Thursday, December 06, 2007
Customs/ VAT
Public service message to everyone sending gifts from abroad: the limit for customs/VAT is 200nok in Norway. This means that if a company ships a package with a declared value above 200nok (about $40USD), I will need to pay a good chunk of money to pick up the parcel. I have no idea exactly how it works. It seems to add about 60% to the price. I believe there is a 25% VAT and maybe an equal amount of fee for the COD service. I recently received a package from Amazon that was valued at approximately $60, and it cost an extra $36 to extract it from the post office. If this were shipped as two separate packages, I would have paid zero fees--- and maybe $10 in extra postage. Or, if someone would have reshipped the package for me, and declared its value at 199nok, there would have been no extra fees (although who knows how much shipping could cost).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I assume that was me, sorry about that! I didn't mean to do that. I will know better for next time.
By the way, was that me??? Do you like them???
Will be enroute to Mpls on Monday for my flight (evening departure) back to Denver.
Part of my initial outrage was that I made a small purchase from Amazon that should have flown beneath the radar, and I initially thought they triggered the problem. It turned out it was from you, which is presumably a substantially more valuable gift. We haven't opened it yet, since I presumed it was for Christmas. Thanks in advance---
What bugs me about all of this is that if I separate the purchases, the issue disappears. Postage increases slightly. Another major annoyance is that shipping costs three to four times as much if we ship from Norway to the US than if the parcel travels the other direction. Presumably it covers the exact same distance. I don't get it.
check for 'gift' and the value can be NOK 1000,- (~$190)
Post a Comment