My husband inadvertently left his mobile phone in the UK when visiting his parents, his sister has sent it over by courier. He has just received an email saying he needs to pay 65 Euros in customs duties and tax in order to receive it. This is for a 5 year old phone that he brought to France when we moved here in 2018.
Surely this scenario should not attract duties and taxes? Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated. Thanks
There’s no “surely” about it! Sorry. Sometimes people are lucky and a small parcel comes through without charge - maybe the customs form didn’t get looked at - but this is not the official position. If you have the original VAT receipt from when you bought the phone you may be able to claim the VAT back.
Here’s a Deepl translation of relevant bit from French Gov website:
https://www.douane.gouv.fr/fiche/que-devez-vous-payer
PURCHASE FROM AN INDIVIDUAL (as a private individual) or SENDING FROM INDIVIDUAL TO INDIVIDUAL :
I would like to inform you that, pursuant to Articles 25 to 27 of Community Regulation No. 1186/2009 of 16 November 2009, postal items addressed from a third country between private individuals (e.g. gifts) and containing goods with an intrinsic value of EUR 45 or less are admitted free of customs duties and import VAT.
If the value of the consignment is higher than this amount, you will have to pay any customs duties and VAT at the time of import, even if the goods are second-hand or if the transaction does not give rise to payment.
Customs duty, if any, is calculated on the value of the goods plus all shipping and insurance costs to the point of entry into the EU.
VAT is calculated on the value of the goods plus the cost of shipping and insurance to the final delivery point plus the amount of any customs duty.
***ATTENTION: The carrier, who takes care of all the customs clearance formalities, charges the recipient a fee for his various services. These fees are sometimes referred to as “customs fees” but they are not related to the taxes collected on behalf of the Treasury. ***
I understand your frustration in having to pay 65 euros but when you consider all the info on the phone that has accumulated in 5 years of ownership that must be invaluable to its owner is it really worth challenging the charge?
We all learn by our mistakes and have to pay the price in doing so, be it in hard cash or in other ways.
I agree that the charge seems harse but I would pay it and move on, far better to get the phone back rather than have lost it.
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Thanks Jane Jones and JohnBoy for the feedback, information and good advice. We have paid the duties and courier company have advised that in the circumstances we should apply to reclaim the TVA part back from French Customs. No guarantees that they will reimburse of course but it may be worth a try.
Just an observation - I would hope that any info on the phone that is important was backed up or synchronised to somewhere else - for instance google contacts, calendar etc. In this day and age it would be foolish to only have it on the phone.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing……
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In my experience items posted may escape duty and VAT but couriers declare everything so there is no escape. That’s why it is important to declare a realistic value the customs form. In the case of a five year old phone that should have been zero. Once bitten 
but at least you have the phone back.
there might be something helpful on this link… maybe
Maybe that link was removed, but this one sets it out quite simply
And this has advice
I normally avoid buying anything from the UK because of the customs duty but I am in the habit of buying cheap second hand books from the same supplier. Until now I’ve had no problems but today I was asked to pay 10 euros on a book costing 8 euros. Can this be right or have I been conned?
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I assume you ordered online from the UK to be shipped to France. Actual customs duty and VAT are probably negligible but the couriers tend to add an “admin charge” which is, indeed, a rip off.
But this was with the normal post la poste
Royal Mail do the same.
Books are VATable in France. They’re not VATable in the UK.
Any item VATable that is delivered to you in France, that has not had either French VAT paid on it *or another EU/EEA’s rate of VAT paid on it (even if different % VAT (TVA) to France, whoever delivers it to you will collect French VAT on. This is what gives them the excuse to add their own often totally disproportionate admin charge. For La Poste it’s about 9 euros I think.
There are 3 ways of avoiding this
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hand carry the item yourself - your allowance is just over ÂŁ400 total for all you bring in or, if by land/ferry, something over ÂŁ300. Per person.
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Buy from someone who will send as an export from the UK ie VAT is not charged. You will pay close to same VAT as UK, for most things. Books are an exception because the UK VAT is zero. I can’t remember if VATable but at 0%, like children’s clothes, or not subject to VAT but same result - you’ll be paying French VAT which is higher.
Unfortunately you’ll get the admin charge as well even if the VAT is 1 Euro cent. -
Buy from someone who will sell as an export as above but will also arrange import to any EU/EEA country, whose VAT will be charged at import then send it to you in France. Or you can pay an importer. Portugal used to be a good prospect - 9% VAT. Amazon does this for many items they ship - I’ve done a couple of posts on another thread here as to why that works.
I have never paid any charges since living here, for any item I’ve chosen Amazon UK to send me. But there are very few sellers set up to process like this as it’s an admin load, and I don’t buy items subject to duty (which also kicks off the admin charges) - if it’s subject to duty or some other restriction Amazon UK seems to say they can’t ship it to France.
I believe things sent from Jersey won’t lead to extra charges.
Indeed. In the last week I bought a new CD from the UK. The person I bought it from popped it in an envelope and put a customs declaration stating 1 used CD. Shipping negligible and duties zero. I also bought two small plastic items that cover the top of the Morgan’s seats to prevent the seat belts chaffing them from a UK Morgan main dealer. They cost 6 quid each and together are about the size of a CD. They charged me £16 shipping and I had to pay our factor €10.