Duty Apply To Items For Resale Only, Or Can Items For Personal Use Be Subject To Duty Also?

[arizonadave]

Specifically vitamin mineral supplements that I have not been able to find for sale in Thailand. They will be coming as air freight, eight, one quart bottles of liquid and eight, one pound containers of powder. Is it advantagous to either arrange door delivery or pick up at airport?

[pault17]

ALL imported goods are subject to duty.

I do not believe getting the parcel here by air freight was a good decision.

Clearing it yourself may turn out to be a very sobering experience.

I recently imported - for personal use - training equipment and had to get it from customs at Bangkok's airport. Finding the place was the first challenge but once we found it the 'real' nightmare started. The procedure to clear is rather complex and involves numerous "bureau's" located at places spread all over the place. It looks like everybody working there or hanging around knows about the difficulties and wants to help and guide you for hefty amounts of Bath. An unreal "village" where everybody cooperates to make your visit to the place as profitable as possible for as much people possible. Except you of course. My advise: leave it to the professionals unless you have strong masochistic tendencies. Getting them cleared by a company my prove expensive but will definitely be beneficial for for mental health.

Next time send the goods by standard air mail. It will pass customs and if you are lucky you may not have to pay duty - due to huge numbers of incoming mail customs pick out randomly parcels to check.

Later you will be invited by your local post office to collect the goods.

[prechanut]

As pault17 said, ALL items imported are subject to duty.

I used to import a musical instrument for myself, not for resale I also have to pay duty as well.

One more thing, I can confirm that the customs pick out randomly parcels to check as one of my friend works there.

So by the standard air mail from a transporting provider like American Express or DHL, if you are lucky, you may not have to pay for the duty.

[arizonadave]

Lucky me my parcel WAS randomly picked but turned out to be not so bad. First off thanks to above advice I changed delivery from air freight to airmail. When pick up notice came I went to post office where they told me it was at customs. Customs personnel were pleasant enough and professional. Had to do a little bit of running around to pay a couple of fees and get a couple of stamps and make a few copies. In the end paid about 20% of invoice. Chalk it up to part of the price of living in another country.