UK to EU custom duties

[Whoops]

I think the root of the misunderstanding is the application of the word "tax". Since we are using English language, we do not refer to administrative fees as tax here. They are administrative fees or charges.

The discussion in this thread started by xazrules where he asked "How much are the custom duties?",
Ian replied that "There should not be any. All you have to pay is regular VAT",
Ian is a gentleman and of course he didn't know, but that's incorrect.

There's "Custom Duties" to be paid on top of the local country VAT.

Tax or Fee or Duties is irrelevant for the subject matter, as the buyer as to pay that to the local Customs authority when ordering from outside EU, thats what Xazrules asked.
Call it what you want

Some of the Tax/Fee/Duties I paid are dependent of the product itself, different products will see a different tax being applied. That depends on the "Harmonized system (HS) code" declared for the goods being shipped.
For example I ordered an Amplifier, that's Harmonized Customs code 85423300 so they will calculate the fees based on that code.
If I ordered a PCB instead of a complete amplifier the code would be 85340000 and the fee would be much less than a complete amplifier, because a PCB is not a complete product, it's a part that can be used for internal country's production so it's taxed less.
So yes the fees, the duties are a composite and include taxes that are based on the type of product.

What they aren't is "handling charges".

From our point of view, and I am sure Ian will agree with me, that somehow we had the impression that UK and EU had a duty free deal.

There's no customs deal, at least none that affects us small buyers, ordering from the UK is exactly the same as ordering from any other non-EU country.
You Pay VAT and Custom duties

 

[moamps]

I'm sorry for that mate,
I have a discount in the Neutrik Portuguese Supplier, do you want me to order those parts for you and ship them to Croatia?
.....did you try contacting the Croatian Neutrik agent?

Thanks a lot for the offer but I have given up on that purchase right now. Sure, I contacted local dealers first but they don’t sell connector parts.

 

[ruffrecords]

Can I ask what you guys in the EU pay if you buy parts from Digikey or Mouser? For me it is just VAT and if you buy over £30 or £40 worth shipping is free.

Cheers

Ian

 

[moamps]

For me, Mouser is like any other EU company. There are no additional costs. Free shipping is just an add-on that I adore at Mouser. US Ebay or any other US company is a completely different story, because double taxation is happening, at least for us from Croatia.

 

[beatnik]

From what I understand there are no duties for electronic components between UK and EU.

For amounts under £135 the seller has to collect VAT, below that it's the customs. The annoying thing is that in the second case the courier will deal with it and charge extra £8-£10 for processing fees.

If you buy from a UK business the VAT was normally charged anyway, but there might be the extra processing fee for the courier.

I have seen a few businesses putting a £135 minimum order spending, probably because they don't wanna deal with VAT collections...

If you buy second hand the VAT is charged on top of the total, plus the admin fee. Now that's annoying...

Mouser, Digikey, etc. have no processing fees probably because they are big companies and have some kind of deals with couriers.

 

[sahib]

The discussion in this thread started by xazrules where he asked "How much are the custom duties?",
Ian replied that "There should not be any. All you have to pay is regular VAT",
Ian is a gentleman and of course he didn't know, but that's incorrect.

My interpretation of your above statement is that I am not a gentleman and of course I knew. That is fine and I hope this concludes the discussion between us.

From what I understand there are no duties for electronic components between UK and EU.

This is what I understand but it seems it is not the case on the opposite side.

At least my experience is that if I purchase outside UK there are two items appear and I pay for on the invoice. The VAT content and the processing (or admin) charge which is generally between £10-12.

Below is a typical example.



In fact as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts I am chasing one particular courier for three imports that they have neither charged me for VAT nor processing fee. The goods have been delivered and all the documentation is e-mailed to me but with no charge on them. So, something must be wrong somewhere.

Mouser, Digikey, etc. have no processing fees probably because they are big companies and have some kind of deals with couriers.

I also purchase from Mouser. They are registered in UK too. So, they charge you in GBP and even if they bring the goods from their, say, US branch it is their internal admin and is not reflected onto your shipping cost. Here the courier is not billing you for their services.

Having said that if Farnell does not have a particular item in their UK stock, but in on of their outside UK branches then they charge you surplus for the shipping.

Anyhow, this is outside the thread topic but I though it might be of some help.

 

[Whoops]

My interpretation of your above statement is that I am not a gentleman and of course I knew. That is fine and I hope this concludes the discussion between us.

Your interpretation is completely wrong

You were talking about “taxes” or “fees” in your previous post I was just reminding that what’s asked in the first post in this thread and started the discussion is if “Custom Duties” are paid or not, word tax or fee was never used, and yes, Custom Duties have to be paid.

 

[Whoops]

Can I ask what you guys in thew EU pay if you buy parts from Digikey or Mouser?

Hi Ian,
I don’t pay anything (PT custom duties or PT VAT) when ordering from Mouser or from Farnell. Digikey I never tried.

But I was just checking my last Farnell invoice, and Farnell address in that invoice is in Spain (Barcelona) so at least with Farnell when ordering from Portugal it seems they ship all the parts from warehouses inside EU.

Mouser I don’t remember now how the system is, I will try to find some invoice or info. But I remember I never paid VAT or fees to the Portuguese customs, the parcels don’t even stop in the customs they come directly to me.
Maybe they also have a big warehouse inside EU…

 

[Whoops]

From what I understand there are no duties for electronic components between UK and EU.

Where did you see that? Can please post a link?

I definitely paid Custom Duties and VAT(over price+shipping) when ordering electronic components from EBay UK, Audiomaintenance and Canford

 

[Tubetec]

The issue with Ireland is a geographic one , theres loads of small suppliers in the UK ,before they were happy to send you a small packet via regular post ,maybe a few pounds for carriage ,nice and simple . The problem with the bigger (farnell etc)electronics suppliers is they only ship via courier so a bag of resistors that costs 50 cents still costs an additional 10 or 20 euros to ship ,even within Ireland or the EU . While ordering larger heavier items from continental Europe usually works out ok , say from Germany the last package I ordered cost 15.99 euros for delivery and weighed a couple of KG , if its small low cost items your often charged the equivalent of hundreds of % mark up in the form of a processing charge which kills all the good .

Theres a story coming up on national radio later about someone in Ireland who bought a gift voucher from a UK store , they got clobbered with a 75 euro charge on the delivery of the voucher to Ireland and it seems the way things are set up , the person who recieves the voucher is destined to get reamed out again when the item they order is delivered . I'll report back when the story is aired later .

I guess we have to face facts ,ordering in cheap from afar has sounded the death knell for many small local opperators , that hits tax take on our shores , in return now the EU customs policy is hitting the smallest end users disproportionately.


Well it's a dog eat dog
Eat cat too
French eat frog
And I eat you
Business man when you make a deal
Do you know who you can trust
Do you sign your life away
Do you write your name in dust
Hey, hey, hey
Every dog has it's day
It's a dog eat dog
Dog eat dog

from the Bon Scott song book .

 

[Tubetec]

Ok ,slight innacuracy in the picture I painted earlier on ,
the person ordered a gift voucher from the Ikea.ie website , the voucher for 300 euros arrived some days later in the post issued by an UK subsidiary of Ikea along with a demand from 'An Post'( the national postal service) for another 70 euros . The question that arrises is will the person who uses the voucher be charged again when they take delivery of the item .

Another caller to the radio show recieved a callender from the USA , a gift from a friend , notional value 10 euros , by the time it arrived they were looking at another 29 euros at the recieve end before the gift was released . From what was said items below 40 euros shouldnt incur any extra charges or tax . In many cases people simply pay the charge and say nothing rather than returning the gift to sender with all the embarressment that would entail . This amounts to state sponsored highway robbery .

 

[sahib]

....
Another caller to the radio show recieved a callender from the USA , a gift from a friend , notional value 10 euros , by the time it arrived they were looking at another 29 euros at the recieve end before the gift was released . From what was said items below 40 euros shouldnt incur any extra charges or tax . In many cases people simply pay the charge and say nothing rather than returning the gift to sender with all the embarressment that would entail . This amounts to state sponsored highway robbery .

I have just received a good size gift package from a good friend in US, delivered without any customs tax or handling charge. I am certainly not saying this is the norm in the UK as probably due to Covid combined with Christmas period it slipped through the net.

However, what I would like to know if these charges in the EU existed before Brexit. In other words, say two years ago you bought some audio transformers from a US supplier and they were delivered by your own postal system. Would you be asked to pay the same charges?

From my own experience the only change after Brexit in Royal Mail charges is the price rise for postage to EU. Last week I posted our Christmas cards and the ones to Italy and Republic of Ireland (my wife is Irish- Italian) cost me £2.55 each which was quite a shock (and there are a lot of family there). This was same as posting to US. But in terms of receiving anything with Royal Mail their charges are the same as I mentioned before.

 

[beatnik]

Where did you see that? Can please post a link?

I definitely paid Custom Duties and VAT(over price+shipping) when ordering electronic components from EBay UK, Audiomaintenance and Canford

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/access-to-markets/en/results?product=853222&origin=GB&destination=PT
this is the calculation if you were to import capacitors from the uk to portugal. there is no duty. it will be the same for other kinds of electronic components.
but if you want to trade food, alcohol or other products the story might be different.

 

[beatnik]

However, what I would like to know if these charges in the EU existed before Brexit. In other words, say two years ago you bought some audio transformers from a US supplier and they were delivered by your own postal system. Would you be asked to pay the same charges?

Yes. From the US you pay duties + vat + courier admin charge. It has been like that since I moved to the uk 6 years ago

 

[sahib]

May be I was not clear. Not from US to UK (when it was in the EU) but from US to say Republic of Ireland or Italy.

 

[Whoops]

However, what I would like to know if these charges in the EU existed before Brexit. In other words, say two years ago you bought some audio transformers from a US supplier and they were delivered by your own postal system. Would you be asked to pay the same charges?

Yes, same charges and same procedures.
Only difference was that before 2021, parcels with a Total (Price+shipping) of less than 22€ that arrived from outside EU were not Taxed, VAT or Custom fees, were tax exempt, you only paid above 22€ .
This year that exemption for lower priced items was abolished and all items coming from outside EU are Taxed independently of the value.

 

[Tubetec]

I did order some stuff from the USA a couple of years back off Ebay , Veeder Root mechanical turns counters and a box of 6Au6's , what I paid on Ebay including shipping was the total , no extra charges . Its probably different now .

 

[sahib]

Contradicting answers between the two EU members.

Since just over 20 years ago, the last time I paid the 2% duty at the airport about the equipment I mentioned before I have not paid a penny more than the VAT and the handling charge (which is just to repeat again between £10-12. In fact Royal Mail used to be £8.00) neither for my own personal purchases nor for my business.

So the question becomes, for all these years UK was part of EU, and how come we never had import tax while the other EU member states did.

Perhaps due to the conditions UK was in a position to dictate on EU. I don't know.

 

[[silent:arts]]

I have seen a few businesses putting a £135 minimum order spending, probably because they don't wanna deal with VAT collections...

The problem is how the UK handles it. For sales below £135 they want me to register for a UK VAT number, a UK EORI number, and I would need to have (pay) a UK responsible person.
The administrative effort is about the same as setting up and running a company in the UK.

 

[[silent:arts]]

Can I ask what you guys in the EU pay if you buy parts from Digikey or Mouser? For me it is just VAT and if you buy over £30 or £40 worth shipping is free.

Ian,
both, DigiKey and Mouser, handle VAT and any possible customs duties on their side. While shipping is from the US it feels like buying in your own country.