Taxes/tariffs on German Goods

[Sourwould]

Hey Y'all,

I have been looking at ordering some stuff from a German website. I've also been trying to figure out if i'll have to pay a lot in import taxes once the stuff hits the US. I've had trouble finding anything specific about this with a Google search.

I've ordered internationally from eBay and Amazon without any extra charges. I'm not sure if they include the charges in the shipping cost or if they're just big companies with the kind of work-arounds that big companies have.

I was hoping there were folks here that had ordered directly from German companies that could shed some light on the subject.

Thanks!

 

[RKA]

I can't speak for how eBay handles this, but Amazon does factor in the customs fees/taxes into the shipping costs.  So you are paying them, Amazon just makes it easy for you.

The smaller german sellers...you are responsible for the taxes.  I believe we have an $800 limit on goods we can bring into the country when passing through the airport.  I would think (not sure) CBP would apply the same to items shipped into the country.  It's easy when the declared value of an individual item exceeds that limit.  But when multiple smaller shipments come over, I'm not sure how efficient they are at tracking and assessing those taxes (you would think they would be capable of handling this, but who knows).  If it were me, I would assume I would have to pay them and factor that into the purchasing decision.  My own recent experience involves either Amazon or smaller sellers where the total annual purchases have been under the $800 limit.  One was from Japan from a smaller seller and just under the limit and no taxes were assessed.  Other purchases in the following year were $200-300 each from small German sellers, but in total, under the limit.

 

[six-point socket II]

From my experience with exports, I'm located in Germany, the threshold for value/quantity before US-Customs will charge the recipient with import fees/taxes is pretty high.

For example, let's assume you import one Festool cordless drill from Germany that costs 550,- Euro and 45,- Euro to ship.

Cordless drill = HS Code 8467.21.0000 (Duty would be 1.7%, but you are below the threshold so it doesn't apply)

If I use fictional costs of 1500 Euro for the drill, it results in duty of 28.80 USD.

This should give you an idea.

You can check yourself with this tool, up to 5 times a day is free.
https://www.simplyduty.com/import-calculator/

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Sourwould]

Thanks guys

 

[FrankT]

I’ve purchased many Festool items from sources in GB and never paid any vat, tarries or import fees.