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So apply for Schengen Space, like any other country, or broker a different deal, not just shout "gimme", like any other country.

And that's my ending comment for this, as requested by a mod (I've only answered because I was quoted, shutting up now).

My final comment - "gimme" is not the request and never was.

JWBS wrote:
Thereby making a better EU>>UK customs process impossible, I see.

Well, y‘know, the EU customs union was built with UK as a member, and to a large extent based on UK‘s own input. It’s hardly a fault of the system we built together if it doesn‘t benefit you anymore after you took the conscious (ha!) decision to leave it.

You now just find yourself on the the other side and that’s why you want the rules to change.

What you are complaining about is not that it‘s now become harder for the UK. You are complaining about returning to the status quo before the customs union, with a government that didn‘t do its homework because it assumed stuff to work out itself (as it seemed to before, when in fact the EU institutions took care of all the „boring“ stuff for your government).

But this is not the place, so I‘ll stop here. Nice models.

JWBS wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Garfield666 wrote:
While I tried to order from the UK still, albeit much fewer, all the last orders at several UK companies got stuck and rejected by customs, despite being correctly labled. At this point it isn't woth the hassle anymore...

If the paperwork was filled out correctly, this seems like a "spiteful EU" issue, rather than anything being done wrong by the UK companies.

They may want to try the carrot at some point, rather than the bludgeon.

Sigh the typical simplistic blame shift...
Rules and laws changed regarding commercial and private shipping and with that every EU country needs to adjust theirs, it's a VERY complex bureaucratic mess all over EU and UK now. I ship both ways from both and guess what? Both changed for the worse.

Companies are in for a long adjustment period and I just hope they have the power to endure this freaking mess. Meanwhile people and companies lose out.

It's no more typical, simplistic and blame shifting than "Muh Brexit is bad for customs".

Fact is that its not simplistic and its happening today but yeah denial will keep some going I guess.

TheGoodGerman wrote:
.. you took the conscious (ha!) decision to leave it.

Well like I said I voted remain, expecting an exit to be bad for economics. I rather naively assumed the downsides would entirely be organic rather than partially engineered though, eg the common scenario (including in this thread) "I ordered from UK, all was in good order but customs in my EU country rejected it anyway" (ha).

JWBS wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
.. you took the conscious (ha!) decision to leave it.

Well like I said I voted remain, expecting an exit to be bad for economics. I rather naively assumed the downsides would entirely be organic rather than partially engineered though, eg the common scenario (including in this thread) "I ordered from UK, all was in good order but customs in my EU country rejected it anyway" (ha).

Was it all in good order, though? I don‘t think there‘s someone in customs specifically bullying people who ordered from UK.

I mean, the people who order anything don't tend to have any power over how it's shipped or whether the sender manages to do all the correct paperwork for the shipment to arrive properly at their address without getting bogged down in customs.

Of course, it doesn't really help if the sender country's officers don't know what the correct paperwork is either.

TheGoodGerman wrote:

JWBS wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
.. you took the conscious (ha!) decision to leave it.

Well like I said I voted remain, expecting an hexit to be bad for economics. I rather naively assumed the downsides would entirely be organic rather than partially engineered though, eg the common scenario (including in this thread) "I ordered from UK, all was in good order but customs in my EU country rejected it anyway" (ha).

Was it all in good order, though? I don‘t think there‘s someone in customs specifically bullying people who ordered from UK.

I dunno you'd have to ask the people who've had this experience, I have no reason to disbelieve them.

And now we‘re where these discussions about the evil EU always end: „I don‘t know, you have to ask other people whether my example is true.“

But the EU definitely engineered these Brexit problems that have been pointed out by experts from all sides even before the vote.

I‘ve ordered hobby stuff from US and from Ukraine in the past. I would guess that less than 25% of my deliveries had the customs part filled out correctly, but sometimes it simply doesn’t get checked at entry.

I've frequently bought from China and I have never had any issue, 100% success on, say, forty attempts over 10 years (estimate). I suppose I must assume the UK/China trade process is uniquely great.

JWBS wrote:
I've frequently bought from China and I have never had any issue, 100% success on, say, forty attempts over 10 years (estimate). I suppose I must assume the UK/China trade process is uniquely great.

Funny you mention that. There was (still is?) a court case of the EU Commission against the UK because it did not check imports of sports shoes from China. Which was exploited by Chinese sellers as an avenue into the EU market.

TheGoodGerman wrote:
And now we‘re where these discussions about the evil EU always end: „I don‘t know, you have to ask other people whether my example is true.“

In this case, we're relying on the input from someone who posted in this thread - one specific example, not a broad-brush thing.

That poster - Garfield666, you can check their post on page 1 - stated that the order(s) they'd made from the UK were rejected by EU customs despite being correctly labelled.

If we take them at their word - and I've had no experiences with this poster to indicate I shouldn't - how else should we read this?

Customs is customs, UK voted democratically that they want to be subject to it. Yes, let's be honest, they kinda expected to have all the priviledges of being in the EU and none of the obligations and are still a bit flabbergasted that that's not how the world works anymore.

But there's no EU conspiracy to make customs with UK in particular harder than with any other non member country. Tho they might be in practice because they're being processed on trade routes not previously accustomed (HA!) to having to process customs.

 Dysartes wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
And now we‘re where these discussions about the evil EU always end: „I don‘t know, you have to ask other people whether my example is true.“

In this case, we're relying on the input from someone who posted in this thread - one specific example, not a broad-brush thing.

That poster - Garfield666, you can check their post on page 1 - stated that the order(s) they'd made from the UK were rejected by EU customs despite being correctly labelled.

If we take them at their word - and I've had no experiences with this poster to indicate I shouldn't - how else should we read this?

I for one would not know if a package is correctly labeled or not just from looking at it, as I don't know how is "correct" and how's "incorrect". Plus, the labelling is just one thing you have to do. Thee's also declaration of contents, taxes, tariffs...

Simply put, that data point lacks actual data needed to say anything one way or another. And then there's errors done by post pofficers to take into account too, like putting a package in a specific, correct queue to be processed instead of another.... there's a lot of moving parts there that were transparent before.

EDIT: To avoid fething this thread even more... would it be possible to split the customs conversation to another thread, maybe in dakka discussions?

 Dysartes wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
And now we‘re where these discussions about the evil EU always end: „I don‘t know, you have to ask other people whether my example is true.“

In this case, we're relying on the input from someone who posted in this thread - one specific example, not a broad-brush thing.

That poster - Garfield666, you can check their post on page 1 - stated that the order(s) they'd made from the UK were rejected by EU customs despite being correctly labelled.

If we take them at their word - and I've had no experiences with this poster to indicate I shouldn't - how else should we read this?

You‘re right, of course. That poster is from my country, and having had the pleasure to deal with the „friendly“ German customs bureaucracy both for work and private stuff, let me tell you: I don‘t think that really it was all in order, at least not from the custom’s view. We don’t know the individual case, or why the items were „rejected“ - which would be a highly unusual move, normally the customs office asks for evidence re the paid amounts etc. because they don’t trust the customs declaration on the envelope („gift, toys, value 15 Euros“), and minis are only subject to import tax (your local VAT) and no tariffs. You might have to go there in person to witness the pack being opened and pay cash, which is a pain. If you don’t react within a fairly short time, the pack is returned to sender („rejected“?).

As Albertorius pointed out, as a customer you can’t really see this until you receive your package. So maybe people thought it was all in order, but in fact it wasn’t?

As with many things, while it might be tempting to think that the UK - or others' attitude towards the UK - is at the centre of all things, I think it's unlikely.

In July 2021, by coincidence six months after the end of the Brexit transition period, the EU enacted a massive overhaul of their import VAT procedures. The EU import VAT laws prior to this were not fit for purpose in a world where customers order online direct from sellers in non-EU countries. Billions in potential import VAT payments were being lost. The UK enacted it's own new import procedures on December 31st 2020, which differ from the EU rules in fundamental ways.

In the EU the waver for low value imports (under 22EUR) was withdrawn and this vastly increased the number of packages that required customs treatment, on top of the increase from UK to EU packages that now needed customs treatment. Having read the various technical documents around all this (I got super into VAT for a while) this wouldn't have been such an issue if EU member states had in place the up-to-date customs systems around which the new procedures were designed. Unfortunately most did not and there were calls for a further delay to the implementation of the new procedures.

In the period since July 2021, things have improved and in my experience as a seller it seems that pre-paid VAT packages (where the EU buyer pays VAT on orders up to 150EUR at checkout as on Etsy or Ebay or with an IOSS VAT registration) are now arriving ok having previously been an issue, whereas packages where VAT has not been paid are occasionally being rejected without explanation. It is the EU postal services that submit packages to customs, they who must contact the customer and collect VAT, and they are the ones who also slap on the 'return to sender' label if a package is 'rejected'. Given the potential volumes the postal services are dealing with, I can imagine where issues might be occurring. By contrast, if VAT has been paid at checkout and the customs system has been upgraded, a package will bypass customs entirely*.

None of this is UK specific though, it applies to all non-EU imports. But with direct sales to EU customers being higher from the UK than any other non-EU country, the perception that the UK is being punished has inevitably arisen.

The UK took a different route. If a seller makes a sale to a UK customer, that seller must register for UK VAT. Every single seller - worldwide. Envisaging this utopia of VAT compliance, the UK removed the requirement for Royal Mail to collect VAT on any package under £135 (Royal Mail, like many EU postal services, had not been very proactive about collecting import VAT up to 2021 anyway). The EU has successfully raised billions more in import VAT since 2021. How do you think it's been going for the UK?


*The upgraded customs systems also streamline VAT-not-paid procedures, so there is hope longer term. I'm pretty sure December 2022 was a deadline for implementation of the new systems, but that might have drifted. It's an evolving situation, so personal experience from 1 year ago may not match an experience 6 months ago, which might not match the current situation. But as I said, my ongoing experience suggests things are moving in the right direction. And that if you have the option, EU customers should always order in a way that allows you to pay VAT at checkout. And that more non-EU sellers should take advantage of those options too. Any non-EU seller that isn't selling on Ebay or Etsy *at least* is shooting themselves in the foot and contributing to a perception that selling to the EU is harder than it actually is.

 Albertorius wrote:
.

EDIT: To avoid fething this thread even more... would it be possible to split the customs conversation to another thread, maybe in dakka discussions?

Tbh this discussion shouldn't be happening on dakka at all, we all know why the rule is there, it generally causes friction but in this case the subject of the thread kinda invites it.

TheGoodGerman wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
And now we‘re where these discussions about the evil EU always end: „I don‘t know, you have to ask other people whether my example is true.“

In this case, we're relying on the input from someone who posted in this thread - one specific example, not a broad-brush thing.

That poster - Garfield666, you can check their post on page 1 - stated that the order(s) they'd made from the UK were rejected by EU customs despite being correctly labelled.

If we take them at their word - and I've had no experiences with this poster to indicate I shouldn't - how else should we read this?

You‘re right, of course. That poster is from my country, and having had the pleasure to deal with the „friendly“ German customs bureaucracy both for work and private stuff, let me tell you: I don‘t think that really it was all in order, at least not from the custom’s view. We don’t know the individual case, or why the items were „rejected“ - which would be a highly unusual move, normally the customs office asks for evidence re the paid amounts etc. because they don’t trust the customs declaration on the envelope („gift, toys, value 15 Euros“), and minis are only subject to import tax (your local VAT) and no tariffs. You might have to go there in person to witness the pack being opened and pay cash, which is a pain. If you don’t react within a fairly short time, the pack is returned to sender („rejected“?).

As Albertorius pointed out, as a customer you can’t really see this until you receive your package. So maybe people thought it was all in order, but in fact it wasn’t?

Yep I underlined the bits that also commonly happened with customs on the EU country I send to.
Its not Evil bad EU and I find really hard to even understand that line of arguments... It's pure customs Bureaucracy! Add to that the fact that UK/EU rules and laws are changing to accommodate the changes and you have brewed a huge mess at both ends in and out of UK.
On this UK side customs checks only come with a "pay this X more to get your thing delivered" note most of the times, which happened several times with US.
On my experience the leading times Aldo increased dramatically to MANY weeks has opposed to a couple them.
On my experience more than 50%( probably more) of items I sent either vanished! or still in transit or at customs... Not great.
Before Brexit 95% things went fine with no problems for a decade!
Business are screaming or just shutting down saying cannot cope with the hit and YET people still weirdly stuck with the EU is evil.

JWBS wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
.

EDIT: To avoid fething this thread even more... would it be possible to split the customs conversation to another thread, maybe in dakka discussions?

Tbh this discussion shouldn't be happening on dakka at all, we all know why the rule is there, it generally causes friction but in this case the subject of the thread kinda invites it.

Haven’t we been discussing the left miniature all the time (import tax strangles small business)?

But true, let’s end it here.

 Andrew Rae wrote:
Snips a lot of intersrting stuff

Thank you for this, it's a lot of very interesting information from the "inside" of things.