However I’m sure that in 6months time euro purchasing will incur addition vat and admin fees every time.

I’m not so sure about this – China imports are pretty hit and miss where duty & VAT is concerned I think? (although my recent experience is <£135) EU imports will presumably end up similar unless customs is better resourced in the future (i.e. proportionately better resourced).

They won’t be better resourced any time soon. They will be bouncing small items not pre-paid for VAT instead. It’s coming. If you’re assuming small items slipping under the net will carry on forever, I fear you will disappointed. China imports are one of the reasons for the changes coming.

China imports are pretty hit and miss where duty & VAT is concerned I think?

Really? Its been years since I haven’t been hit for duty on an item that was correctly labeled…

Also, when HMRC can make money they generally just throw staff at it, which seems to be the current gov response to this issue. They are well aware that revenue can be made/claimed here and will take every advantage to do so.

Arrived and no charges 😁

Mudhugger having issues with parcel sizing, let alone duty….
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1909199845885181&id=189731704498679

The reverb AXS I ordered is arriving today. Again, like others on here, no vat or duty to pay….

Just curious who are Bikediscount using for shipping?
Ta

Just thinking about trying to order a road groupset from them, seeing if could get it a little cheaper and in stock

dhl > parcelforce

Cheers, surprised PF always get me on taxes

Might trying winging it to see what happens.

Looking at the box and customs forms DHL / Bike-Discount used – all of the pricing info is on the inside of the documentation rather than in view on the outside of the box, it would only take bike discount flipping the doc over to correctly show value for duty to be applied. So, at the moment, customs would have to physically open the plastic documemt packet to determine duty. This is prob how they are getting through.
Edit: interestingly Bike discount also had the item listed as a commercial sample (in german), which is duty free so it would get through on those grounds…..

all of the pricing info is on the inside of the documentation rather than in view on the outside of the box, it would only take bike discount flipping the doc over to correctly show value for duty to be applied.

Problem with showing the value of item on the outside is expensive or desirable stuff gets pinched.

interestingly Bike discount also had the item listed as a commercial sample (in german), which is duty free so it would get through on those grounds

A good few years ago this was the default option of getting stuff in from china or the US without duty. When they clamped down on this everything was 99p, until it went missing and the courier would only refund 99p and not the few hundred quid you paid for your item.

Problem with showing the value of item on the outside is expensive or desirable stuff gets pinched.

All of the RM and parcel force customs forms are front facing all info on out side.
Just had another look at it, it’s the dispatch note showing outwards and customs declaration is completely hidden.

Quick update, picked up my parcel after paying the £140 in duty/vat&fees….. It took two weeks to get the documents to pay the fee, even then I had to ask my local parcel force driver to investigate for me…. Another week and it would have been sent back…

Anyway bike discount seem on it now with correctly labeling their customs forms – all correctly filled in, even down to origin of manufacture. So I’d expect any of their orders would now have duty on them to pay…..

I did this week get a parcel from R2 with no duty though, another from a Belgium shop with no duty and a further one from Germany again (77designz) with no duty.

recieved my BD.de parcel Customs seemed to have charged me some random import duty and without a commodity code to cross reference it against its hard to know if its right or wrong. I feel I’ve been overcharged by about £66.

Have sent of a form to BF to seek more information, but its so difficult to find out information and speak to someone its almost like they don’t want you to.

What did you order?

lyriks

Damn, sounds like I missed out :/ ordered some G2 Ultimates today, might cancel now. Presuming if I dont cancel and refuse delivery they’ll be sent back and I’ll be refunded?

Had a wheel delivered yesterday with nothing to pay 😎.

i thought it might be to do with value at the minute. With customs prioritising the higher value parcels? I had a bike discount order worth about £200 with nothing to pay. Know someone else who had an order double that size and was hit with fees… might be based on value, might be random!

i thought it might be to do with value at the minute. With customs prioritising the higher value parcels?

Nothing on the out side of mine to indicate value I think but it has been correctly labeled as sale of goods rather than commercial samples like the AXS reverbs earlier in this thread.

The customs forms were spot on this time and a bit erm…. Irregular on the reverb AXS.

lyriks

So add 20% for vat on the value of good and postage combined and 5% of the value of the lyrics, then about £16 charge from parcel force….

My order value was 550 and I was charged 140… (110 of that was vat)

@monkeyboyjc
Total in GBP was £573.77

Import Duty: £81.38
VAT: £132.54
Handling charge: £12.00
Total charges: £225.92

I believe I should be charged using the commodity code for importing is 8714913039.
Goods are subject to Value added tax (20.00 %). Importing from outside the UK is subject to a third country duty of 4.70 % unless subject to other measures.

Import duty : £26.97
Vat : £120.15
Handling charge : £12.00
Total : £159.12

Yep. You’ve definitely been over charged…..

My thoughts, the the whole process of non discussion about fees needs some sort of overhaul. No information about code applied and the “Here’s your bill pay it and then reclaim if you think its wrong” no discussion entered.

I await a response from Border Force.

There is a 2nd level of complexity here which is, warranty.

I bought a shock in Nov from DE, which has failed, but trying to get it warrantied by SRAM has been ridiculously hard. In the end i’ve been save by j-techsuspension who’ve taken it for me and shipped to SRAM for warranty….

Other well known suspension companies wanted £50 + postage charges to do it …. Which whilst i can see their point…seems a little strong to me.

The problem was, for me to ship it back to Germany back pre-brexit, was £20 and a quick bit of work, now there’s the potential of charges both directions and all the customs paperwork.

I think this will be the end of Germany buying for the majority.

Well my package had a value of £545.04 and I was charged £136.09 in duties and fees – products were all from Taiwan….
Unless the lyrics were manufactured where duties are much higher, you’ve been massively over charged.

For anyone else interested – the customs form on my package had no external value shown. The customs forms had been opened. Charges applied and resealed in a new clear plastic holder. Personally I’m going to avoid ordering high value items from European companies now unless it’s significantly (30%) cheaper than the uk.

The problem was, for me to ship it back to Germany back pre-brexit, was £20 and a quick bit of work, now there’s the potential of charges both directions and all the customs paperwork.

Royal mail also expressly ban all compressed gas on international post, to get the best price it needs to be sub 2kg. Items like forks would need to go via courier, and cost £40+ for Germany. So it may work out cheaper/quicker to get items fixed in the UK and treat items like like they are 2nd hand.

Chickened out and cancelled the order, still in stock so can always go for it if I man up. Don’t really need them, but £260 for a set of G2 Ultimates is cheap as! 25% odd more than that, not so much!

@lawman91 cheaper at R2 bike (£234) and less risk on the taxes with my experience…..

https://r2-bike.com/SRAM-Disc-Brake-G2-Ultimate-grey-Set

Even if you get duties it should be less than £300 all in (approx)

Seems way more expensive on R2 for me, they’re showing 397 euro, so about £342… Plus, I’m a tart and would want the regular black or rainbow colour!

Seems way more expensive on R2 for me, they’re showing 397 euro, so about £342… Plus, I’m a tart and would want the regular black or rainbow colour!

Did you check the VAT? by default the prices include German VAT but when you log in they adjust to VAT free.

Just ordered a new set of Schwalbe’s from R2, which if I don’t get hit for duty are far cheaper than anywhere in the UK, if I do, they are still cheaper, just not quite as cheap.

Just a heads up that I recently ordered some forks from Bike-Discount and ParcelForce hit me with VAT, customs and handling fees, which I had to pay upfront before they would deliver.

Still worked out cheaper than buying in UK. And I couldn’t get the forks in the UK anyway.

But just thought I’d warn anyone who is now thinking of ordering from the EU.

It’s getting a bit of a mare. I got chainrings for my 2 x 10 setup before Brexit, so I’m good to go for 12 -18 months, but they are £90 each in the UK, £50 from EU

Where is deporvillage based – I assume EU

If they are £50 in the EU you won’t be charged any vat or duty this end – you should have 20% UK vat charged at the checkout of the shop….
It’ll still workout cheaper than the uk….

I’ve just paid £40 for a £200 order from Deporvillage. They’re in Spain.

There is a 2nd level of complexity here which is, warranty.

Now think about how potential buyers across the whole of Europe will now view the risk of buying from UK brands. Thanks Brexit.

My datapoint: Bought a power2max PM last week. It comes from Germany. power2max subtracted the German VAT and then sent it via UPS. As mentioned above UPS appear to be (unfortunately) quite efficient – I got a sent a link to pay the UK VAT on Monday (no import duty I think as it’s German-made), plus a £10.50 handling charge. Ordered on a Thursday, with UPS on Friday, on my doorstep yesterday (Wednesday).

I *think* it was still in Germany when I got the payment link, and only released to be sent to the UK when I paid, although the tracking wasn’t 100% clear on that.

I’m £10.50 down vs. pre-Brexit. Maybe the UK is £90 in VAT up? (Or was there an agreement on VAT transfer pre-Brexit?)