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Hopefully, someone who has completed the process will respond.  I will tell you what I found out before we gave up on shipping our household goods.

My understanding is that you must have your Visa in hand for the duty exemption.  The shipment must arrive within 6 months of your arrival.  You can go to:  Panama International Packers, then click "Regulations", then download related documents.  There is a complete list of the Visas that allow the duty exemption.  The list includes the Pensionado, Friendly Nations, etc.

This document is what our shipper sent to us when we inquired about the duty/customs exemption a few months ago.  Shipping household goods to Panama is expensive, confusing, and a big pain.  This why so few expats ship. Before we gave up on the plan to ship, the best estimate we got for paying the duty was $600-$1,000.  We had waited to ship past the 6 months and were now subject to paying the duties, which were mostly for fumigation.  Our shipment was similar in size to yours, as you mentioned previously.  No furniture, mostly tubs of personal possessions.  $2800 for FL warehouse to door in Panama City.

My suggestion would be to place your items in a temperature controlled storage unit.  On trips home, you can bring back items in your suitcase.  If you fly business class, you get an additional weight allowance.  My husband brought back things we wanted on each trip and mailed a few items to Mail Boxes, Etc.  MBE is expensive, so do not mail anything heavy.  This is my best suggestion until you are absolutely sure you will be staying in Panama forever.  You will be surprised how often trips back home will be necessary and you can then grab some items from storage.  We gave away almost everything brought back in suitcases plus everything we bought in Panama after we decided that being  full-time expats was not for us.  We are glad we did not ship anything or sell the car.

From Panama International Packers:

-Household Goods and Personal Effects.

It is permitted the importation of USED household goods and personal effects free of duties and taxes to:

I.   Returning Panamanians
2.  Foreign citizens with working visa
3.  Foreign citizens with retiree or pensionado visa
5.  Foreign citizens with diplomatic visa
6.  Foreign citizens with investor visa
7.  Foreign citizens with reforestation visa
8.  Foreign citizens with self-solvency visa
9.  Foreign citizens with Friendly Nations visa (amended)

*Foreign citizens with pensionado visa can bring used household goods and personal effects without paying duties and taxes.  New items are subject to duties and taxes around 22% based on CIF (cost-insurance-freight) value.