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Here are the Post Office’s post-July customs clearance fees

Here are the Post Office’s post-July customs clearance fees

We’ve been really looking forward to the release of the postage, which, according to preliminary news, was really banded.

Here are the Post Office’s post-July customs clearance fees


 

Okay, what's that?

EU customs rules are changing, closing a loophole for fraud, removing the exemption from customs duties and VAT for small products. Sellers outside the EU often took the opportunity to list the products they bought from them as much cheaper, so the buyer did not have to pay sales tax, and as a result, the EU, and of course the Member States, lost a significant tax.


 

What will happen after July 1?

The exemption for low-value products will be abolished, which in practice means that we will have to pay VAT and customs clearance costs for all products purchased outside the EU. There will be several ways to pay VAT.

  1. The seller registers in the IOSS or OSS system, and when selling the product, he also pays the sales tax to the buyer, which he then pays in the country where he is registered in the IOSS. From here, the tax paid is then distributed to the Member States according to how much and in what value the product has entered the Member State and, of course, the amount of VAT in that country. We have the highest in the EU, 27 percent.
    In the case of packages arriving via IOSS, the customs clearance fee will be uniformly HUF 150 up to EUR 399!
  2. The second case is if the vendor is not registered in the IOSS. In this case, we have to fill in a reduced-price declaration (online) and then pay according to the table below, depending on the value of the product (or the sum of the product, shipping cost, and all other costs, which is not yet clear to me).
  3. Value limitOnline
    payment (HUF)
    Cash on delivery
    payment (HUF)
    0-10 EUR399799
    10,01-22 EUR499899
    22,01-50 EUR599999
    50,01-100 EUR8991399
    100,01-150 EUR13991899
  4. If the value of the package exceeds 150 euros, we will not be able to use the reduced-price declaration and we will have to complete a full declaration. The cost of the procedure in this case will be HUF 4000.
  5. There is also a fee of HUF 6600 if the recipient is cleared through customs using the IOSS or SA VAT payment method.
    requests an amendment.

Based on the above, some issues remain to be clarified.

I have received a reference from several online stores that in their opinion, the sales we know as EU warehouses will not change compared to the previous ones. I have pros and cons on this, but I’m neither a customs nor a tax expert, I don’t want to write nonsense, so if anyone has information on this I’d love to add.

Then, there’s a point I don’t really understand. If a product arrives via IOSS, i.e. we pay the VAT on the purchase, which the seller pays into the big common box office, why is it necessary for Posta to present the package to customs and why does a pre-registered and VAT paid after the package to write down another 400 forints from us. This, of course, is that with virtually these packages, the post office has nothing to do other than deliver it.

If anyone has any information on this, a legitimate argument, I would appreciate it if you would share it with me so that I can write it into the article.


 

What follows from the above:

It is quite clear that it will be pointless to buy small, low-dollar products from outside the EU. When you have to pay a minimum customs fee of 100 forints for a few 400 forints of cable, screen protector and the like, it makes no sense. Unless, of course, the price is still much cheaper than buying it at home, or if we order several people in one package, e.g. cables, thus sharing the cost of shipping and the cost of customs clearance.

The situation is even worse if the seller is not registered in the IOSS system, because in this case the fee to be paid can be up to HUF 1900 at the value limit below EUR 150. Of course, it is also worth adding that according to the previous system, for packages over 22 euros (or all over $ 40), we could count on a customs clearance cost of 3500 forints at the post office. In other words, on the one hand, the situation has deteriorated in the case of really low-value products, we are doing better for some 10 thousand forints than before.

However, it is also a fact that from now on no one can expect that the the phone ordered from Aliexpress or anything else "slips" through customs. This will be impossible, as we have to pay for each package. At the same time, it will still be in the interest of the Chinese traders to display a lower value on the package than the real one, since this way we, the buyers, have to pay less at home (at least for packages under 150 euros)


 

Summary

In summary, it can be said that the thing smells a bit like a money grab, but overall the situation is not terrible. If the bigger sellers are right about selling from "EU warehouse" stock, i.e. they will remain VAT and duty-free in the same way as now, then buying from abroad can be just as attractive as it was before, since there are more and more such "warehouses", more and more more products are available this way.

In fact, low-value products have not had to pay VAT so far, this appears as an extra item, the question is whether we see a sign of this in Chinese prices (whether the price is rising), and if we see it, how big the change will be.

However, many people do not take into account the fact that for more valuable packages (above 40 dollars) we have already paid VAT, not at most the domestic one, but, for example, the 17 percent in Luxembourg. In other words, in this case the price will not be 27 but "only" 10 percent higher than the Adiigis. Plus the customs clearance fee, of course.

It is also questionable how it will change, if at all, the duty-free delivery of larger stores from a Chinese warehouse at all (Priority Line, EU Priority Line, etc.). In recent weeks and months, there has been a slow rise in prices, which may have been due to the transition to the new system that is now being launched, at least I hope so. If so, perhaps we should not expect a change in these modes of transport either.

Of course, the exact answers will only come in the first few weeks of next month, when we will see exactly what is happening with our packages from EU warehouses and from China, but using duty-free shipping, and we will see the new customs clearance system in operation.

What is certain is that the costs in the description and table above seem to me to be in the tolerable category, meaning we may not have to be prepared to say goodbye to our favorite Chinese traders and good prices.

Click here for the official fee schedule

About the Author

s3nki

Owner of the HOC.hu website. He is the author of hundreds of articles and thousands of news. In addition to various online interfaces, he has written for Chip Magazine and also for the PC Guru. For a time, he ran his own PC shop, working for years as a store manager, service manager, system administrator in addition to journalism.