DSF

Someone mentioned that if you imported stock from China as an individual person rather than a business, you could save on fees? So was that to a business address or a home address? What do people do?

no you don't save on fees.

Anything over £15 in value requires import VAT to be paid - though if you are VAT registered then you can get that back.

The only time you might pay more as a business is on duty with large scale imports. Generally duty less than £350 (I think ) is disregarded by HMRC so depending on what category you are importing in your order could be over £3000 or more before duty is payable.

For my small business orders I just need to account for the import VAT and courier fee for admin of the VAT. But that would be the same for a personal purchase over £15 as well.

Or you could pay the import duty of 8% to the government, and sleep easier at night not worrying about stuff which may or may not happen in the future.

I found the member who made the original claim, but nothing in his linked information stated anything useful.

I've always had to pay VAT and the courier handling fees, so unless the supplier has sent the item as a 'gift' that's the only way he could have saved money.

It was me

as individual person at a home address there is no import duties from china as they class it as home or personal

if you say use my company address and my home address they will automatically send me a FedEx import bill as they assume it's for a company.go on google and type import duties from china, and it tells you none

hope this helps as when the company send it me they used my company address and it was a few samples,I hade to contact company and get them to resend the invoice in my own name and email FedEx ,import duties removed immediately

That's incorrect.

You still pay duty even for personal use

https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty

If you visit China then you have a duty free allowance of £390 but you must bring the items in personally, if you use a courier than you are subject to normal import limits
https://www.gov.uk/duty-free-goods/arri ... ide-the-eu

There's an option on the CN22 forms for Commercial Sample. Perhaps this is what your Chinese supplier was using? But any individual who buys from outside the EU will face custom charges over the value of £15. Nobody escapes that.

Chinese suppliers often assume they are doing you a favour buy doing a dodgy bit on customs forms. Either samples or undervaluing price of goods. The latter happened to me with a few suppliers where I had to go out of my way to actually get the full amount declared. Being vat registered so claiming that back then it is not worth messing about. Many are more than happy to sell you £1k stock and put down for customs it was only £100. Personally, wouldn't mess with HMRC.

I agree, if you are VAT registered you are playing with fire as you can get it back.

If you are VAT registered then you are only going to get hit with duty at about 2.5% unless you are buying in substantial quantities and fall under more specific goods categories. Even then you're talking mainly 8% - 15% and at that order quantity you're getting pretty good discounts that should more than cover the duty.

For most small businesses there's little benefit in asking or getting under valuation of goods.

Remember, if they put a lower amount on the customs form the VAT and duty authorities can look at the amount you paid from the bank/paypal if they want to.