From China to the UK import taxes

Hi There,

Im looking at some items from China, but living in the UK and having bought items from the US before Im reluctant to make any purchases abroad without getting an idea of what import taxes,duties im liable to pay.

If I buy and ship to the UK from China will I have all the import duty, tax to pay on the items? or is there a way around all of this?

If im having taxes imposed on me to get the items once their in the UK its likely going to completely kill off any potential profit margins.

Thanks
Ben
Auction-4-You

You may have to pay a customs duty which is generally pretty low and sometimes non-existant (on items such as PSPs, ect).

What will get you is VAT. VAT is 17% in the U.K. of the value of the goods plus shipping expense.

As I thought then,

Many thanks for taking the time to reply Diablo.

What is VAT?
Diablo can you talk about the tax charge of China to our country?

This maybe a useful read for anyone looking to import into the UK or Europe.

Link hidden: Login to view

What is VAT?
Diablo can you talk about the tax charge of China to our country?

The tax when importing from China to the US is VERY low. On an order I had recently, I was charged $20 in tax on a $5000 order.

As I thought then,

Many thanks for taking the time to reply Diablo.

Im based in the UK mate, the only thing i can really suggest is to order in small quantity and ask your supplier to declare the order as a gift rather than product to resell, although ive never tried it ive heard this from quite a few different sellers in the UK.

Hope this helped

VAT is short for Value added Tax here in the UK just thought I would add.

I also did some ringing around and found out that on an Ipod video we have to pay 10% I think she said on top of the overall price + 17.5% VAT. This is because anything imported here in the UK that plays videos is in a higher Import Tax class dont ask me why.

The Uk great place to make money hey :roll:

for charges when importing to the UK, contact customs and excise and obtain a commodity code for the product, this code is correlated with the amount of duty you will pay, ask C&E and they will tell you... some products such as handheld game controllers etc are duty free...

Also, you will pay VAT i.e. 17.5% - this is charged at 17.5% of Cost + Insurance + Freight.. yes we are taxed on shipping also, the benefits of living in 'rip off britain'!

yes, you can ask your supplier to label the package as 'gift' or 'samples' to avoid VAT..... lol theoretically speaking as I would never do a thing like that and don't condone it :-)

hope this helps.

If I am dropshipping items from China to the UK, will in all cases my customer/buyer be charged VAT or any sort of other delivery/shipping costs?

depends really, its just the same for your customer really, only good thing is its going to be only one item so you might get away with duty but VAT will get hammered, but you/customer might be lucky that they let it through. big orders with 20-50 ect will get hammered by import tax and vat because its a bulk order and you can tell from the order that its not for personall use

See this week's blog post on importing to the UK Link hidden: Login to view

Cheers :)