Post Brexit (01/Jan/2021) postage issues between EU and UK

I just received a package from Germany/Netherlands today. Total value 30 Euros and there was just one sheet attached to it with the product listed and an HTS number. Looks pretty straight forward.

The HS code for wheels is 87149990.

In general you can send anythign second hand as "Bicycle Parts" and use the same code.
But that code will cover most bike things anyway. Brakes and gear stuff are slightly different.

If you send your own personal effects into a country, there are forms you can fill in to negate all tax. But you will have to prove residence in the country you are sending them to.

In the case you have outlined, the correct procedure is gift, with nominal values per item, £2-10 kind of thing. The recipiant may have to pay import duties and things, but if the total value is below I think 22 Euro they wont have to pay any fees.

So:

Gift,
Bike Parts, 6 pieces, £2 (per item) total value = £12

You shouldn't really need a HS code for that, but if you want To be flashy you can uuse 87149990

I hope this helps.
Brexit is an absolute disaster (as we all knew it would be in 2016)

Cheers.

16EU on top of delivery charges to send a gift (that wasn't a gift but it's the only fucking option)

My mother (in the UK) sent me (in Italy) a jacket I bought in the UK about 15 years ago. Cost her £14 to post, €22 for me in import taxes. This is a jacket I already own. She marked it as a gift, but as she was sending it as a surprise, she didn't know how to complete the relevant forms and thus didn't check with me.

If I want to send other items from the UK (that I bought and paid taxes on) how can I ship them without incurring more fees?

In general Mum cost their children a fortune in taxes when they live overseas with badly thought out gifts and shipping. Speaking from experience here. We once paid £25 in import fees for some candy and a couple of doilies.

You can absolutely send you own stuff from the UK to Italy in future without paying taxes. At least you can in most countries. I've done it 4 times to four counties. Though none were Italy.

The process is normally to fill in a form. Usually called sending personal effects or similar. You do this in the Destination country. You will nromally have to provide some sort of proof of identity and residence. This form is then printed out, along with a photocopy of your passport page and included on the outside of the box along with a PROFORMA invoice. You will absolutely need to use a courier. Do not use royal mail.

It is absolutely vital that your proforma invoice has every item on it, with some nominal value per item. 2-10 kind of thing for clothing. I like to use the word USED on each line.

Something Like:
Used socks, 5 pieces, £1 a piece, = £10
Used Jacket, 2 Pieces, £10 a piece, = £20

If you muck up and send a commerical invoice, you are screwed and will pay duty+tax.

I hope this makes some sense. There should be a page on the Italian equivalent of our .gov sites for shipping and it will be within that. Please note I am making a lot of assumptions that Italy has tthe samee thing as the countries that I have lived in. So you will need to check the Italian procedeure.

Hope that helps

Thanks, that's very helpful! I haven't had many things sent over as the cost of shipping often outweighs the value of the items (she has sent me some used bike parts before) but what I am curious about is things of value - if someone originally from the UK wishes to bring things that they owned there several years ago (in my case I have a storage unit full of stuff), how can they do so without incurring taxes? As an example, if/when I buy a property here in Italy, and I have space for all my crap, I will want to move a lot of it over as I have no intention of living in the UK again in the future. Assuming I do this via land, I guess I don't need to prepare some form of proforma/inventory for every single item? If I were to send them via courier, I guess I would. That would be almost impossible knowing the amount of things I own.

And, finally (sorry) what if the item has significant value? Surely I would need to declare this in order to account for loss or damage? It took me over ten weeks to get the gas turned on in Italy so I absolutely do not trust their import/customs departments, the amount of bureaucracy related to converting my driving licence was mind-blowing enough. What a fucking mess.

Oh sorry I made an assumption you were just looking to move clothes and low value items about, where you need to list things and work out how to assign a value thats both true and easy.

If you are sending big things its the same forms. If, say, you were moving to Australia and you put your car and everything from a house in a container it would be the same forms. And yes you would put the actual value down. And then yes you would 100% want to pay for insurance (which is normally 4% of the declared value).

If you are sending more than a box worth of stuff I would strongly addvise using an interntional moving company. Like Sevenseas or something. They have the necessary experience to navigate the forms and stuff and will help you get it right. They can also do the packing if thats a thing that you need.

Driving your own stuff accross a border is normally okay. But if you turn up in a van full of shit you are going to need to be prepared for questions, and I have absolutely no idea what that could look like. For example Canada/US border is like fine until its not and then you just don't get to cross, and you need to gom home and try again later.

Normally for an item to be tax exempt it needs to be over 1 year old. Sooooo receipts for big items that look new will be necessary probabbly.

I have only ever used these systems to ship clothing and small personal effects. I have never moved accross land borders either, so this is at the limit of what I know from experience or from work (where I do a lot of import/export)

Thanks Harry, really informative! I will give it a test with some smaller, less expensive items that I have stored back in the UK, then if that doesn't end in bankruptcy and despair, I'll feel more confident sending a few other bits. I think you are right, perhaps using a service such as Sevenseas would be the easiest (for the transfer of large/expensive items) but I dare not think what they would charge. Cheers for all the advice.

Ordered from Assos (Switzerland) Saturday night; TNT delivered this morning (Tuesday) Oof!!!
I assumed it must have come from a UK holding address but no, all the customs paperwork was there. Sender: Assos, 6855 STABIO, SWITZERLAND
Why does it have to be so painfully difficult going in the other direction....

You know Switzerland isn't in the EU?

Haha; I honestly didn't even give it a second thought; doh!

It's in EFTA and the same changes to VAT rules apply.

I’ve briefly looked in to customs charges on a set of wheels ~£1200 from the EU but it’s pretty opaque.
Does anyone have any recent experiences?

Its the same old, where its from, what code its sent under and who the carrier is. But you'd be looking at about 5% for Duty probably and 20% for Vat and around £15 for a couriers fees. So somewhere around £327 would be a safe bet.

My short experience:

I often send all things back and forth to Hungary, and have a trusted service called Arvatrans I use for all my shippings.

Few days ago was the first time I sent something since Brexit. It was a bike I built for my brother and lots of small bike and car parts for my friends that are close to impossible to find on their region's market.

Had to fill out a detailed items list with weight and prices. I added "used" in brackets for every single item, and I wasn't generous with the pricing I might say... Total was £350 and 14kg on the paper, for a standard bike-box kind of size parcel. Also filled out a declaration that the items are as a gift and not for expecting any payments in return.

Bike+bits were collected Thursday afternoon, delivered on Sunday morning, no VAT or import duty at all. Paid £60 for shipping including tips.

So from my side, no problem at all with the shipping, bit more paperwork and uncertainty whether they'd tax it, but the courier reassured my assumption that these non-cargo private parcels with used stuff for reasonable value are unlikely to get hit by the extra charge hammer.

Only the other way round, so exporting from the UK to EU. On a similar value to Italy it added roughly 350 euro to the overall amount in import and local VAT.

Yesterday I was asked for the first time ever to put the "net" weight (in kg) of a pallet of Champagne as part of Brexit related import paperwork.
Our invoicing software always put the "gross" weight of the pallet as well as the volume of Champagne in hl, but apparently, that was not sufficient.

Excise duty is paid on volume, not weight, so not sure what customs are going to do with that figure - you would need to empty every single bottle to check it.

For reference, the density of Champagne is higher than water by around 8%.

Hey an update. Parcel got returned and I sent again to the buyer in Ireland. He got charged €27 in duty... on second hand 4 year old bicycle parts from a private seller to a private buyer. This was declared as a gift worth £90. Anything gift above £39 gets charged duty...

Yes... welcome to sovereignty!

what did @Dick buy?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/mar/22/bike-poland-brexit-customs-duty-vat

So I am planning on shipping out a bike from UK to Sweden.

Planning to use this courier as they cover the paperwork/insurance and will get a box to my friend to pack it etc: https://sendbike.com/

Anyone had any experience using Sendbike?

Also, its got an insurance value of £2500 - but anyone got any advice on how I should effectively define the declared customs value?

Any advice would be much appreciated

I can't offer any advice, but are you expecting to pay a big import duty on it? I was in a a similar position (UK > NL), but I couldn't find an option that wouldn't result in a €500+ cost (shipping + import duty). Ended up selling the bike instead.

Yeah this is my worry - previously (Jan 21) the courier had offered to cover any duty and fees but stupidly I ended up pulling out of that - so no worries are that I end up with £650++ of fees

Two months and it's still floating around some warehouse. Fuck Brexit. Fuck DPD.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/361025/