Just wondered how customs and commercial invoices work ?

 

Is this for you as an individual or a business?

 

Our shipping agent looked after it all for us, for a fee of course. There are fees on fees, taxes on taxes etc.

 

dont know if it means anything , but i bought a camera of a chinese company for £60 , 3 weeks later got a bill for £7 from DHL for import duty. Not sure if it goes by weight or value.

 

simply goes by value and also which "band" the goods fall under - e.g. luxyury goods are taxed differently to automotive parts and you pay a different duty amount......

as a buyer generally you need to do nothing as the UK coureir will simply charge you the appropriate charge

alyn

 

I'm amazed there's anything left that's made in China that's not already on sale here!

JohnD

 

loads of chinese ebay sellers, running it from the UK, gets you out of shipping and VAT charges

 

if you get anything imported from china etc 9 times out of ten it will get caught in customs and you will have to pay the charges.

i have bought some car bits from china before and got charged vat etc.

 

I've had loads of stuff from china off eBay and never had to pay the import tax.
On the other hand, I ordered a pair of timberland boots from a website I thought was based in the uk, turned out it was from china, customs seized them because they were fake and destroyed them and I was £80 out of pocket.

 

Think as an individual it's the luck of the draw if you get stung on duty, some sellers will mark as gift which helps things. I have only bought cheap items from china on eBay which are under the limit for charges so never had a problem. If you are importing a lot of stuff in a container I would employ an agent to I spect the stuff before shipping as its to late after you have paid and waited for them to arrive here if they are no good. When I worked for a fastener company we found companies based in china that offered this service for a fee was far better than taking the risk.

 

It's a shame 9 out of 10 illegal immigrants Don't get caught by customs though