I am wondering how duty fees apply to purchases from the U.S. to Japan.?

Question:

I am a U.S. citizen, living and working in Japan and have 3 months left. My computer crashed, so I purchased a U.S. computer, which a friend is going to ship to me. Do duty fees apply to me and how do I determine the cost? Please explain how this works.

Answer:

if the computer appears to be "new", you may be charged customs duty as the officer may tag it as being an import to Japan (and thus duty may need to be levied)

Ask your friend to open the computer box, remove the plastic cover and replace it with a plastic bag (grocery or otherwise. Unwrap any shrink wrapped manuals, CDs, etc and you should be good to go