Thailand’s new Customs rules

In a half-hour discussion with three Postal Customs officers, I learned that 7% VAT, tariffs and duties will be charged on overseas shipment “even at one baht”.

My issue were two free posters totaling 90 Polish zlotys (less than 800 baht). Of course, it is understandable that some bureaucrat, asleep at the wheel, thought these were USD and I was assessed nearly 3,000 baht.

The posters arrived in December and I told them I would only pay the VAT or they could return to sender at their expense. Finally, the issue was resolved at 62 baht.

What concerns me most is tariffs. From all the EU countries, tariffs to Thailand are a reasonable 1.95%. However, USA is 19%.

We all know computers and parts are duty-free with only VAT charged. What is a computer? A Kindle, a calculator, a screen protector?

Are we now to be charged reciprocal tariffs for imports from each country? Or will, as usual, Customs make random decisions.

Postal services have always been more reliable than couriers. All couriers act as Customs brokers and get to profit from fees. So it is in their interest to overcharge and force you to claim. Many people just give up.

This leads to my real question. What about goods from China. Will we be forced to pay these complex and random fees for our Shopee, Lazada and AliExpress items???

I always look for a local supplier on Lazada. I would not buy anything that is listed as sourced from China, how would you return, or get a refund?

Presumably, local suppliers have already paid any duties.

I got bunch of items from AliExpress delivered in January, no issues, no delays. AliExpress charges VAT per country, but supposedly duties were going to be introduced since 1st of January. No duties on anything I ordered.

4 hours ago, Lacessit said:

I always look for a local supplier on Lazada. I would not buy anything that is listed as sourced from China, how would you return, or get a refund?

Those returns go to the Lazada warehouse in Bangkok, and be refunded by Lazada, since the seller only get paid after the time for return has expired.

There was an article on here several weeks ago that duties would be charged on all imports from 1st January 2026 to help local sellers. These were to also be imposed on such sites as Aliexpress.

I almost ordered a school book from Amazon UK for daughter that she asked me for. £9.75 cost, but with postage and import duties almost £26. I cancelled, and a friend will now bring it when he returns in March.

In the past there never seemed to be any consistency. I was even charged once for a single shoe.

I had bought a pair and they sent me two different sizes in the box. Sent one back, and was charged on the replacement shoe when it arrived.

Let's hope they give up, eh! Amazon with free delivery over $351 The old system was brilliant, no fussing on anything $50 or below. Watch out for those Polish zlotys, though!

On 1/31/2026 at 1:47 PM, unblocktheplanet said:

This leads to my real question. What about goods from China. Will we be forced to pay these complex and random fees for our Shopee, Lazada and AliExpress items???

In one article that I read some time ago, Lazada, Shopee, et.al., will add all of the "fees" to the final price. The price you see is the "final" price. In theory, the product will simply "sail through" the deliver channels, since you have already paid.

Curious to see if they can make that happen.

Despite me telling her not to send anything to me by post any more, my sister in the UK, in a lapse of memory or a fit of sentiment, sent us a small postal package for Christmas. It contained some small items of little commercial value, plus a Christmas card. The cost of the postage from UK was extortionate - about £8 - likely more than the value of the items within! The UK post office will not accept a parcel for overseas posting without an attached 'customs declaration' stating content and value.

Thailand Postman arrives at our gate. Beeps his motorcycle horn, and waves a Thai Customs demand for 70 Baht before he would release the parcel. I asked to see the sender of the package, then refused to pay the 70 Baht. He looked bemused, shook his head, filled in something on the form and put the package back in his sack.

About 2 weeks later, I received a message from my sister - with photos showing the package had surprisingly been returned to her, intact, unopened, un-scavenged.

Thailand Post, or Thai Customs would have to pay for the cost of the return, plus the cost of administrative faffing about. The cost would have been far in excess of the 70 Baht, which they could have waived. Morons.

(I suppose the sender could have under-declared the value, or simply stated "Christmas Gift - no Commercial Value).

5 hours ago, timendres said:

In one article that I read some time ago, Lazada, Shopee, et.al., will add all of the "fees" to the final price. The price you see is the "final" price. In theory, the product will simply "sail through" the deliver channels, since you have already paid.

Curious to see if they can make that happen.

I ordered something via Amazon and they've added the Thai duties and service fees to my pre-payment. It's now en route (apparently). Let's see.

15 hours ago, Dah fahrang said:

Despite me telling her not to send anything to me by post any more, my sister in the UK, in a lapse of memory or a fit of sentiment, sent us a small postal package for Christmas. It contained some small items of little commercial value, plus a Christmas card. The cost of the postage from UK was extortionate - about £8 - likely more than the value of the items within! The UK post office will not accept a parcel for overseas posting without an attached 'customs declaration' stating content and value.

Thailand Postman arrives at our gate. Beeps his motorcycle horn, and waves a Thai Customs demand for 70 Baht before he would release the parcel. I asked to see the sender of the package, then refused to pay the 70 Baht. He looked bemused, shook his head, filled in something on the form and put the package back in his sack.

About 2 weeks later, I received a message from my sister - with photos showing the package had surprisingly been returned to her, intact, unopened, un-scavenged.

Thailand Post, or Thai Customs would have to pay for the cost of the return, plus the cost of administrative faffing about. The cost would have been far in excess of the 70 Baht, which they could have waived. Morons.

(I suppose the sender could have under-declared the value, or simply stated "Christmas Gift - no Commercial Value).

So your sister paid 8 UK pounds for nothing just because you didn't think it was worth paying 70 baht for the shipment? Oh my Buddha....

On 1/31/2026 at 10:48 PM, phetphet said:

I was even charged once for a single shoe.

I had bought a pair and they sent me two different sizes in the box. Sent one back, and was charged on the replacement shoe when it arrived.

Which rather begs the question why anyone would buy shoes without trying them on first ... like in a shoe shop.

All the complaints here from people who buy sight unseen from assorted strange & unverifiable foreign places ... Not surprising there are problems.

I'm surprised the OP was not aware of the change is customs duties which came into effect on Jan 1 this year, especially as I believe there was a post on ASEANNOW about this change back in December if memory serves me correctly.

The new customs rule is that ALL items imported to Thailand with a value of 1 baht or more will be subject to BOTH customs duty & VAT, even if they are imported from China or another Asean country. This in effect negates the free trade agreements between these countries.

So the tick to avoid these charges when shopping online to ensure that the seller is located in Thailand, as their prices will already be loaded for customs duty & vat. No suprises involved of having to pay additional costs before you can take delivery of your imported item.

17 hours ago, Dah fahrang said:

Despite me telling her not to send anything to me by post any more, my sister in the UK, in a lapse of memory or a fit of sentiment, sent us a small postal package for Christmas. It contained some small items of little commercial value, plus a Christmas card. The cost of the postage from UK was extortionate - about £8 - likely more than the value of the items within! The UK post office will not accept a parcel for overseas posting without an attached 'customs declaration' stating content and value.

Thailand Postman arrives at our gate. Beeps his motorcycle horn, and waves a Thai Customs demand for 70 Baht before he would release the parcel. I asked to see the sender of the package, then refused to pay the 70 Baht. He looked bemused, shook his head, filled in something on the form and put the package back in his sack.

About 2 weeks later, I received a message from my sister - with photos showing the package had surprisingly been returned to her, intact, unopened, un-scavenged.

Thailand Post, or Thai Customs would have to pay for the cost of the return, plus the cost of administrative faffing about. The cost would have been far in excess of the 70 Baht, which they could have waived. Morons.

(I suppose the sender could have under-declared the value, or simply stated "Christmas Gift - no Commercial Value).

You refused to pay 70 baht, are you serious?

I ordered some cosmetic stuff for my wife on Ebay. It was sent from Australia. I was expecting to have to pay customs on it as Ebay does not withhold funds for customs like Amazon does. However it arrived and I didn't have to pay anything.

I bought my parents a nice set of cutlery 50 years ago. It is still in excellent shape and was only used for family gatherings. My Mom is now in a nursing home and has cleared out her house for selling. She asked if I wanted anything so I asked for the cutlery. She sent it last month and said it's on the slow boat and that I should get it next month sometime.

Can anyone tell me what fees/costs will be due upon arrival?

6 hours ago, paul1804 said:

You refused to pay 70 baht, are you serious?

Yes. Dead serious.

7 hours ago, BerndD said:

So your sister paid 8 UK pounds for nothing just because you didn't think it was worth paying 70 baht for the shipment? Oh my Buddha....

Yep!

Some sellers on Aliexpress collect vat in Thailand while others don't. I think that this whole thing is going to be a quite messy situation and eventually postponed.

13 hours ago, Dah fahrang said:

Yep!

Lol. Nice brother.

My experience so far is that the import duties and VAT are very random. I get a package about once a month from back home. So far I've received about 5 in the past 5 months. Mostly the same contents: some vitamins, local food items, creams. My family always uses the local post and the package comes with Thai post. The value the sender puts on the package is usually 0 or below 30 USD and it's classified as a gift. The content written on the package so far differs between things like chocolate, cheese, cream and other similar wordings. So far out of the five times, twice I've had to pay nothing at all. Once, in December, they estimated the value at 1500 THB and I had to pay only 7% VAT = 105 THB. Then in January, I think I had to pay around 150 THB, although it was not clear what this was based upon cause on the package there was QR code with a link to the customs website which didn't work. This time around, they didn't even deliver the package and told me I had to come to the post office personally to pick it up. The value was estimated at 1600 THB, the import duty 10% and the VAT 7% for a total of over 280 THB.

It definitely seems the duties have gone up, but it is not entirely clear what this is based upon. I feel like custom officers have probably had the message that import duties needed to be hiked up in any case, despite the new tax on low-value items.

I must admit though that the total value of these packages is usually at least 3000 THB, so I really can't complain. However, given the ease of bringing in things to Thailand on international flights, it feels like a rip off.