I am looking to ship a small crate to thailand mainly books but also a television and a few favourite kids toys does anyone know if this will incur lots of taxes and if it is at all economically viable, any info. on this would be greatly appreciated

There have been several similar threads recently.

One favourite website is http://customs.go.th/Customs-Eng/IndexEng.jsp

This will tell you the regulations.

However, there are many tales about "unexpected" customs fees and duties.

With smaller packages is seems to be 'luck of the draw' whether yours gets through without being scrutinised by customs.

EDIT - just tried the link and it doesn't work - just google Thai customs and look for the go.th. site

Edited June 14, 200818 yr by chickenslegs

I am looking to ship a small crate to thailand mainly books but also a television and a few favourite kids toys does anyone know if this will incur lots of taxes and if it is at all economically viable, any info. on this would be greatly appreciated

Somedays you get taxed somedays you don't. Where are you shipping from? Shipping a TV from a region (North America) that uses the NTSC viedeo format as opposed to PAL and 110 voltage

as opposed to 220 will destroy your TV.

thanks for swift reply guys, I will be shipping from UK so no such problems with format etc.

thanks for swift reply guys, I will be shipping from UK so no such problems with format etc.

2nd attempt at the link http://customs.go.th/customs-Eng/PostalPar...stalParcels.jsp

My last experience was my daughter sending a small package over with cd's of our new granddaughter.

Sent by DHL, labelled as CD's, value - priceless.

3000b was demanded before we could take delivery. We could have appealed but may have had to wait ages - so we paid.

I sent household goods over in February from Uk with a company called seven seas, I wasn't charged import duty and the whole thing took about 9 weeks, make sure you get a door to door service - also I believe the type of visa you have can make a difference to whether you pay duty or not, but as mentioned above it can also depend on many other things, I have also received many parcels from friends in the UK and never paid duty on them - maybe I am just lucky as I have heard of quite a lot of people being stung for import duty or 'tea money'

Years ago when I was taking a TEFL course in Thailand, one of the trainees asked his mother to send him his tennis shoes which he forgot. Used tennis shoes. They arrived ok but he had to pay 900 bhat import tax.

You can exspect to pay duties.

However, there are 2 exceptions:

1. thai person living abroad and returning to thailand to live there again.

2. person setteling in thailand with a Work Permit.

You can have one duty free shipping to thailand of your household goods within the first 6 month of your workpermit.

books just 3-4 I always receive without problems. My mother in Austria is putting them in a small pack, declare "Documents" 0 value.

(In her view Books are kind of Documents and German books have 0 value for a Thai customs officer).

So far that worked (5 or more times).

Once I tried to import 100 Cds from China and they wanted to charge me 40.000 Baht.

After 2 weeks and a special agent we could agree to 20.000 without invoice... Bad thing....

As far as I am aware anyone with a non imm o visa can import household goods free of duty within six months of coming to Thailand, whether you have a work permit or not, I did post a link about this in a previous thread but as luck would have it I can't find the link now but if you do a search I'm sure you will find it.