Coated and converted paper enters Peru at anywhere from 0.97 to 12.44 dollars a kilo, depending on which paper it is
What a kilo of each paper costs on arrival in Peru, by year
| Paper, as declared on entry | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anticorrosion paper | 10.07 | 10.91 | 12.44 |
| Sterilization paper | 5.13 | 6.71 | 6.34 |
| Paper tape | 4.49 | 4.00 | 4.97 |
| Release liner | 3.20 | 3.23 | 2.92 |
| Aseptic packaging board | 2.42 | 2.60 | 3.03 |
| Self adhesive stock | 2.20 | 2.12 | 2.11 |
| Thermal paper | 1.77 | 1.52 | 1.46 |
| Coated board | 1.34 | 1.08 | 0.97 |
A kilo of paper entered Peru at 0.97 dollars this year, and a kilo of paper also entered at 12.44. Both cleared customs under the same tariff code, with the same word written on the invoice.
The record of coated and converted paper coming into Peru covers the last three years, up to August of this year. Sorted by what each shipment actually is, it holds eight products and not one. The price of a kilo moves twelvefold from the bottom of that list to the top.
The price is set by the product
The lowest priced of them is plain coated board, the paper that goes into folding cartons and printed packaging. The highest is anticorrosion paper, a treated wrapper that keeps machined metal from rusting on its way to a plant.
Between them sit six more papers, each with its own converting cost and the price that goes with it. The table below has what a kilo of every one of them cost on arrival, year by year.
An average for Peruvian paper describes none of them. A supplier who quotes against that average is pricing a product nobody buys, and a buyer who budgets against it is planning for a paper nobody sells.
A kilo of paper enters Peru at 0.97 dollars and also at 12.44
What a kilo of anticorrosion paper, sterilization paper, paper tape, aseptic board, release liner, self adhesive stock, thermal paper and coated board cost on arrival in Peru during 2026.
The buyer count runs against the price
The number of importers moves the other way, and it moves hard. Anticorrosion paper has 12 importers on record across those three years, while paper tape has 226.
Those are two selling jobs that share nothing. A short list is a week of phone calls and fits in your head. A long one is a segmentation problem, and the work becomes deciding who is worth a quote at all.
Paper tape sits high on price and wide on buyers
Paper tape breaks the pattern, and it is the opening worth knowing about. It sits near the top of the price list and still has the widest buyer base of the group.
Everywhere else in this record the price and the buyer count pull against each other. That is what anyone would expect, because the more specialized the paper, the fewer the plants that need it. Paper tape is specialized enough to hold its price and common enough to be bought by converters and distributors across the country.
The papers that cost the most have the fewest buyers in the country
How many Peruvian importers bought each paper across the same window.
The largest product by value is a single account
Aseptic packaging board is the biggest of them measured in dollars, and it has six importers on record. One of those holds 99.4 percent of the volume.
Counted as a market it looks like the obvious place to start. Read as a list of names it is one company with a supply agreement already in place, and a handful of others buying what is left over. The size of a product and the size of its opening are not the same number.
The distance between top and bottom keeps widening
Anticorrosion paper cost more each year and coated board cost less. The two ends of the list are further apart now than when the record starts. The papers in the middle moved less, and they moved in both directions.
That matters to a supplier deciding where to aim. The papers at the top are not drifting toward the rest. A producer who can make one of them will not watch its price competed away by the cheap end of the same tariff code.
What the paper you make decides
Close to a fifth of the shipments arrive with a description too generic to place in any of them, and every figure here leaves that share out. The record does not say which paper those shipments carried, so each buyer count is a floor rather than a ceiling. The last column of the table covers January to August and not a full year.
The paper you make decides the price you can ask and the number of buyers you can ask it of, and neither of those is a matter of negotiation. A supplier of anticorrosion paper works a short list and needs most of it. A supplier of thermal paper works a long one and can afford to lose most of it.
Three years do not settle a market, and this reading rests on how each shipment was described on entry. Even so, the useful step is to place your own grade on that list before quoting anything. Find the Peruvian importers that already buy the paper you make and look at what they paid a kilo last year. Quote into that number instead of into an average that belongs to nobody.
Frequently asked questions
What does a kilo of imported paper cost in Peru in 2026?
It depends on which paper. In 2026 coated board landed at 0.97 dollars a kilo, thermal paper at 1.46, self adhesive stock at 2.11, release liner at 2.92, aseptic packaging board at 3.03, paper tape at 4.97, sterilization paper at 6.34 and anticorrosion paper at 12.44.
Why does one tariff code hold eight different prices?
Because the code covers coated and converted paper as a family, and the converting is what sets the price. A silicone coated release liner and a plain coated board are priced as different goods even though they enter the same way.
Which imported paper has the most buyers in Peru?
Paper tape, with 226 importers on record across the last three years, followed by thermal paper with 220 and self adhesive stock with 190.
Which imported paper has the fewest buyers in Peru?
Aseptic packaging board, with 6 importers across the last three years, and one of them holds 99.4 percent of it. Anticorrosion paper has 12 over that same window, sterilization paper 13 and release liner 13.
Does a higher price mean fewer buyers?
Across the last three years, yes, with one exception. The three dearest papers have between 6 and 13 importers each and the three cheapest have between 71 and 220, while paper tape holds the third highest price at 4.97 dollars a kilo and still has the widest buyer base of the eight.
Has the price gap between these papers been widening?
Yes. The distance between the dearest and the cheapest of the eight has widened in each of the last three years. Anticorrosion paper reached 12.44 dollars a kilo this year while coated board came down to 0.97.
How complete are these figures?
About a fifth of the shipments arrive with a description too generic to place in any of the eight products, and those are left out of every figure. Each buyer count is therefore a floor. The window runs across the last three years, and the current year covers January to August.
The Peru Paper Radar is the list behind this piece: every importer that brought coated and converted paper into Peru over the last three years, split by product, ranked by volume, with its origins and its average price per kilo.
Write to info@garaycompany.com with the paper you sell, and we will come back with the scope and the price for that product.
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