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

[Zitouna]

Here for traffic. I sent a parcel to Germany in November - presents for my friend who has just had a baby. Sent via the post office, who checked all the forms for me.

It has just been returned to me - the only information is that it was refused by German customs due to ‘non-compliant postal item identifier’. Which I think means the customs form is wrong. But I’ve checked against the advice and can’t see anything wrong/missing.

I want to resend (quickly, because the baby will be too big for the things soon!) but don’t know what to do differently! If I send with a private courier (DHL?) will they advise me? Has anyone successfully sent presents to Germany from brexitland?

@girafferaffle
I got a parcel in September which was only released after I paid duty on it. It's Parcelforce or Royal Mail (can't remember) which does the UK side of the shipment and I could see on the tracking that it was held up, contacted them, paid and parcel arrived two days later. I had also several delieveries for work which needed payment first, and one (via Fedex) which arrived and work was invoiced afterwards. It seems various couriers have different ways of doing it.

I sent something to Italy recently. I could somehow track it and see it sitting in Turin for around 4 months the. Back it came to me. Absolutely no idea why or what I did wrong. Meticulously correct description wtc. Feels as thoigh we aren’t part of Europe any more. I mean really feels it. No idea how to send and so have given up.

@Snowiscold
Customs charges started in January 202, at least I or work have been charged for shipment coming into the UK since then.

@CecilyP

I didn’t know the recipient has to declare the same! They knew what was coming but they didn’t know the exact values

I doubt if my recipient did. Customs would have no means of contacting her other than writing to her - not possible in the timeframe. Once through customs, it would have just been delivered by the normal postman.

Not sure if its different in different parts of the EU but in Finland I have to log onto the customs website and declare parcels before customs will release them (and then, annoyingly, separately contact the postal service and pay a fee to them as well so that they will deliver) and if I have the parcel number I can declare it before it even arrives. Perhaps your recipient did that.

@Igneococcus The rules did tighten up considerably on Jan 1st, hence the insane delays around Dover currently.

www.itv.com/news/2022-01-01/brexit-new-customs-rules-explained-amid-warnings-they-could-lead-to-shortages

As if it isn't difficult enough already. I might have to tell my mum not to bother with a birthday parcel for me in February, I'll pick it up next time I'm there.

You need to be v specific and include accurate values of what the contents are worth. There may (depending on value( be duty to be paid in Germany when collecting.

The post office should help you out with the customs declaration.

Brexit = totally winning

Yes in future but direct form a local in country store and get sent direct

My my mother sent secondhand duplo, like £5 from flea market. They paid customs and postage in uk. Labelled gift. DHL still wanted us to pay €40 import charges to deliver.
I could have bought new by the time £5 value, £21 uk end postage and customs, and €40 this end.

it's due to a europe wide introduction of import vat on anything sent from outside eu.
youmight want to send 2 parcels to keep beliw the allowed value for gifts.

in the future you might want to buy gifts directly in the country.

german customs advice on gifts:

https://www.zoll.de/EN/Private-individuals/Postalconsignmentssinternetorder/Shipments-from-a-non-EU-country/Duties-and-taxes/Gifts/giftssnode.html

I had already checked and realised that my friend might have to pay fees. The particular items I bought aren’t available on Amazon.de, and the companies themselves don’t ship to the EU, which was why I parcelled up myself in the first place.

Still not really sure what I did wrong - perhaps not having the precise values. Argh.

Someone asked to see a picture of the label

There are lots of shitty things about brexit - and I know this is minor in the grand scheme, but really the inability to send gifts to friends and family seems like such a massive loss. Something i completely took for granted before. Sorry to everyone else with similar stories.

I will investigate DHL…

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.

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?

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.

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.

@Customs gosh I hadn’t thought of that - post office weighed the parcel and I put the total on. Good point though. I’ll make sure I do both next time. Thanks so much!

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

@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!