt, and any customs duty you paid at the border (only duty and import taxes on the customs receipt count, never customs penalties or fines; up to the amount the shopper had set aside; anything above that goes to the shopper as a payment request, up to a set percentage of the goods' value for each product category). One exception: if the shopper reported a problem with an item at the handoff, your payout goes out as soon as you confirm it (or 24 hours pass). Report any customs duty you paid within 7 days of the handoff; whatever isn't reported by then goes back to the shopper.

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.

Only in a limited way. Indian bank accounts, NRO included, are paid through the payment split when the handoff is confirmed. A foreign account, NRE included, is not on that automatic route: it is paid by a bank transfer sent after you confirm the handoff, against the order. Enter your SWIFT routing code during payout setup if that is the account you are using.

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.

After you pay, you request a meetup spot and time with each Smugglbear. It isn't confirmed until the other side accepts it: your Smugglbear can tap “Works for me” or suggest a different spot or time, and you can accept theirs or suggest another, back and forth until one of you accepts. Every step is sent to both of you by SMS, email and in-app notification, saying exactly whether the meetup is requested, rescheduled or accepted.

No. Items can only be marked purchased once the meetup is accepted by both of you, so nobody ends up carrying something without a confirmed handoff.

Reminders go to whoever needs to respond: your Smugglbear 4 hours after receiving a meetup request, and whoever's turn it is 24 hours before their flight departs. If no meetup is accepted 4 hours before departure, the order is cancelled automatically and you're refunded in full. Nothing has been bought at that point.

3 days after landing, you both get a reminder, and from then you can also report that your Smugglbear didn't show. If nothing has happened by day 7, it's treated as a missed handoff automatically: your Smugglbear has 24 hours to propose a new meetup or tell you they can't deliver. If they don't answer, or can't deliver, you're refunded in full.

You get a reminder 3 days after landing. On day 7 it's treated as a missed handoff, and you have 24 hours to propose a new meetup or say you can't deliver. Proposing a meetup here doesn't add a strike, since nobody reported you. If you don't answer, the shopper is refunded in full and you get a strike. If you've been chasing a shopper who went quiet, the unresponsive-shopper rules apply instead.

Ideally within 4 hours of receiving it, and no later than 24 hours before your flight. If no meetup is accepted 4 hours before you depart, the order is cancelled and the shopper refunded, so don't buy anything for an order until its meetup is accepted.

Not in the app. Once accepted, the meetup is locked in. If plans change, sort it out directly with each other in the order's chat.

It confirms your nationality, which determines the correct duty-free allowance for wherever you're headed, since 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, so there's 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 finish is the one that counts.

Your payment is held by the payment partner from the moment your Smugglbear accepts, until you confirm the handoff. Only the platform fee settles to Smuggl.

No. Pay only within the Smuggl app. Money sent to a Smugglbear any other way isn't held by our payment partner, so it isn't covered by Smuggl protection and can't be refunded through Smuggl.

In person, at the handoff: check the item, then share your 4-digit PIN. Your Smugglbear enters it, the held payment is released to them, and they hand the item over.

No. The PIN handshake is in-person only on purpose: it confirms the item changed hands and matched the photo evidence.

Tap “Dispute Item” instead of sharing your PIN. Your Smugglbear then confirms they have the item, and you're refunded, usually right there at the handoff. If they don't respond within 24 hours, you're refunded automatically.

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 amount held until handoff, 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. Your Smugglbear is repaid from it for the duty they actually paid; if they paid less than the estimate, the rest comes back to you. If they don't report any duty within 7 days of the handoff, the whole customs hold comes back to you.

Yes. A platform fee applies on completed orders, on top of the item's own price. The exact amount for your request is shown as its own line item before you confirm and pay. Our optional Captain subscription reduces this fee.

GST is only charged on orders delivered in India. On those there are two GST lines. 18% GST is charged on Smuggl's platform fee, as on any Indian service. 5% GST is charged on your Smugglbear's reward: Smugglbears are individuals, so the law (Section 9(5) of the CGST Act) makes Smuggl Technologies collect it from you and pay it. Your Smugglbear still gets their full reward. There's never any GST on the item cost, and orders delivered outside India have no GST lines at all. All of it goes to the Indian government, not to Smuggl.

It only shows up when your Smugglbear is settling to a foreign bank account rather than an Indian one. Paying them means a bank remittance abroad, which carries a fixed bank charge of ₹590 (₹500 plus GST), whatever the currency. It's charged to you at cost, never marked up, and never deducted from your Smugglbear's reward.

Pick a reason and submit. If the item is damaged or wrong, you're refunded that item's price plus its share of Smuggl's fees. For any other reason, such as changing your mind, you're refunded the item's price, and your Smugglbear keeps their reward. Your Smugglbear confirms they have the item back first, and if they don't respond within 24 hours you're refunded automatically.

There's nothing to appeal. An item you refuse at the handoff, before sharing your code, is refunded and stays with your Smugglbear. Damaged or wrong item: you get the item cost and its share of fees back. Any other reason: the item cost minus a 10% restocking fee, which goes to your Smugglbear. For damage or a wrong item, add a close-up photo of the problem. Your Smugglbear confirms it, or it's refunded automatically after 24 hours. Nobody reviews or overturns this by hand. Once your code has been entered, the handoff is final.

After the final warning runs out, they have the collection period stated in that warning (the app shows the date). Hand the items over if they arrange a meetup. If they don't, the order closes automatically: you keep the items and get your reward plus a 10% restocking fee, and they get the item cost back minus that fee.

The handoff is final once your code is entered, so faults that show up later are covered by the brand's or store's warranty. The store receipt is in your order's delivery record; ask help@smuggl.in for a copy.

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 aren't repaid for that item, and only lose their reward on it if it was damaged or wrong, 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.

Report each one. Once your Smugglbear has confirmed all of them (or 24 hours pass without an answer), the rest of what you paid is refunded too, unless any item was refused for a reason other than damage or the wrong item, in which case your Smugglbear is paid their reward and the 10% restocking fee for those items, and the order closes. Note: 2 or more items refused for reasons other than damage or the wrong item in 60 days pauses new orders until the oldest passes 60 days, but a refusal stops counting once your Smugglbear has rated you for that order.

Only until you answer it. A refused item stays with you and is refunded to the shopper; your payout for the rest goes out as soon as you confirm. If a refusal isn't your fault, you also get a 10% restocking fee on that item. If you don't answer within 24 hours, it's refunded automatically, the same as if you'd confirmed. Before accepting a request, you can see that shopper's rating as a shopper and how many items they refused in the last 60 days, and you can rate them after any order, even one that ended badly. If an item was refused or they went quiet, rate them within 48 hours; if you don't, they automatically get a strike (−0.1 on their shopper rating). Tip: enter the shopper's code before you hand anything over.

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. Once a dispute closes, it's the Smugglbear's item and their call what to do with it.

Most matches happen through your 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 how the platform checks bad behavior; there's no manual appeals process.

Every order gets one, like SMG-7K3P-92QD. It's on your order in the app and in the delivery receipt we email you at the handoff, and anyone with it can see the order's delivery record at smuggl.in/track.

There's no spending limit on new accounts. Each order is limited by how much your Smugglbear can carry and their duty-free allowance, and the app shows this as you add items.

Write to help@smuggl.in first; refused items are refunded through the app. If you reverse a payment with your bank for items you accepted at the handoff, your account is suspended.

You decide at checkout, before anything is bought. Pick one: cover price rises with a refundable buffer (5%, 10% or 15% of the items, or an amount you choose), or skip any item that costs more (it's refunded). Rises of up to 3% are always bought and settled when you collect, so small currency moves never cancel anything. With a buffer, a higher price within it is simply bought and anything unused comes back to you automatically; a rise bigger than the buffer plus 3% means that item is skipped and refunded. Your Smugglbear sees your choice and checks the shelf price before buying, so you're never billed for a price rise you didn't agree to.

5% is selected by default: it covers everyday exchange-rate moves while holding as little as possible. Pick 10%, 15% or a custom amount (up to 25% of the items) if you really don't want an item skipped. Whatever isn't used is refunded to you automatically after the handoff.

Two cases only: a small currency movement between checkout and purchase (at most 3% of the item cost), or customs duty your Smugglbear actually paid at the border that came in higher than the amount already held for it, backed by the customs receipt. It shows up as a “Payment request” on your Requests tab. You're never charged automatically.

4 hours. Your Smugglbear has already paid it out of their own pocket, so the window is short on purpose. If you don't pay, your Smugglbear decides: hand over anyway (you still owe it, and can't order again until it's paid), or keep the items and refund you everything still held for the order.

Yes, and it's applied automatically. Item price differences after purchase are capped at 3% of the item cost. Customs duty is capped at a set percentage of the value of your goods for each product category. Nothing above those limits can be billed to you, and customs penalties or fines are never billed to you.

Tap “Shelf price higher?” under the item before you buy and enter the tag price. The app tells you straight away: go ahead (a rise of up to 3% is always fine, and above that it's covered by the shopper's buffer), or don't buy it (the rise is more than the shopper agreed to cover, so it's cancelled and refunded to them). The shopper's choice is shown on the order before you buy, and you never pay the extra yourself. Check first: a rise of more than 3% that wasn't checked before buying isn't claimable afterwards.

It's your call, on the handoff screen. Hand over anyway: you get your reward, and they still owe the amount (paid to you automatically if they pay; they can't order again until then). Or keep the items: they're refunded everything still held, including the customs hold, and you keep every item and the duty you paid, with no reward. Keeping is all-or-nothing (customs is charged on the whole bag) and isn't available if they've already paid something extra on that order.

₹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 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 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: a hard block on any US-bound order whose dutiable value would cross $1,800 (past that, it needs a per-item tariff lookup Smuggl can't estimate reliably, so it blocks the order); and outright blocks on pasted links for restricted product categories, drones, and gold/silver/platinum bullion.

We'd recommend it. Going over adds an estimated customs duty to your total, and your Smugglbear is the one who has to clear it 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, agree a meetup with your Smugglbear before their departure, stay reachable for your Smugglbear's handoff (a 72-hour “ghost shopper” timer starts once they land; if you go quiet past the final warning, you have the collection period stated in it to collect before the order closes), and 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, answer meetup requests promptly, mark items purchased before their flight departs, stay within the bag capacity they declared, show up for the handoff at the agreed time, hand over the correct item as ordered, and answer any reported problem within 24 hours. Missing a deadline or ghosting a handoff counts as a strike against their Smuggl score. If they miss a handoff and don't agree a new meetup within 24 hours of saying they will, you're refunded in full automatically.

Yes. Smuggl limits how many of each kind of electronic can go on one trip, and the app shows the limit as you build a request. Duty depends on value, so a high-value phone or laptop can still mean duty to pay.

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.

Anything illegal, counterfeit, or restricted in the origin or destination country: weapons, controlled substances/narcotics, and counterfeit goods. On top of that, pasted product links are blocked outright for restricted product categories, 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.

Every country adds its own prohibited/restricted list on top (firearms, certain foods, some medicines, and more), which Smuggl doesn't list 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 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 in a handful of countries with no personal income tax, where it's optional.

Only if you're a non-resident (NRI or foreign national) and the specific delivery is 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. It's required before you can publish a trip, so you're never blocked from a request that needs it later.

It sets your customs duty-free allowance, even though we ask during payout setup. 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 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 and your trips don't carry the bank remittance fee that NRE or other foreign accounts do. Only use NRE if you 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. The 5% GST on your reward for orders delivered in India is paid by the shopper on top and paid to the government by Smuggl Technologies; it's never taken from your reward.

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.

Only if you ask for them. Go to Settings → Notifications → Offers and news and turn on email, push or WhatsApp. Everything is off until you do, and you can switch any of them off at any time. Order, payment and meetup messages aren't affected.