Won’t help as of July - the VAT exemption disappears.
The onus will also fall on sellers of small, low value, items to collect UK or EU VAT and pay it to the authorities - though I’m not sure how this is supposed to work for gifts from private individuals.
Friend of mine had a birthday present parcel arrive chez moi just now (because dhl can’t find her house) luckily she was here as the parcel worth £35 wasn’t handed over until she had coughed up €29.50.
Bit of a shocker don’t you think.
Might get to be a bigger shock if the EU slap tariffs on because the UK is being an arse over the NIP.
Fairly standard if it’s from outside the EU, I’m afraid.
If you’re sourcing from (eg) the UK, I find it’s better to mentally add the TVA, duty and courier charges and then see if you can beat the price by shopping within the EU.
I’ve just sourced a replacement bearing for my mower from Portugal, saving about €25 over the UK price. And it arrived in less than 72 hours 
.
Unfortunately, I haven’t worked out to base any present-donating friends and family in Portugal yet!
I don’t get anything from the UK and if I buy online I do it through EU sites - I felt very sorry for my friend today, she was stuck, wishing her kind friend who sent her a birthday present hadn’t bothered.
I knew this was the case in theory, it is a surprise when you see it though.
But didn’t the friend have to pay at least the courier charges in order to send it?
There is a postage charge paid by the sender, then the courier company may collect other fees from the addressee on delivery, depending on origin, value and nature of the contents. These typically comprise tva, duty and handling costs.
Doesn’t work when the customs open the parcel and find goods of a value far in excess of the declared value. Keeping trying that and you’ll have HMRC / DGDDI knocking on your door.
A huge amount of that will be DHL’s own charges I would think?
Delivery has always been an extra industry here in France with sometime extortionate charges and poor service.
I have just ordered some swimsuits from UK and the post was £7.00.
I will wait and see what happens.
It just adds to the feeling of now being cut off from family and friends …difficult to say the them …don’t bother with a present “as it might cost me €30” to receive it! That’s not what presents are meant to be.
I bought recently couple of s/h books in uk, value £50…and have just paid DHL €35 delivery and duty
I simply can’t afford the kind of sums being mentioned here, and will not be getting deliveries from the UK.
A pity it looks like the loss of business to UK sellers was not considered when our heroic Brexit negotiation team seems to have landed us worse treatment than Iceland and other near countries who are also not in the EU.
That looks like a very useful site - thank you. And good timing too, as I need to change the front wheel bearings on my Westfield.
It seems banks have been doing such things for years though. I did a small editing job for a German publishing house and received the grand total of €100 for it. I was delighted as I didn’t expect to be paid, it was in my own industry which is why I was chosen and I did it for fun.
But I did ask for it to be a bank transfer, not a cheque, but something went wrong in translation (ironic because I was editing an English version of a German book) and they sent a cheque.
CA charged 30% to receive it into my account. 
Presumably because German euros are so much more expensive to process than French ones.
Isn’t this precicisely the sort of thing the single market was created to prevent?
I thought it was, but it was a lovely €30 present for CA.
I wasn’t with them for very long afterwards, not just for this but for the many other broken promises as well.
CA are certainly highly erratic but they do vary from region to region. CA Normandie has been reasonably ok, although I am avoiding the local branch at the moment because if I go in for anything (went to ask them to change my email address yesterday) I am harangued by the current youth doing customer relations who was, yet again, trying to bully me into a rdv so he could sell me insurance…
Fortunately these types tend to do a 2-year stint on their way up the ladder so I’ve only got one year to last out. The previous one was lovely.
I understand that from the end of this month the limit of €35? below which previously French tax authorities did not levy Vat is being reduced to zero. Does this mean that anything sent from outside EU to us here will have vat levied.
If an item is bought on uk …or American site for for say £25 or equivalent its unlikely that most sites will have mechanisms to sell at zero so it means the total cost (+tva) will increase substantially
How will this work…will La Poste knock on door for dosh…and how will the decide how much on say a uk mag at £4.50 or $7?
Completely confused on all of this.