Sending Items To Thailand - Customs

[bridge1]

Greetings all

I am a new joiner to the forums, based in London, wife is from Chiang Mai originally.

I look forward to learning from all the knowledgeable people on the forum and getting an insight into what life is like for expats in Thailand as the plan for us is to move to Thailand some day. But that day is some way off.

Anyway a quick question, what is the process for shipping items from the UK to Thailand from a Thai customs perspective? For example relatively low value items like shoes, clothes etc? Reason is my wife has friends who are into some of the brands that are either hard to find/expensive in Thailand such as Top Shop etc and as she can get these items in the UK and send them to her mates back home we wanted to check whether Thai customs charges are draconian etc. Of course her mates won't mind having to pay the customs charges just as long as they are not prohibitive.

Does anyone have any experience of this at all they could share?

Thanks!

[meatboy]

if you visit quite often bring them in your luggage even if it cost more,we never had a problem with thai they never charged us going or coming back.we did however get screwed when my wife after 20 years in the uk shipped her personel belongings to thailand,no electrical items nothing new but a lot of shoes and clothes 30boxes in total =3cubic mts.unless you can arrange an agent yourself over here you will proberly get stuffed.there are plenty of good stories with shipping but there is also plenty of bad ones.it is not customs that are screwing you it is the agents.

[poanoi]

My experience is that, my bank is sending a letter a month,

but i receive only 1 letter a year on an average,

so i recommend DHL or similar.

You see,

-it is so much more convenient for the postman to just dump

the post in a garbage can than to ride around for deliver

[Crossy]

Do NOT that's NOT use DHL, UPS, FedEx etc. the recipient WILL get stung for duty, VAT, storage and 'miscellaneous charges'.

Best bet for smallish packages from the UK is Royal Mail 'International Signed For' which IIRC uses the EMS system once outside the UK.

My parents regularly send me small to medium size/value items and the vast majority arrive without any payment required, for those that do attract duty the charges are not excessive.

[h90]

Do NOT that's NOT use DHL, UPS, FedEx etc. the recipient WILL get stung for duty, VAT, storage and 'miscellaneous charges'.

Best bet for smallish packages from the UK is Royal Mail 'International Signed For' which IIRC uses the EMS system once outside the UK.

My parents regularly send me small to medium size/value items and the vast majority arrive without any payment required, for those that do attract duty the charges are not excessive.

I have good experiences with sending regular postal.

I have good experiences with relative low value things (below 10.000 Baht) with FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc etc. Not as low as postal, but fair calculated.

EMS here in our area is a complete disaster, you have to go to the customs clearing place, wait there for hours, than they want a ridiculous high import tax and at the same moment offer that you can pay half of it, without invoice/paperwork.

As they made it so expensive before, half of it is approx. the same I would have paid with FedEx/DHL.

Others told me that they had good experience with EMS so it may depend on the area..

Always important: customs tariff numbers.....

[wana]

Custioms usually estimate goods as worth triple their actual value

and hopefully tey can get you to pay tax on that amount

if you bring your invoices ,credit card statements to prove the real price and a thai person to make a dispute claim with paperwork you will get a 50%

discount but obviously they bank on people not doing this and just paying up because raising a dispute takes 5-7 days longer to get your stuff because

it gets shipped back to customs from your local post office and "re-asscessed " by the thieves

then they call and make you an offer and in a few days its back in your local post office to collect at the new lower price

[mrtoad]

DHL, TNT are all scams, expect to get scammed on import tax. I get various items sent from UK via RM registered and don't have problems.

[h90]

Custioms usually estimate goods as worth triple their actual value

and hopefully tey can get you to pay tax on that amount

if you bring your invoices ,credit card statements to prove the real price and a thai person to make a dispute claim with paperwork you will get a 50%

discount but obviously they bank on people not doing this and just paying up because raising a dispute takes 5-7 days longer to get your stuff because

it gets shipped back to customs from your local post office and "re-asscessed " by the thieves

then they call and make you an offer and in a few days its back in your local post office to collect at the new lower price

No they don't do that.

Not in one single case in 10 years with almost weekly something coming in.

They may do it if something looks wrong....

[wana]

Custioms usually estimate goods as worth triple their actual value

and hopefully tey can get you to pay tax on that amount

if you bring your invoices ,credit card statements to prove the real price and a thai person to make a dispute claim with paperwork you will get a 50%

discount but obviously they bank on people not doing this and just paying up because raising a dispute takes 5-7 days longer to get your stuff because

it gets shipped back to customs from your local post office and "re-asscessed " by the thieves

then they call and make you an offer and in a few days its back in your local post office to collect at the new lower price

No they don't do that.

Not in one single case in 10 years with almost weekly something coming in.

They may do it if something looks wrong....

well ,they do it to me a few times a month .......

nearly everything i import gets a value estimated much higher

but they discount the bill once i can prove how much it actually cost

btw these are not "suspicious " items ,often clothes and motor accessories from ebay etc

[h90]

Custioms usually estimate goods as worth triple their actual value

and hopefully tey can get you to pay tax on that amount

if you bring your invoices ,credit card statements to prove the real price and a thai person to make a dispute claim with paperwork you will get a 50%

discount but obviously they bank on people not doing this and just paying up because raising a dispute takes 5-7 days longer to get your stuff because

it gets shipped back to customs from your local post office and "re-asscessed " by the thieves

then they call and make you an offer and in a few days its back in your local post office to collect at the new lower price

No they don't do that.

Not in one single case in 10 years with almost weekly something coming in.

They may do it if something looks wrong....

well ,they do it to me a few times a month .......

nearly everything i import gets a value estimated much higher

but they discount the bill once i can prove how much it actually cost

btw these are not "suspicious " items ,often clothes and motor accessories from ebay etc

How do you get it? Do they declare it right? Just today I gut a chuck for a CNC lathe (from Germany, made in Poland).

Declared CIF and like always I paid the 1 % of the invoice and the 7 % VAT from the invoiced amount like it should be.

I sent the motorbike guy to pick it up, with a small paper having 2 different customs tariff numbers, as I wasn't sure.

No discussion, no hassle.....like always.

Usually they ask: Pay or half the price without invoice. As most things are for the company I need to import correct.

[wana]

Custioms usually estimate goods as worth triple their actual value

and hopefully tey can get you to pay tax on that amount

if you bring your invoices ,credit card statements to prove the real price and a thai person to make a dispute claim with paperwork you will get a 50%

discount but obviously they bank on people not doing this and just paying up because raising a dispute takes 5-7 days longer to get your stuff because

it gets shipped back to customs from your local post office and "re-asscessed " by the thieves

then they call and make you an offer and in a few days its back in your local post office to collect at the new lower price

No they don't do that.

Not in one single case in 10 years with almost weekly something coming in.

They may do it if something looks wrong....

well ,they do it to me a few times a month .......

nearly everything i import gets a value estimated much higher

but they discount the bill once i can prove how much it actually cost

btw these are not "suspicious " items ,often clothes and motor accessories from ebay etc

How do you get it? Do they declare it right? Just today I gut a chuck for a CNC lathe (from Germany, made in Poland).

Declared CIF and like always I paid the 1 % of the invoice and the 7 % VAT from the invoiced amount like it should be.

I sent the motorbike guy to pick it up, with a small paper having 2 different customs tariff numbers, as I wasn't sure.

No discussion, no hassle.....like always.

Usually they ask: Pay or half the price without invoice. As most things are for the company I need to import correct.

i dont know ,my post goes through lak si sorting office before it gets delivered

i get a ticket delivered (instead of the parcel ) to say i owe customs 3000 thb on an item

i complain and fill in the forms saying my item has been over-valued

after a 4-7 days i get another ticket to pay 1000 instead of 3000 after i show them a lower

value

I have never been offered the chance of "corruption" to go outside and pay 50% under the table etc

i have heard if you go to the main customs office (not the post office ) you can haggle there and corruption

is plentiful though

[cooked]

Reading the above, I am starting to worry. I have a shipment (about 200 Kg) of used tools and used small machines on their way to Bangkok right now. I guess that this doesn't come under the category of 'household effects'. I guess this means that I will be in for some hassle when I go to collect?

[h90]

i dont know ,my post goes through lak si sorting office before it gets delivered

i get a ticket delivered (instead of the parcel ) to say i owe customs 3000 thb on an item

i complain and fill in the forms saying my item has been over-valued

after a 4-7 days i get another ticket to pay 1000 instead of 3000 after i show them a lower

value

I have never been offered the chance of "corruption" to go outside and pay 50% under the table etc

i have heard if you go to the main customs office (not the post office ) you can haggle there and corruption

is plentiful though

Ahhhh that is complete different than what we get.

We get a ticket that tells us that we should go there for pickup....no amount mentioned.

Than we go there and it will be opened.....

Strange: complete different process for the same thing.

[h90]

Reading the above, I am starting to worry. I have a shipment (about 200 Kg) of used tools and used small machines on their way to Bangkok right now. I guess that this doesn't come under the category of 'household effects'. I guess this means that I will be in for some hassle when I go to collect?

That won't be post office, or?

Seafreight or airfreight, which is complete different.

If you know exactly what is inside, have a correct invoice that has all the correct customs tariff numbers than there won't be any problems.

[meatboy]

Reading the above, I am starting to worry. I have a shipment (about 200 Kg) of used tools and used small machines on their way to Bangkok right now. I guess that this doesn't come under the category of 'household effects'. I guess this means that I will be in for some hassle when I go to collect?

i exspect you have a bill of laden and the name of the ship its ariving on also a complete list given to the shipping agent who sent them of every item in each box.you should have a tel.no of an agent this end not customs this should be a company who has authority to pick up goods on dock side,these or most of them are the theiving b-stards prepare yourself for a shock.

[pigeonjake]

i sent a chicken egg incubator over from england last time i was there working, i just sent it with the post office worldwide acomomy, it took 2 months to get here but i got it ok and had to pay 300 and something bht import duty,

jake