There’s a two fold problem though. The first is shipping times and customs forms. What was once a 24 hour delivery is now three weeks if you are lucky and the forms have been filled out correctly for both the carriers and the customs, The second is the payment of VAT, which must be to the courier or postal service before delivery, and which the said courier or postal service will charge you for handling. If the correct paperwork isn’t present, expect a call from the tax authorities asking all sorts of detailed questions.
Not easy and no longer worth the effort.
Edit. To buy from the UK and transport into the EU without paying duty and VAT is smuggling , the same the other way.
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Does one pay VAT on goods bought from eBay, as suggested?
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Yes. Unfortunately all goods including pre owned. Ebay have a system where the seller can choose to have ebay handle the duty and vat collection automatically. The buyer pays the full amount direct to ebay. For this reason I register a UK address with ebay for items I buy. I prefer to pay the duty and vat via the import system rather than via ebay.
Thanks. This seems to flatly contradict some info on websites (see frenchentree .com) and suggests that bringing things you already own to EU will be treated much more harshly than bringing them to either Switzerland or Australia. I probably shouldn’t be surprised…
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I think you will find it has always been that way taking goods between one country and another. The EU formed a trade agreement that benefits its members by removing those controls.
Edit. You mention Switzerland which of course does have its own import controls.
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You pay VAT on goods with a total value of CHF 300 or more.
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You have to pay customs duties on certain goods and animals. You can find information on this via the links below, e.g. on foodstuffs, alcohol and tobacco.
Tax-free limit and duty-free allowances àat (PDF, 70 kB, 15.12.2021) a glance. -
Prohibited items and restrictions: Certain goods are prohibited for importation or are subject to certain restrictions. These include, for example, certain species-protected plants, animals and goods, as well as counterfeits, weapons, pyrotechnic articles, medicines, cash, etc.
This is nothing unusual.
I don’t mean to divert this thread…
However, I had to go into this carefully a year or so ago when buying from eBay in UK and shipping to Australia. The key question there was whether you can show a 6 month delay between buying and shipping. If you can, no duty on lots of things including all my hifi.
I also know people who have moved lots of pre-owned items when moving to Switzerland. A couple moved back after a couple of years. They certainly didn’t get charged on the contents of a house twice, and didn’t fail to declare (for example) all their furniture. However, you are certainly right that there are some things that can’t be imported into Switzerland , like some weapons.
I have not tried this, nor sought an expert opinion, for anything moving between UK and EU. It is clear that you have, so your experience is interesting.
As someone largely British but partly French, I am disappointed but unsurprised by all this.
I also missed the links you mention above - probably my fault - but I took statins with me when I last visited Switzerland without incident, so I may also misunderstand what you mean.
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Moving your main residence has different rules. 12 months to move all your wordly goods, both in to France, and in to the UK. I have bought and sold within the EU and the USA ( also moved residence and tax residency), as well as post Brexit UK, but not the antipodes.
Of course if you are a temporary visitor various different rules applywe have come off topic, apologies.
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Agreed: let’s get back to moving hi-fi between countries.
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thx for Your return, but @bruss already touched fully our custom and VAT problems.
Where are I live customs are even able to ask a translation of the name NAIM. Had such a question returning with a autorised zebra skin from Africa and they asked to translate "bruchell (a subspecie zebra).
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Thanks for the patience.
As @bruss demonstrated, the huge amount I don’t know includes what costs apply on weapons and food and many other things. My modest export activities mainly revolve around clothing, a telescope and quite a lot of hifi.
Checking what costs apply to hifi that you already own (and what delay is required to meet that test) wasn’t on the list as far as I can see. Doing so might be helpful and probably costs nothing, but @bruss gives the strong impression that he has gone into it exhaustively and that route cannot usefully be used in his case or yours.
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