To ask you you to help me send a parcel to Germany?

On mine I had 1 camera bag, & I copped the same. It seems to be common on items going to Germany,

OP please rethink resending it. The other problem is she may have to spend a lot of time getting the package, depending where she lives. When we lived in Berlin the customs office was wayyyyy out in the burbs and you had to queue for hours and then debate the cost with an official. I wouldn't put someone through that who'd just had a baby.

I'm sure we could help you find similar items from inside the EU -- doesn't have to be Germany. Have you looked at DPAM?

Does it need a tariff code?

I sent my friend’s parcel to Germany on 19th December via Hermes International( was under 2kg and cost £8.90 to send), it was just clothing and I totally undervalued it on the form( put £19 and the labels said £350) . The tracking kept saying that it would be delivered by 31st December ( I bet they wanted to avoid the paperwork themselves), but eventually she got a note to say that she can go and collect it on 6th of January. So 18 days.
My friend sent one back to me from Germany via DHL , paid €30 postage , wrote a precise description and value of each item, and it arrived within 4 days!
I then another parcel via Royal Mail ( again under 2kg) to another European country on 24 December and it is still at the customs in that country . The crucial thing was to have a tracking number as then I could see that the system required them to fill out an online declaration form, which had to include the receipt and prove that you paid for the items and their value. I provided that a few days ago but ‘ the information you provided is being checked ‘ still.
Sorry for a lengthy post :)

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr the bilingual customs form which the German post office uses has the checkbox Geschenk/ gift (lower case) on it so I think she's ok using the word especially if written with a lower case g!

I've received parcels from the UK and am in Germany. I haven't had to declare what's in the parcels I receive at all! I'm not sure where that information comes from but it certainly isn't universally true.

Clearly label things as gifts and downplay the value (after all they're second hand if you've cut off the price label and they can't be returned) to avoid customs charges - nobody wants to pay 20€ to receive a present which no matter how lovely the thought might not fit/ be useful to them!
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Packages from the UK take a very long time to arrive (easily a month) but do get through if there's a customs for clearly stating the contents with a low value and the category box for gift crossed.

The postal cost and time mean in all honesty its not worth buying and sending items from the UK if the same item could be dispatched from within the EU - its really only worth sending very personal stuff or the extremely unusual thing which can't be ordered and dispatched from a .de or.eu website.

The same applies in reverse - the postage to the UK from the EU costs an insane amount and takes ages so it makes more sense to order presents on .uk websites which offer gift receipt and message+ giftwrap and send directly to the recipient.

Its such a shitty Brexit effect. My mum used to send me a parcel every Christmas with presents and treats in, food stuffs I miss from the UK, but last Christmas she didn't send anything because it was too much hassle, too expensive (postage has gone right up) and I'd have to pay too much fees for it. Ordering from shops within the country is the way to go even though it limits you so much more.

@BaronessBomburst

My family get around this my ordering gifts from Amazon.nl, or other Dutch websites. I order for them using UK based websites. I also have a pile of presents in my wardrobe which I'll only be able to give them when we next go back to the UK.

I send gifts to friends in the US and Germany by ordering off Amazon. While I would rather not use Amazon, it cuts down on the postage too.

There is a thread for everything on mumsnet isn't there!

We also sent a parcel to Germany that didn't arrive it was sent on 7th December.
Only photos

@CecilyP I don't know if the Dutch customs officials are generally as pedantic as the Germans but certainly the guidance says you have to be specific on the customs form. And actually sarcasm aside there are good reasons to be detailed if the value goes above €45, as the charge will be dependent on the items and their value.

As long as the gift items are below €45, the postage cost will be ignored if you use a standard courier service. It's only when you go above this that at some point postage will be included, but I don't have a full grasp of the details so can't advise - it basically gets very expensive!

I live in Sweden and it's become a real pain in the ass since Brexit to get anything over from the UK. Some shops are getting better at dealing with the fees on their side rather than landing you with the bill (I suppose that's reflected in the price of their goods) but gifting is still really foggy. You can't go by what the UK tells you, you have to check the rules in the receiving country too. Clear labelling to comply with those rules is necessary and even then they might put it aside for further checks. It's all too common to get a letter about unpaid toll fees and then when you call them up they just wave it away and send the parcel on to you. I wonder how many parcels they have to send back at their own cost because they weren't claimed due to excessive toll fees. I once ordered a pair of bed socks for seven quid off amazon.co.uk. I received a letter about the need to pay a £14 toll fee. I was lucky the seller gave me a refund and then had to wait the 14 days or so to get the item back.

It's hard to get the stuff I want from amazon.se but my choices are limited now.

You have said "baby clothes - 1". I assume there were multiple items of baby clothes? You need to specify each item, their weight and their value so eg blue baby hat, 50g, £5. You might have to stick two labels on to fit it all on, if there are many items!

I certainly didn’t do anything remotely like that for my Dutch parcel! However, I think you are right about the 45 euro limit. I had no idea about that including postage though.

I have family in Germany and this is driving me crazy as well. I've had the best success with Hermes (which is not a statement you often hear uttered). So long as you don't put any food in and the value is below about £40 you should be OK. You need to be able to weigh everything at home and print off all the labels and customs forms. Hermes will collect from your house. Takes bloody ages to get there though as even when you fill the forms out right it's always delayed at customs. I'm going to try and buy from German shops on future.

Please don’t write “Gift” on a child’s present going to Germany. That word means “poison” 😎

German officialdom is one of the most anal I have ever encountered. I once had a letter returned because the envelop was too square. If you want to try again, make it as easy as possible for them to understand it. If anything requires too much thinking it’s easier for the terminally officious to just to send it back.

Sorry I just re looked at your parcel and realised something else, which I think might be the reason.

You have said "baby clothes - 1". I assume there were multiple items of baby clothes? You need to specify each item, their weight and their value so eg blue baby hat, 50g, £5. You might have to stick two labels on to fit it all on, if there are many items!

Your welcome! I have family members in Germany who weigh each item on a kitchen scale!! I just take a guess on the weight based on how it feels in my hand.

For Germany (and I believe all the EU countries) if the gift is below €45 then there are no charges. Once you go above €45 it gets more complicated and the postage fee can also be included in the total value of the parcel. I don't know exactly how it works as we have decided never to send a parcel above €45.

Should your friend decide to send you a parcel back, the gift limit is £39 per person, as long as the customs form clearly shows who is getting what item, and each person's gift is clearly labelled inside the parcel.

It's all so, so complicated.

Oh also some couriers include the fee for postage in the capped limit

I live in Europe and have had to pay around £100 in the past year in customs and handling fees to receive gifts from family and friends. It is such a pain in the ass. Depending who you ask or who is working that day also seems to have a huge influence on how the parcel is handled. Perhaps your friend got a customs bill and didn't pay it because she didn't know what it was for. Sometimes less than £46 means no fees and sometimes less than £35. It depends which way the wind is blowing 😏

I shipped something from Europe to the UK with DHL recently and they held it in their own storage facility while they spent over a month clearing it through customs. Then they chased the recipient for £100 of fees to store it in their facility while they cleared it 😱 the eventual customs fees themselves were £10!!!

So in short, declare the value as less than £35, take things out of the original packaging if possible so it's obviously not an Etsy sale, and don't use DHL.

They add the cost of postage to the value of goods to decide if a charge is payable. It could be that your friend refused to pay. Or it might be that the customs officers believed the value to be greater that that which you declared. Or they didn’t believe it was a gift but commercial. Some companies are sending stuff marked as gift when it was a paid for item so they’re trying to crack down on this.

It was me that asked for a picture of the label. I send a lot of parcels to Germany, here is my theory of what I think might have happened.

You can send up to €45 of goods as gifts with no customs clearance. Your gifts add up to £40 which, using today's exchange rate, is about €48. This means the goods will attract charges, and therefore go through customs.

You say the parcel was opened. I don't know how particular customs are but I see you haven't filled in the weight of the goods, maybe that was the reason, despite them seeing the items themselves?

I think you are ok to send through Royal Mail, I always do. But suggest you put a weight against each article eg 600g, write in capital letters so they can't misunderstand what's in the parcel, and think about how much the items are worth. Not suggesting you commit fraud but could the baby clothes be worth £15?

Sent a book to Germany in September- returned to me with a load of indecipherable notes even a German speaker could not understand.

Sent it again on December 21st - arrived safely on December 30th!! No duty to pay.