If I buy an item from ebay (US) and ship it to my work in the US and get a colleague to send it to my office in the UK what costs am I likely to incur? The item in question is probably valued around £60-£70.

Edit: Wrong forum…woops.

There is normally import duty, value added tax and custom handling charge. Depending how much its cost you to post you will likely not have to pay duty. Though if customs get hold of it you will still have to pay regular value added tax and customs handling. All depends on the over all cost and postage charge though. At a very ruff guess a extra £20 or £30 if customs get hold of it.

Allow for about 20%

I've bought a few items from Jenson USA and have luckily avoided import duties so far – its just luck whether customs check the box or not.

rudedog – Member
I've bought a few items from Jenson USA and have luckily avoided import duties so far – its just luck whether customs check the box or not

How long has it been ?? .. i thought that , then the fedex envelope dropped through the door !!
Import duty is 4.5 % , then vat and then the handling charge of around a tenner

Slight/medium thread hijack…. Ordered a bashguard from Dark Cycles in Vancouver Canada, says shipped on 31/5, any idea when I can expect it to land on my mat? Never ordered from across the pond before

Bloodynora – I usually get stuff from USA in around 7 days. If it gets held up at customs add a few days to that cause you have to pay the fee's.

As to the OP's question, if your getting it shipped to a mate in the US, get them to re-package it (take out anything to do with the shop) and then re-post it. Get them to declare it as a gift (which it is really) and it should get through customs.
Anything with added insurance will usually get checked at customs, because they assume if its worth insuring, its going to be worth checking…

Josh…

Adding to post above-
If you do get a customs charge, allow for around 20% of the items value, and then usually a £8 handling fee.
*Handling fee is usually charged when parcel-force deal with it. Not 100% sure about other companies, but worth mentioning.

Cheers for that info Josh nice one, will bear that in mind for future ordering…. and apologies to the OP for the slight off topic!