July 1st 2021 taxation change in the EU for international orders, how much are the fees in your country ?

If you don’t already know, starting July 1st 2021 all packages coming from outside of the EU will be subject to VAT, on top of that post services usually take a fee for clearing customs.
In France La Poste will charge between 2 and 5€ depending on the type of package (enveloppe, parcel, size, they don’t give precise details though) if paid online, and 8€ if paid at the delivery. They actually decreased the fee, before it was 15€.

I’m curious about how much it will be in other EU countries and how much it will impact my fellow BLF Europeans ability to buy from international sellers. Normally this info should be on the website of your country post service.

Personally I don’t mind paying VAT, the fees were what was worrying me, 2€ not that much but it will still hurt on a enveloppe with 3€ value, for a flashlight that’s not as bad, but 5 or 8€ is much less acceptable.

I suppose Aliexpress will register for VAT and have the sellers ship the package customs free, hopefully, but independent sellers probably won’t, kaidomain, Intl-outdoor, sofirnlight etc…

One particular international shop I was thinking about is Oshpark which is quite popular here, their PCB service quite inexpensive for the quality and for low quantities/surface, perfect for making a few drivers so I sent them an email :

Reply :

So part of the reason I’m asking for how much the custom clearance fees are in other EU countries is to show them that this will make them lose EU customers if they don’t register for VAT (the part of my message that they ignored…), for example I have a 12€ order coming in 3 envelopes :

If 2€ per envelope : 12+2.4+3x2= 20.4€
8€ per envelope : 12+2.4+3x8= 38.4€ :person_facepalming:
No fees (VAT paid to oshpark) 14.4€

If you use Oshpark I invite you to hit them up with an email inciting them to register for VAT.

There are several discussions on BLF and other forums regarding this topic, but it is always very important to have more visibility in complex matters. Especially the customer support feedback provided is super relevant and the fee structure is also interesting.

Personally, I have friends in the EU I used to sent stuff to. This will change going forward.

The Arrow intl. shipping options are very excellent IMO, they have DDP (link https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/hassle-free-shipment-ddp-delivered-duty-paid) which is inclusive of all fees when you pay. I have tried this DDP service several times and it is excellent.

I was not aware that it was the case for the whole EU, in NL PostNL will charge you at least 4€ if you pay online and about 7€ when you pay in the PostNL point.
Which will definitely make things less attractive…

DHL Germany: 28 EUR for the service to collect taxes and 6 EUR for paying in advance. But that’s hearsay, can’t believe it’s true.

Anyway, I stopped ordering from china weeks ago.

Deutsche Post says on their website that it will cost 6.00 EUR if the shipper is NOT using IOSS and they need to collect it.

So it sounds like we should ask the large shops to sign up for IOSS quickly- to avoid the fee in some/all countries?- I was wrong, the fee collection would change, but the amount apparently would not?!

Isn’t Arrow’s DDP a form of IOSS? You pay everything when you check out, they transfer the tax amount to the destination country and everything is free when you receive it?

The service fee the courier takes is only applicable when the sender doesn’t participate in the IOSS scheme, from where I stand. please correct me if I am wrong.
So if enough orders will disappear going forward (and a lot of people already know about this), the big guys would want a new solution in place that is fully automated.

Arrow, Mouser, Farnell all ship with DDP incoterms (not Digikey unfortunately), so yeah that’s very good. Those are big international sellers though, they can justifies the paperwork for this, now it has supposedly been simplified so that smaller sellers can register for VAT more easily ( I havn’t looked at it in detail though)

Somewhat similar to La Poste then.

Expedited couriers charge large fees for their fast custom clearance services : DHL was more than 30 € for me, UPS, Fedex arround 20~25€. Through the normal post service it’s usually less than that and this was more what I was interested to know.

In Belgium we’ll have to pay €15 handling rights (before it was €24 or something for items over €20) + VAT :person_facepalming: I also stopped ordering a few weeks ago. I’ll miss being able to buy cool electronic modules and other hard-to find items for amazing prices… And screw BPost for such high fees compared to other EU countries :rage:

Aliexpress collects 20% taxes. Postal services cannot charge any fees.

They don’t at the moment in France (and I assume EU), perhaps you mean in UK ?

Lithuania post states:
3€+21% VAT if post itself has to declare the package and fill all necessary paperwork for me.
2€+21% VAT if I fill the details and other requested information myself.
1€ post fee if VAT was payed beforehand at the checkout.

that is very reasonable, we should all move to Lithuania!

Yes u.k

Okay, that it’s likely that they will too for EU, I have also stopped ordering stuff until they do.

Here we are already accustomed.
Everything is expensive… 60% tax (including shipping costs), plus other fees.
We are also not allowed to enter more than 200USD at a time.

The law has existed for many years but it was random. Since the arrival of the “progressive” government there is no escape. A declaration and payment must be made prior to the arrival of the package in the country.

This is a very sad news…
I never paid anything coming from China, and I ordered a lot of small items to avoid buying it from scammers selling the same item with a 300% margin.
I think the sellers will find a way to avoid this racket or it will be the end of many sellers.
You can already order from an European warehouse to avoid paying taxes on expensive items.

I understand that they want their 20% they wouldn’t get otherwise. They are losing billions currently. But the fee for handling this charge is too high, even the small purchases of 10.00 $US will then be 10 + 2 + fee = almost 20, twice the amount for the item(s).

The local warehouses are only from big shippers, and only for popular items like cell phones, R/C, big computer parts. They are not for flashlight parts. If we get lucky they may stock a few flashlight models in local warehouses.

I see the death of many smaller shops on aliexpress and other platforms.

Legalised EU thievery.

> how much are the fees in your country

In USA I pay Zero fees

No VAT
No Import Duty
No Customs handling fee
No Price limit on value

Yep, living in the U.S. as a consumer is pretty great, especially for online shopping.

We have so many more choices than a lot of the world.

...

The U.S. isn't perfect, of course.

For starters, our politics are profoundly broken, we have all kinds of gun violence, and our health care is extremely expensive.

I live in both the US and the EU. Online shopping and shopping in general is done in the US, if I ever have a health emergency I’d have to fly back to Europe though. maybe best of both worlds like this.