True costs of oversea imports to Germany (1 Viewer)

The package will stuck at the customs authority and you will get an invitation from them.

That might be the case in Germany, but definetly not Europe in general.
In Austria, if the package does not contain an invoice, I'll get a letter from customs, to which I can reply by e-mail.

I'll mail them the required documents and that's it. They'll forward the package and if I have to pay customs the postman will collect…
 
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Where are you taking the 7% "import fee" from? I've never paid anything like that.
Customs duty and VAT, that's it. And customs duty is 0% for chips.

Plus: The trade war 10% only apply to playing cards... not to chips.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R0886
Last page of annex 1 lists only 9504 40 00 in the 9504 category, whereas poker chips would fall under 9504 30 (90).
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_custo...43090&Expand=true&SimDate=20180326#9504309000
Oh man. They have to refund so much. Thank you for this resources
 
As far as European countries go I find Germany to be the worst when it comes to taxes. I really do not like to put invoices on boxes because I do not want the post office employees to see what is inside or the values. For all the big orders going to Germany I have to put the invoices on the outside of the box. If I do not they hold the packages.
 
Truth be told, I *once* did pay a couple of euros on some ominous fees for a tiny envelope that was sent via regular mail (ie no parcel service) and was processed by some other random customs office instead of the usual one (HZA Frankfurt). The fees were to be paid straight on delivery to the postman.

But that was something I sent myself through some US mail forwarding provider with the absolute cheapest shipping option they had available. And it was not called USPS. Perhaps that's why it was such a low shipping rate...

I've had countless imports through UPS/FedEx which they took care of and a good bunch of shipments where I did the customs formalities myself at the Munich customs office. Only paid duty+VAT there.
 
Don't you still have to declare the value, even if it's a gift?
 
I'm heading to Scotland in August and offered in another thread to bring chips with me if anyone there was interested. I have no idea what the rules for this are though. If I have some racks packed in my luggage, do I have to pay some kind of customs fee or VAT to bring them into the country?

Of course this could all change depending on whether they are still part of the EU by then... :rolleyes:
 
I have no idea what the rules for this are though. If I have some racks packed in my luggage, do I have to pay some kind of customs fee or VAT to bring them into the country?

If you carry them with you the limits are usually a bit higher, but there are limits. No idea about Scotland, but we have a limit of € 430 if you come by plane for example.
 
if the package does not contain an invoice, I'll get a letter from customs, to which I can reply by e-mail.

Same thing in Switzerland.
You must provide the proof of value i.e. with a copy of the PayPal transaction.

Don't you still have to declare the value, even if it's a gift?

You still need to declare because the government wants to recover a VAT tax based on the value of the object.
If it's a true gift and the value in not declared and you cannot proof the proof the value because there was no transaction.
A) the item is sent back to the sender because the mandatory custom form is not attached to the shipment
or B) an "expert" estimates the value of the gift.

all above are real stories based on 10+ years of internet shopping
 
I feel your pain :(

Also, if you think Germany is bad, don't ever move to Norway... (we are not part of the EU either, so most stuff getting shipped here is ridiculously expensive, you'd think we are located on the moon).
 
These types of costs have lead to a new industry based on kickstarted board games. Each region now has 1-4 fulfillment companies that receive games in bulk and then re-ship them from inside the area to avoid customers paying fees
 
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I've had countless imports through UPS/FedEx which they took care of and a good bunch of shipments where I did the customs formalities myself at the Munich customs office. Only paid duty+VAT there.

For me its the custom office in hallbergmoos. the first time I got poker chips, they told me, they don't have those in the list. They would pick "playing cards". I payed so much money on any types on import fees. crazy, but it seems that they scammed me (without intention)
 
In Spain Pay one fee 14 Euros +import VAT 21% for avoid this confiscatory tax:) I pay for an expensive university for years to my daughter, now she returns the favor to her old father by getting a job at a NYC hospital, and brings me all the chips and purchases I make in the USA during the Christmas holidays.
For mi Sales of chips use in the customs form the Games of table chips, in toys category.
 
have always paid only VAT at the customs office. There is no duty on chips.

Same with me. I only pay VAT at "my" customs office.

But with me in the customs office there is ONE particularly conscientious official who once looked up the eBay number of my transaction to check whether the indicated costs are correct. Since then, there are no eBay numbers left on my transaction documents... ;)
 
Buying board game from amazon.de, shipped to USA.

$35 game
$13 shipping
$0 VAT
$0 import tax
$0 tariff

I can see it both ways on taxing consumption. I enjoy not having it taxed though.
 
Derail oot
---
Like 7 years ago, a friend of mine ordered from Hambourg (Zib military for the German audience) a replica of a panzerfaust, including the dummy holow charge.

Basically it was an unharmful tube of steel.
But is was passed thru a scanner at the post office...

The post office called the police, who evaluated the building and called the bomb squad...

Once they noticed that was a dummy, the alert was canceled. But the post office wanted my friend to paid for the trouble and police intervention. Obviously he refused saying "I did not call the police, you did ".
The post office tryed for 2 month to get some kind of money, but finally they surrended the fake panzerfaust to him, not before he paid for the VAT + Import charges and a fee for "storage and handling"

End of oot
 
Whenever I ship chips to Germany, I just describe them as heavy clay bricks sliced thin into little circles, and worth about as little as it sounds like they're worth. Seems to work....

I ask all shippers to describe chips as "Play Gaming Tokens, no cash value" when shipping to me, for the exact same reason. Putting "Poker Chips" in the description seems to arouse the duty-happy curiosities of Swiss Customs
 
I ask all shippers to describe chips as "Play Gaming Tokens, no cash value" when shipping to me, for the exact same reason. Putting "Poker Chips" in the description seems to arouse the duty-happy curiosities of Swiss Customs

'Toys - poker chips ' is also safe :)
I've tried the customs of almost every country in Europe.

Best is France & Italy
Worst is Germany, Holland & Switzerland
Belgium is in between.....for small package not good (they add the shipping cost to value product before taxation, for bigger boxes you always pay the taxes (but no so much).

YMMV
 
Yeah, definitely should add the "no cash value" part in the customs declaration.

When I was doing customs formalities for a couple of Horseshoe samples (a $25,000 among them) the agent wanted proof from me that these chips no longer have face value - else I'd have paid 19% on those $25,000, lol. Luckily they have internet on their work machines for on-the-fly research purposes, so I asked them to google about the casino rebranding since I remember there was some news article that mentioned the replacement of chips.
 
Here the fee is 17% VAT on (stated value + US shipping)
then they add a fixed handling fee of 20€.

Sometimes they ask for invoice to check value of content, sometimes not.
If it's under 100-200$, half of the time the package is delivered without customs VAT and fee. I haven't been able to spot a pattern on my relative few purchases.
 

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