When do you know if you are going to get hit with these? Got a package coming on monday, it’s sitting in the Utrecht with UPS right now, having come from China. I can see it’s in holland as the tracking label just activated.

Will I just get hit with request for import charges by the delivery driver, or will the UPS tracking tell me how much when they know? before delivery?

Any clues?

I have found whether you get charged or not seems to be luck of the draw, depending on how the sender has labelled the value of package and which courier is delivering it.

If there is a charge to be paid you will be notified either by letter or a card through the door, otherwise the package will just get delivered.

IME You don’t! It seems to depend on what value is put on the package. I had a bought a couple of items from the States, unbeknown to me, the seller put the total price at just one item so when it arrived here there was no duty or VAT, just the release fee of £8 from Royal Mail which you get an email about and pay online.

So, if you are lucky, then UPS will knock on your door and deliver the package. If you aren’t you’ll get an email asking you to pay up the duty and VAT (and release fee)

Cheers, aye get the sense this is all very much luck of the draw and there’s not definite answer. Google not really throwing up consistent answer either.

I hope the sender has been creative with their labelling anyhow! 😆

It seems to depend on what value is put on the package.

Once upon a on a time I curated and international short film project. Surprising how many people put the full production budget for the film on the shipping label for a vhs tape. 🙂

just the release fee of £8 from Royal Mail which you get an email about and pay online.

I don’t think i’ve ever had to pay a fee unless there was duty/VAT.  Low value (<£16) or stuff that slips through the next just arrives.

If it does get hit for charges it depends on who the carrier is on how you pay and how much the ‘admin’ fee on top of the actual tax and duty costs you.

@simons_nicolai-uk There might have been a couple of quid duty, I can’t remember now, certainly it wasn’t much. The actual value I paid for the two bivvies was $200 but he put something like $64 on the shipping label.

One of the US quilt manufacturers used to put a very low value on the shipping label until H&M customs opened one and found out the real value. They were contacted and told to stop.