The duty cut on 17 medicines belongs in your next pharmacy reconciliation

Notification 02/2026-Customs, dated 1 February 2026, added 17 medicines to List 3 of the customs exemption notification. The change took effect on 2 February. The Ministry of Finance's accompanying explanation identifies this as an exemption from basic customs duty. Examples in the list include ribociclib, abemaciclib and venetoclax.

A separate change added seven rare diseases to the list supporting duty relief for qualifying personal imports of medicines and specified medical foods. The personal-import route has its own conditions; it should not be assumed to apply to a hospital's ordinary commercial stock purchases.

Follow the change through the records

Lifeline's operational recommendation is a targeted reconciliation. Start with the hospital's medicine master and identify relevant products by generic name, strength, pack and supplier. Ask the supplier to identify the applicable notification entry and explain any revised price. A trade name alone is a poor basis for matching a purchase to a customs list.

Then compare like with like. A lower price on a different pack size can look like a saving when the cost per administered dose has not moved. Freight, currency, purchase terms, discounts and stock bought before the change can also make two invoices difficult to compare. The reconciliation should show the reason for each difference instead of assigning every movement to the Budget.

Suppose, purely as an illustration, a hospital buys the same pack at two different prices during a treatment course. The question for the accounts team is which receipt, batch and issue each charge relates to, and what its agreed pricing policy requires. The example establishes a traceability problem; it makes no assumption about a particular product's tax treatment or saving.

What this means for your hospital

Ask for a documented supplier response. Keep the product match, revised quotation, applicable effective date and explanation for any unchanged price together. Where classification or exemption conditions are unclear, have the importer or customs adviser confirm them against the current notification. Do not apply a guessed tax rate in the pharmacy system.

Reconcile stock before changing the master. Identify existing stock, new receipts and any credit notes. Record who authorises the buying-price and selling-price changes, and when each becomes effective. Preserve the older entries so that a prior patient bill can still be explained.

Review patient estimates and payer agreements. Check whether an estimate uses a fixed package, a stated medicine price or actual acquisition cost. A purchasing change may require a revised estimate or contract review; the answer depends on the arrangement. Give the front desk a clear explanation instead of a blanket promise that treatment is now cheaper.

Close the loop with finance. For the affected products, compare receipts, pharmacy issues, patient charges and supplier adjustments. Assign unresolved differences to a named person. A short review of the relevant products is more useful than a general circular announcing that a duty has changed.

This is part of procedure costing and revenue control: a change outside the hospital becomes useful only when the responsible teams can trace it through their own records.