Duty On Cosumer Electronics Mailed To Thailand

[Schooner]

I want to mail a MP3 player ($100.00) and a CD player (Walkman $50.00) to my wifes relitives in Thailand from the US and am having trouble figuring out if they are subject to duty and if so how much? Any one have experence with this?

[Axel]

That's a bit of gambling. Send by normal airmail/registered and hope.

If stopped for inspection it is up to the customs officer to decide value and impose duty/VAT.

Many postal parcels just go through. If you use courrier for sure customs will get involved.

[Crossy]

Here be dragons

Use the regular USPS mail, insured. Declare on the customs form what you are sending and ensure you note 'USED' (so make sure it's not in the original packing), put a realistic value.

Your package may breeze through with no duty, or you'll get charged 20% (ish) of your declared value, or you'll get charged 20% of what the customs chap thinks the contents are worth, or you'll be 20% of what you insured it for, or some other seemingly arbitary value

It's all a bit of a lottery

One particular point, DO NOT use FedEx, UPS etc, you will be charged duty (no chance of it getting trough duty free) along with storage and 'other' fees.

I've had several small bits of technology sent from the UK, only paid duty on one, the front panel of my car stereo, the main unit in another package got through with no duty.

[lomatopo]

It might be easier, in the long run, to just send some money and have them buy these devices here in Thailand?

Between the cost of shipping, insurance and duty, along with possible loss, you might only be paying slightly more to have these items purchased here?

[lopburi3]

Will add that if these units include FM radio they may not work right here as Thailand uses .25 spread between freqs but US uses .10 so any station such as 99.75 or 101.25 will not tune correctly on a US market tuner.

[Crushdepth]

One particular point, DO NOT use FedEx, UPS etc, you will be charged duty (no chance of it getting trough duty free) along with storage and 'other' fees.

Do you have any idea why? (I have the same experience - anything sent by FedEx gets detained by customs until duty is paid - nothing ever gets actually delivered you have to go pick it up as well).

[Guest Reimar]

One particular point, DO NOT use FedEx, UPS etc, you will be charged duty (no chance of it getting trough duty free) along with storage and 'other' fees.

Do you have any idea why? (I have the same experience - anything sent by FedEx gets detained by customs until duty is paid - nothing ever gets actually delivered you have to go pick it up as well).

FedEX is the most worst Deliverer!! DHL is fine but you need to pay duty as well. If the parcel is below 2 kg just use regular mail and most time you'll just get it without to pay any duty.

Importand is that the parcel is declared as "Personell Gift" but with real Value! If is coming from a factory or supplier et it declare as "Sample Unit" but with real Value as well. We never had problems to collect this kind of goods!

[Axel]

FedEx, UPS, DHL etc. is either carried in freighters or as checked in luggage accompanied by an employee travelling as passenger.

Freights go to customs.

'Passengers' are well known to customs at arrival hall and with the quantity of 'luggage' they do have to go through the red channel where the customs officers happily accomodate them.

As said, use the postal service and your chances are better.