Shipping from China

[bigbaddom]

Hi,

I am looking at importing a couple of items from China.

I would only be importing a couple at a time.

The package would be quite large for posting (about 1.8m long pole shaped) and weigh about 15-20kg

Does anyone know the best method for shipping?

I also had a question on what fees are payable on receipt in the UK

If I am not VAT registered I guess I need to pay the import duty % for the item I am importing and also VAT on top?

Is that all I would need to pay? Is it best to include the customs forms with the shipment (or does this have to be done anyway)

Thanks!!

[marked1]

http://andrewminalto.com/how-to-import-products-fr...

All you need to know.

[davepoth]

bigbaddom said:

Hi,

I am looking at importing a couple of items from China.

I would only be importing a couple at a time.

The package would be quite large for posting (about 1.8m long pole shaped) and weigh about 15-20kg

Does anyone know the best method for shipping?

The best (cheapest) method is seafreight, and import as many as you can in one go - usually you'll pay by the "pallet" which is a notional cuboid of 1m x 1.2m x 1.25m weighing a tonne, or a "half pallet" which is half of that. If you can fill that space completely it'll be proportionally cheaper.

bigbaddom said:

I also had a question on what fees are payable on receipt in the UK

If I am not VAT registered I guess I need to pay the import duty % for the item I am importing and also VAT on top?

Is that all I would need to pay? Is it best to include the customs forms with the shipment (or does this have to be done anyway)

Thanks!!

That very much depends on what you want to import. Some things have very low duties and few regulations, other things have high rates of duty and lots of requirements to provide paperwork. You'll need a tariff code (also known as an HS Code or Commodity Code) to be able to work out what you need to do - the supplier should have included that in the product specification, but even if they haven't they should be able to tell you what it is.

Once you've got that you need to look it up in the UK tariff:

https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff

To find out what duty will be payable. Duty is calculated on the price of the goods, plus the price of the freight, plus the price of the insurance, and the VAT is calculated on the price of all of that plus the duty.

[bigbaddom]

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately they are too long to fit on a pallet so.

Courier isnt as much as I had thought so I think I will investigate that route first.

Thanks for all the help!

[Wills82]

Bigbaddom,

Drop me a PM with all the details. I work for a freight forwarder and we have our own offices in China, so will be able to assist you on this.

Ross