Customs/Royal Mail charges.

[Alcide_Herveaux]

I recently received an order from amazon.com after having to pay customs and Royal Mail handling charges. Does anyone know if there's any sort of limit you can stay under to avoid this in future?

[Samuel_Scott]

The limit is £15 (not including postage).

Anything over that gets the 20% tax which isn't to bad. It's the additional £8 Royal Mail fee that annoys me.

If you buy from within in the EU, there is no limit.

Note that some US Amazon.co.uk Marketplace sellers reship from within the UK or via Germany and so they are essentially customs friendly. Companies such as dvdworldusa and movietyme are customs friendly, but charge a high price. Also, anything marked as a gift shouldn't be hit by the folks at the hilariously name Mount Pleasant.

[Alcide_Herveaux]

Cheers Sam. So it doesn't matter how much the postage is then? I think that the £8 handling charge takes the piss.

[Samuel_Scott]

Cheers Sam. So it doesn't matter how much the postage is then? I think that the £8 handling charge takes the piss.

Yes, postage doesn't count.

However, from personal experience, some companies add the value including postage putting it over the threshold. When this happens, just print off your order confirmation, write a cover note and send it to customs for a refund (takes about 6 weeks, I've never been refused). If you do get a customs charge, then tax is also added to the shipping costs.

Completely agree, if the post office didn't charge £8 and went for, say, £2 (a fair charge for paying the customs fee for you), I would buy more items that were over the threshold but the £8 is too much on something that could be in the £15-20 range. A £15.01 disc will incur £11 in fees.

[Samuel_Scott]

Forgot to say, if you're ordering several items at Amazon.com then it is better to pay the extra few $ for the expedited shipping. That way you pay customs charges up front and skip the £8 Royal Mail want! Not worth doing for1-3 dvds/blu-rays though.

[Alcide_Herveaux]

Yeah I usually only buy 2 or 3 films at a time from amazon.com. A couple of quid would be a lot better. Would I be right in thinking that Mount Pleasant is in or near Cardiff?

[Samuel_Scott]

There is a Mount Pleasant in Cardiff, but the Royal Mail customs Mount Pleasant is the one in London (EC1).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Mail ... ing_Office

[Alcide_Herveaux]

Ah, ok. I just wondered because I'm less than 20 miles from Cardiff, lol.

[Erik_Haraldsson]

How strict is the UK customs then, because here in Sweden they will typically ignore anything under £30 (with shipping included, not sure if there is an actual minimum level)? Has also gotten some item worth over £100 passed without customs. Packages from US seems more likely to be caught here than any other.

[Samuel_Scott]

Very strict. You have a chance through a carrier like DHL or Fedex but they are 5x more expensive then the royal mail.

[Nigel_Badnell]

How strict is the UK customs then, because here in Sweden they will typically ignore anything under £30 (with shipping included, not sure if there is an actual minimum level)?

The EU sets both a minimum and maximum for the threshold value below/above which VAT is
not/charged. States are then free to choose a value anywhere within that range.
I forget now what is the lower limit, but the UK is not far off it. It's the only thing stopping
the b'stards from charging VAT+the Royal Mail's nice little earner on everything.
When it was £18 and £3.50 fee (ah, those were the days), it was fine - stick in an order for £30.
Now one has to be creative...

[Jyri_Lehtinen]

Here in Finland the customs limit when buying cds & dvds and whatever else outside EU, including postage, was dropped to €22 in January when last year it was practically twice that much and €34 something from locations such as Jersey or Quernsey (like Play.com). So now anything beyond €22 might get stuck in customs and you get to pay 24% VAT and in addition to that customs fees for anything exceeding €150.

The smallest amount of VAT to be charged was also dropped from €10 to €5 so now whenever the customs remembers you with a nice "we want money" note, you also need to pay more and much more often when you're getting something from outside EU.

On a funny side note, a while back I recieved about $160 worth of anime complete series sets in one shipment from the US and I recieved the package right at my doorstep without any additional costs. The customs must have had a "be nice to the customer week" or something by letting it through as it was rather large package and the price (even if slightly lowered by the seller) was stated on the tax sheet right on the cover.
I bet soon I'll get surprise bills so that things will get even.

[Alcide_Herveaux]

I reckon that mail companies around Europe probably do it to punish you for spending money overseas and not putting it back into the economy or something. Either way it's bloody greedy of them. When I received my parcel from amazon.com (which cost £22 something for the 4 DVD's inside) I had to pay out a further £12 odd in order to get my stuff.

[Samuel_Scott]

Been reading that Barnes & Noble are apparantly customs safe. They mark their packages as books and you don't pay tax on books! They charge $7.49 + $0.99 per item for airmail and their 50% criterion sale is due in July.

[Paul Moran]

Been reading that Barnes & Noble are apparantly customs safe. They mark their packages as books and you don't pay tax on books! They charge $7.49 + $0.99 per item for airmail and their 50% criterion sale is due in July.

True for most of the shipments I've had from them. A couple were marked as DVDs, not Books, but were within the customs allowance. The Criterion sale is twice yearly: July and November.

[Ain_Uussaar]

In Estonia tax free limit for outside of EU packages is €21,98 (gifts €45 [Does not apply for alcohol, tobacco and perfumes]). If its more than €21,98 (gifts €45) then 20% turnover tax is applied (for books 9%). If its value is more than €150 then also a customs tax is applied, the rate is different depending on commodity groups (from 0-17%). Estonian Post is charging a fee if you want their customs service, but you can refuse and deal with customs yourself.

[Samuel_Scott]

Received two big packages worth about £150 each from Barnes and Noble today. With customs it would have been cheaper by $18 at Amazon but they were marked as books and therefore came in a good chunk cheaper! No fees. Think I'll order from them in future - even if they mark some as DVD, I should still come out on top over Amazon.

[Brent_Reid]

Quick question: what is the current tax limit for importing non-EU DVDs/BDs into the UK?

It used to be £18; is it the same or has it been lowered? I've just had a card delivered to say my package ($29.66/£17.83 goods + £6.50/£3.92 P&P) is being held to ransom at the sorting office for £11...

[Samuel_Scott]

£15

[Jim_Mcdonaugh]

Once I bought like 60 DVDs from [url]amazon.co.uk[/url] and had no problems. Didn't pay any extra fee...