Charges on parcel from the UK

For small items the onus is on the vendor to collect the VAT, not sure how the payment bit actually works. I’d expect the number of small enterprises willing to sell into the EU to go down.

And often wearing Union jack socks, to prove your case.

@anon88169868 , but how will this impact on magazines and very small items…will a declaration really be required and how will
La Poste collect say €1.20 …they won’t be wanting to be delayed even infrequently knocking on doors even for French people…as don’t forget it will be for any item coming here from a none EU state,…

To be honest no idea, but AIUI that’s how it’s supposed to work.

I have just received a package of nine vinyl records from the UK, a total cost with P&P of £208. No import, customs or any other duty or charges to pay and none was paid at the UK end either.

I don’t know if the following will be useful to some people, it’s La Poste’s version (sorry about the length of the link, I’ve forgotten how to shorten them!)

That will be Britline every Brits friend! We’ve had an account for 15 years long before we settled here and I’ve always found them very helpful and services reasonably priced, the ony problem is that CA being a “confederation” of local banks like TSB all have different back office systems so not seamles so paying in can be like paying into a different bank.

Actually, it wasn’t Britline, which I only discovered existed after I’d already had an account with our local CA for years!

Ah, as you mentioned. CA Normandie I assumed Britline is a trading brand of the bank in that Dept’.

It was 30 years ago and virtually a one man operation with a manager called Vincent Gray. There was him, his secretary and one or 2 more and that was it. It has come on a bit over the years but unless you are local ( we bought our first house in the Swiss Normande In 1992) then i would recommend using a local branch as, have others have said, the bank has the same name across France but they are certainly not joined up as one smooth operation.

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That has long been the case. When Vanessa sold stuff to a friend in Germany, she paid by cheque and we were charged by our French bank in similar circumstances. After that, she only paid by bank transfer and no more charges were levied. It’s a well known and documented quirk of the system.

we have used this to figure out the import taxes/duty for a parcel from the US.
Pretty accurate…
LaPoste called and advised that our tax/import duty was …Euro and to come and pay/collect from the central office.
Went, paid by cheque and collected our rather heavy roll of fabric.
Can only recommend La Poste and the USPS for sending goods. All in pricing so no rude shock at unexpected delivery costs from courier companies…

Can somebody tell me with accuracy what us going to change from today with regard to delivery of anything sourced from a business not registered in the EU, even if they sell through a Fr online site.

I’ve heard that every item regardless of value will have 20% tax plus la Poste handling fee…even magazines with say £2.50 uk value.
That Poste will not now deliver such items but they will leave a card in post box with collection instructions …that may not be at local office but the nearest sorting point.

Sadly I never buy from sources in the UK, although many of them are no longer prepared to ship to the EU27.

Buying from Germany, Belgium or the Eastern European staes of the EU27 is almost always a good deal with low postage charges.

When buying from some of the Western EU27 states just need to be careful about whether the company is really resdient in the EU or just spoofing what turns out to be a Chinese/Hong Kong… based company.

I have also used AliExpress to buy items that are despatched from EU27 states with success.

Neither do I, I now honour Amazon.fr with my custom, however I do get a couple of monthly Magazines on subscription and would be very sad to now not get these.
Wife will greatly miss her monthly puzzler magazine.
Will la Poste really want to collect 50c every month?

I know exactly how you feel. I have grandchildren and children in the UK and do not wish to buy from Amazon.co.uk and have it delivered. My grandchildren love the things I make for them as they know nanna made it from start to finish. Last week I would have been able to fill out a CN22 form for customs online, declare that it was handmade from start to finish no commercial value and sent it to 2 of them. Lady in the Post Office on holiday and she deserves one. So here we are 4 days later and the whole system is different. So the LaPoste page for parcels has changed on the 16th and the CN22 does not come up, you cannot colisimo on CN22 and only CN23 comes up for goods of a high value and therefore taxes to be paid. So we tried Chronopost (no form came up but the price did 1.8kg 34cm long x 24cm wide x 16cm deep 40euros. I will fill out the CN22 I saved last week, print it in triplicate and go to another Post Office with a helpful friend to see what we can find out. To say that I am brassed off and upset and feeling rather fed up…

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Might be just as well to wait. things will settle down and find a level eventually… then folk will be (once again) sending their handicrafts back and forth between friends and loved-ones.

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The form you use makes no difference to taxes paid, what makes a difference is the information you put on the form. As I said further up the thread somewhere the CN23 has more detailed information required, which would be the information needed IF taxes are due so the recipient can be contacted, so is a ‘better’ form in that sense, although less simple. I imagine that is why they are pushing people towards the CN23. The first option on the CN23 form online is gift. Do the same as you would on the CN22, put handmade gift, declare it as zero value and I can’t see it would be treated differently whether you’ve used a paper CN22 or paper or online CN23.

I’m not quite sure what the issue you’re having is with the site, it’s rather peculiar and works in its own way and when it wants, but Chronopost is the express delivery service. The main La Poste site has Collisimo which is obviously La Poste’s standard parcel service and starts at 15,90€. I think prices to the UK went up in Jan as there’s some kind of ‘brexit surcharge’ added on due to the extra customs compliance but otherwise prices don’t seem to have changed.

As @Stella very wisely said, it may be better to let things calm down and then have a go, but like everything in life its not as difficult once you’ve done it a couple of times and got the gist of the new procedures, so I wouldn’t worry too much, it should still be perfectly possible to do as before, and pay pretty much what you were before.

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May I just say a thankful and sincere thank you. I have not used the La Poste site before for packages and your answers enabled me to do that. It makes such a difference to one’s life when there are people who share their knowledge that aids others. I wish you all a good day and good health.

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I sent several old Video 8 tapes to UK to be digitised (no monetary value, only sentimental). Shocked to find I had to pay €23 to UPS to receive them back after already paying the courier fees to the service company. Lesson learnt - not to order anything from UK or use such UK services.