Thread: importing US gear into the EU.

Hello people,

I have a little situation.
I just bought a second hand guitar in the US through Ebay. It's a quite expensive model, and now I have to ship it to the EU. This implies I will have to pay a lot (I'm affraid) of import taxes on it.
Isn't there a workaround?
Any German based US military personnel on the board or so?

I don't know if this thread is even appropriate on the board, I appologize in advance if so...

I just had to have this guitar

I usually ask seller to put a lower value on the shipping label. It does however compromise your claim in case an insured parcel gets lost, which never happened to me. I have sent about 100 parcels across the globe in the last 3 years.

I have never paid more than 10 euro in import tax.
This 10 euro is the default tax value, which I have named the 'I can't be rsed to calculate the real tax' tax.

So the 10 euro means they looked at the package, and said 'meh'
But this has always been for stones and razors. Calculating the import tax would perhaps require reading some rarely used rules / guidelines, and this is probably too much effort.

Guitars might be different.

I have paid much more in the past. Seems Belgian Internal Revenue is a pleasant organization compared to the Dutch Belastingdienst.

That's why so many Dutch tax refugees live in Belgium!

when the package reaches Belgian customs, they will add 21% VAT adn about 4% clearance costs on top of that...

on a 1500$ guitar... you do the math

How do they collect the tax? Do they make you pay before they will give you your package? Kind of like a ransom? What happens if you don't pay? Do they hold an auction or something?

Originally Posted by chief

when the package reaches Belgian customs, they will add 21% VAT adn about 4% clearance costs on top of that...

on a 1500$ guitar... you do the math

Chief, I hope you love this guitar.What kind was it anyway.

Originally Posted by crazycliff200843

How do they collect the tax? Do they make you pay before they will give you your package? Kind of like a ransom? What happens if you don't pay? Do they hold an auction or something?

You have to pay for delivery. Don't know what they do if you refuse.
Guitars, PDAs, laptops etc are common things that they deal with a lot, and the prices are high enough so they make an effort.
For stones and razors, I think they can't be bothered to look up the rules and just slap the 10 euro default on it.

this is the subject:


I have a friend in the US that comes to Belgium every now and then. Maybe she can get it past customs if she says it's hers. That she took it to the US when she moved there, and now she's taking it back home to her parents in Belgium again.

Originally Posted by chief

this is the subject:


I have a friend in the US that comes to Belgium every now and then. Maybe she can get it past customs if she says it's hers. That she took it to the US when she moved there, and now she's taking it back home to her parents in Belgium again.

Better yet, your friend can get a certificate from US customs before she leaves that says it's hers and that she's taking it back to the US when she returns. This is what you do when you don't want to be charged customs when you return but it would also work for you.