Sending parcels to Spain post Brexit

For many years, we've been doing the same as the OP, bunging everything bought in UK in a box, posting that to Algarve Express and then collecting from their depot in Almancil. Collected a box on Monday which arrived just before Christmas and just the usual carriage charge to pay. When I asked what will happen in future, they still didn't know as first January container hadn't yet arrived.

Seems the way around it in future may be to add another bag to flight and claim personal allowance if stopped at customs. From what I can find, duty free personal allowance is £390 by sea or air or £270 on private plane or boat. What I can't find is whether personal allowance can be used when posting goods or, do they have to be transported personally?
GB-EU travellers to benefit from duty-free allowances after Brexit deal (dfnionline.com)
Duty Free Allowance / Tax Free Allowance EU - MotorhomesEurope.com
 
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Graham376 said:
Seems the way around it in future may be to add another bag to flight and claim personal allowance if stopped at customs. From what I can find, duty free personal allowance is £390 by sea or air or £270 on private plane or boat. What I can't find is whether personal allowance can be used when posting goods or, do they have to be transported personally?
GB-EU travellers to benefit from duty-free allowances after Brexit deal (dfnionline.com)
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€1200 duty free allowance in personal luggage according to here...

EU-UK Brexit preferential tariffs and rules of origin

Hopefully by the time we're allowed to travel again it will all be a bit clearer and settled down.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Hopefully by the time we're allowed to travel again it will all be a bit clearer and settled down.
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Some of us already travelling and need to order goods. As usual, seems to be lots of conflicting information but hard to find anything "official". Origin of Goods comes into play as far as tariffs are concerned, try finding any expensive electronics made in UK.
 
Spirit (of Glenans) said:
See my post #6 above. The Import Duty is 12% of the cost of the item plus shipping. To this is added VAT% at the country's standard rate. The courier will then add a further handling charge.
For a more expanded explanation, get on to the Irish Customs website revenue.ie and search " importing goods from outside the EU" (The preceding sentence has been edited)The information will pertain to Ireland, but it will not differ much from what applies in Spain.
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Additionally, since I posted the above I have learned on the radio that there is no free shipping with Prime when buying from Amazon.de
 
Spirit (of Glenans) said:
The subject in hand would be considerably ameliorated if the British electorate suddenly got sense and started a movement to rejoin?
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Problem with this is that if and when we do rejoin we will have to sign up for a whole load of things which we avoided previously, I.e. the Euro, probably Schengen, etc. and won't have the rebate tgat we have enjoyed.
Going to be a hard slog convincing the electorate to accept some of these.
 
This will be interesting to see how this plays out.. I've asked for a book to be sent from the UK to a forum member in Spain, it's been labelled up as a promotional copy with zero value...
 
Clancy Moped said:
From a local FB group, I've cropped the name out for obvious reasons, this is one of many such posts.

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On it's own, that doesn't really tell us much. We dont know the value of the order for example. The 21% is Spanish VAT, not 'import tax' and can be claimed back by a VAT registered company. If they are not VAT registered, the UK supplier would have had to charge them 20% UK VAT anyway before Brexit. Storm in a teacup IMHO
 
Clancy Moped said:
SVB | Online shop for yacht and boat equipment
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+1 for SVB.

Chandlery prices are generally lower in the UK than EU in my experience, except hardware that is used by fishermen (galvanised gear, for instance) SVB is most consistently at the lower end of the EU price range e.g. a NASA NMEA display that I want to buy is within a couple of quid of the cheapest I can find anywhere in the UK and EU. But its inconsIstent: the AIS SART devices I want but won't bother getting are nearly twice the price of the cheapest in the UK.

SVB has a good website with an English option. And with your first order they send you a guge paper catalogue, or 'wishing book' as my better half calls it
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Is that your marine electronics supply difficulties now solved?
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The MFD is a done deal but I've yet to decide where the AIS and N2K cabli g are coming from.
Praxinoscope said:
Problem with this is that if and when we do rejoin we will have to sign up for a whole load of things which we avoided previously, I.e. the Euro, probably Schengen, etc. and won't have the rebate tgat we have enjoyed.
Going to be a hard slog convincing the electorate to accept some of these.
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Schengen will never be an option for the UK because it conflicts in some way with the mutual free travel arrangement with Ireland which has existed since Irish independence in1921.
 
CLB said:
On it's own, that doesn't really tell us much. We dont know the value of the order for example. The 21% is Spanish VAT, not 'import tax' and can be claimed back by a VAT registered company. If they are not VAT registered, the UK supplier would have had to charge them 20% UK VAT anyway before Brexit. Storm in a teacup IMHO
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The problem is that the 12% Customs duty is charged first, on the item, the cost of shipping it and any insurance, the resulting amount is then subject to VAT at 21% (in Spain and Ireland, to start with). It really mounts up. An item costing £400 before VAT, with a €19 charge for shipping to Ireland would have cost me just over £500 before Dec 31st , but now costs me approximately £ 585 including the "handling charge".
 
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I'm delighted to report that my AIS arrived having only incurred Irish VAT @21% +DHL's €10 handling charge.
Cactus Navigation's webshop has an option to select your location, and when it is non-UK, VAT is not included, so an item initially costing € 455 (£400) net cost me in total €580 (£507). The new arrangement means that every purchase now automatically costs me the €10 handling charge plus the full cost of international carriage instead of being able to avail of cheap or free UK postage + the €3.95 fee for use of the Irish Post Office's UK address service.
I will no longer be able to use this service to get around the problem of some UK sellers not being willing to mail to Ireland.
SVB.de seem to have the lowest prices in the EU, but still not low enough.
 
Thanks all!
We have accumulated a lot of stuff during lockdown(s) fully expecting to be back on board before brexit!
Hopefully we will be out early(ish) this year. We will probably now drive there in our camper partly to carry all the goods!
 
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