Hello guys,
I'm moving to Thailand and after donating 80% of my stuff to the thrift store I'm about to hire an international relocation company and ship some belongings of personal value to Thailand. 
Most of the items are pretty common: books, photos, posters and paintings, clothes, and some dishes with family value. The only odd thing in the shipment would be a used foosball table that is not available in Thailand, I would like to think that having only a few items that needs customs clearing and import duties would be manageable.
Does anyone have experience on how to coordinate this with the Thai Customs and which items to avoid in the shipping that may cause a lengthy and costly bureaucratic halt at the customs?

Any previous experience or sensible advice would be very appreciated

 

Thanks,
Matt 

Hi Matt,

 

I shipped belongings, similar to yours, from Australia about 11 years ago.

 

The shipping company will arrange customs, etc. through their Bangkok office - which should contact you about a week before your belongings arrive, ask you to go to their office with your passport, and Baht XXX to cover customs costs plus, maybe, about Baht 15,000 to facilitate a smooth processing of your belongings (do not resist this "smooth processing" extra, it will cause long delays and possible worse problems).

 

My shipping company asked me to label each box/package with a description of the contents, and also an estimate of their value.  I gave the company an excel file which listed box/package number 1, 2, 3, ...., very short description of contents (eg "book", "CDs", "paintings", "computer", etc.) and the approximate value of the contents of each box/package.

 

I hope this helps.

Are you married to a Thai?

when I moved here many years ago now I brought most of my stuff apart from furniture, all my work equipment, several bottles of wine, computer and several discs plus clothes, towels etc and all my fishing gear(reels, lures, hooks  etc, I had brought the rods with me in rod cases)). The only thing that went missing were all the discs, computer face was broken off but wine etc all came through with nothing extra payable. It arrived at my wifes house and we didnt have to contact anyone before hand.

 

 

Shipping company will handle everything ( you will supply them with a manifest of each boxes contents labeled (generic) ) and they will notify you when shipment hits the docks and then will deliver it to your door and bring it inside.

if you are married to a Thai,  put everything in her  name

we shipped bicycles,golf clubs,patio furniture, complete sets of kitchen cookware and utensils, books statues, furniture (couches/tables)

tools.. you name it..  no problem , no tariffs or extra fees

only 1 question from the shipper was,,   how much money is in that locked safe ? ( nothing ) because they will  X-RAY it