Have you ever paid duty on an imported item?

[MyCatShopsAtAldi]

I’m looking at buying a toy for our kids (Pikler triangle so over £135) and as far as I can tell, if it’s from outside the UK (now we’ve left the EU), it will be liable for import duty but I’m really struggling to wade through the gov.uk website and work out how much this would be. I was assuming equivalent to VAT but got the impression it might be higher? Does anyone know?

Yes, on things bought from the US.

he said the value of the items was £700 when it was nowhere near that

I got caught with that once as I declared the new replacement cost, not what it actually cost me. I did it in case it got lost and had to claim on the insurance. It didn't get lost and I had to fork out a Royal Mail handling charge plus VAT on the full declared amount and the shipping costs.

See, it’s the lack of transparency that gets me. If it’s a simple “you have to pay VAT” - fine. But it’s not that easy to work out the duty (looks to be low for toys) and impossible to guess at handling charges.

I would never have even realised this was a thing if I hadn’t read some sellers’ reviews and seen some buyers flagging the duty as they were non-EU.

Anyway, I’ve now swallowed hard and ordered one from a UK seller. Lesson learned!

I think the Royal Mail handling charge is a flat rate, or it was. £7.50 from memory.

Dd got caught like this with a pair of jeans, the RM handling fee was as much as the extra duty.
We are currently awaiting quite an expensive item from Germany, DH thinks that because it was ordered and paid Pre Brexit it will be ok but I don’t agree. Hopefully I’m wrong

My (fairly limited) knowledge from work is that now we have left the EU, when purchasing goods from abroad we will have to pay UK VAT (in addition to whatever the sales tax is from the source country, which we always paid anyway) and customs duty. Customs duty varies depending on the goods, but most things I have been dealing with have been in the region of 3%.

It is worth noting that the VAT/customs duty is liable on the whole cost of the item (i.e. including posting and packaging costs).

Sigh...

@AnnoyedByAlfieBear I've just had an email from DHL telling me that there's a 20% import duty payable on an order I placed on a UK website in December but which is fulfilled from an EU country. The retailer is incensed on my behalf and is saying that they have paid duty at their end but of course nothign reciprocal now.
Some stores are no longer fulfilling orders to teh UK while this is resolved.
In the meantime, I won't pay therefore DHL won't deliver and in three long weeks they'll send it back and the retailer will presumably refund me at some point thereafter.

I think part of the problem lies with the retailer charging local VAT in the first place. They shouldn't be doing that but I suppose it will take time for them to alter their websites to automatically charge UK customers the VAT exclusive price.

ah ok - so in fact they could just reimburse me what they've charged and i'll give it to dhl instead?

I thought with the latest agreement we don't actually pay customs fees for imported goods?

We are currently awaiting quite an expensive item from Germany, DH thinks that because it was ordered and paid Pre Brexit it will be ok but I don’t agree.
I am still waiting on three packages ordered ages ago. I really hope I won't get charged!

Not sure what the vat position is but there’s an additional 12% tariff on silk blouses ffs (guess what I ordered?)

This might help explain why the confusion...

www.ft.com/content/bae02f57-a648-45fd-a774-6b341aa59caf

Or search on UK VAT changes for foreign mail-order sellers create ‘chaos’ if you hit a pay wall.

I've just had to pay £92 on bag bought for £375. Didn't realise until it was too late

The EU VAT change that came in 1st Jan is coincidental with Brexit only. EU countries will be implementing it between each other too, if a retailer sells something like over 10k Euro of goods in a year (so if a German retailer sells more than 10,000 Euro worth of products to Austrian customers, they will have to start adding on VAT). The EU countries have put off implementing this until the summer, whereas the UK started it in Jan as originally planned.

All EU countries agreed this arrangement in 2016 (also coincidence that this was the date of the referendum!)

It's all incredibly annoying. Lots of EU retailers are saying they will do longer sell to the UK, to avoid the trouble of collecting VAT. I am an Etsy seller, and although Etsy will deal with the collection side for me, my European customers will find me less attractive with 20% VAT.

Not sure what the amounts are but it can be a lot. We buy things from the states and the far east and generally have a bill to pay. Ebay are pretty good at calculating out what it is in advance iirc.

Maybe find something of similar value/type on there from the country of origin and say if it gives an amount?

So you won't pay Customs fees! But you will pay VAT.

When I import from the US, I pay between £8-£16 handling fees (Royal Mail less, courier more - you get no choice), VAT, and the Customs charges. I only have bought things from the US that I either cannot get here for work, or that are so much cheaper there, it makes it worthwhile.

This is doing the rounds on Facebook

So when we bought this item we paid vat in Germany
I wonder if we will be expected to pay more vat when it arrives here?

Don’t do it, my DF sent gifts for Christmas, from Canada... he didn’t mark the package as gifts and he also marked value was over £130 😣( I believe anything under £130 there’s no VAT charged) and I got charged £69.00 in charges before they would release it. There’s a handling fee, VAT and another fee that I can’t remember.

Have a look on eBay USA. Sometimes the listing will show you everything including fees if they ship to the UK.

It's been hit and miss. Last time I ordered melatonin from the USA I had custom charges, several times before it's sneaked through but they are a lower value.
That said, DH ordered some side bars for his car a few years ago. They were from the USA and cost about £250 from memory. They were delivered within days of ordering them and we were never charged customs fees or fees from DHL who delivered them.

Just thank the brexiteers for the extra charges.
Must be worth it to get our sovereignty back.

@Robbybobtail

Hi, I bought ds an item of clothing at Xmas which came from the USA - the item was approx £100 with shipping and DHL then sent a text saying they had the parcel but I had to pay £25 import tax before they would deliver it. I was a bit surprised as I hadn’t realised!

Yes this was basically my experience. The item was maybe 250 it was a custom made cover for furniture. I got a text and paid around £30.

@purpleleotard

Not according to a previous poster -

*The EU VAT change that came in 1st Jan is coincidental with Brexit only. EU countries will be implementing it between each other too, if a retailer sells something like over 10k Euro of goods in a year (so if a German retailer sells more than 10,000 Euro worth of products to Austrian customers, they will have to start adding on VAT). The EU countries have put off implementing this until the summer, whereas the UK started it in Jan as originally planned.

All EU countries agreed this arrangement in 2016 (also coincidence that this was the date of the referendum!)*

I've ALWAYS been hit for Customs on non EU purchases (long story)

Rule of thumb is
£10 clearance fee
20% VAT
5% duty

sometimes higher, sometimes lower for the duty, but it lets you compare