has anyone bought products from UK and have them delivered to Switzerland?
How much is the minimum value that go untaxed/no tariff etc.?
Is it at all possible to be untaxed or do you always have to pay the processing fees (16CHF) plus some 8% VAT plus... etc?
Many thanks in advance.
Full details available in English on the appropriate government web site.
I ordered some tea from the UK: total weight of the package was 3.45kg. I have ordered a large volume like this before (November 2021) and not been charged.
This time I was charged (by FedEx) for the import.
Original cost was £62.05 plus £10 shipping (date of duty invoice 28.09.22 & exchange rate then gives roughly CHF 77)
Details of charges by FedEx (no mention of my original costs above on the bill):
Switzerland VAT 7.7% 1.70
Original VAT 6.25
Disbursement Fee 22.00 (= charges for calculating the charges??)
I am not clear how they calculated any of this, especially as I thought tea was subject to 2.5% VAT here? See below from the Swiss gvt website https://www.ch.ch/en/customs/orderin...information-br
"Paying customs duties"
In principle, you need to pay customs duties and Swiss VAT on any product you order from abroad.
In most cases, only the shipping costs are paid by the sender. Customs duties, VAT and customs clearance charges, on the other hand, are automatically charged to the recipient unless the sender has clearly specified otherwise in the waybill.
In practice, customs duties and VAT below CHF 5 are not invoiced. You can also avoid these charges if the value of your order does not exceed CHF 200 (incl. packaging and delivery). This applies to books and other goods subject to a reduced VAT rate of 2.5%. However, the value of orders of goods subject to a VAT rate of 7.7% must be below CHF 65."
I guess I will have to pay it but it's frustrating not to be able to understand the reasons fully. Someone on here probably has a much better handle on it than me though! Would appreciate any sagely replies please. Sad if it has become nonsensical to order my tea again....
Thank you for reading!
Fedex pays the government for you in advance, then reclaims the money from you. For this service, they charge you 22chf.
I'd contact them to explain it to you.
I thought the point about CHF 65 is only for goods charged at 7.7% VAT though? So I guess tea must be in this category? I did try to look it up but with no clear success and ASSumed (dangerous) that tea being a daily basic essential item (? for me) it would be in the lower 2.5% bracket. Or have I misunderstood that quote from the website (I posted earlier) and the CHF 65 limit is for ALL imported goods?
I have contacted FedEx by phone and have emailed them to ask how they came about their calculations.
The fact that this has never happened before...still makes no sense yet. Unless I have just been lucky.
Depending on if the VAT Rate is 7.7% (8.1% in the future) or 2.5% (2.6%) this equates into an import value (including shipping cost) of CHF 64 (CHF 61.70) and CHF 200 (CHF 192) respectively.
2.5% (2.6%) has, for example books and "Lebensmittel nach dem Lebensmittelgesetz vom 20. Juni 2014, mit Ausnahme alkoholischer Getränke" / "foodstuffs under the Foodstuffs Act of 20 June 2014, with the exception of alcoholic beverages,"
Under this falls food itself, but also herbs, nutritional supplements or in general as defined in Art. 4 Foodstuffs Act
As you can see, nutritional value is not a criteria. Important is human consumption. Tea and coffee falls under the "drinks" clause. Also dry tea leaves and coffee beans. https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/220/de
Next to VAT there is also duty. Like VAT duty has to be paid when it is CHF 5 or more. Duty can be looked up in the Tares database: https://xtares.admin.ch/tares/
Duty for green and black teas is 0 CHF/kg.
So what went wrong?
The CHF 1.70 are the VAT on the disbursement fee.
Means the CHF 6.25 is the assessed the import VAT.
One can only assume that the customs declaration by the sendelr/seller was wrong or incomplete and thus it was not clear it was tea whihc has a i,mport VAT of 2.5%
On your FedEx bill you should see a big long number, with which you can download the official e-dec customs declaration, which FedEx made on your behalf, based on the information provided by the sender.
In the end you can try and contest the bill with fedex by showing them that they did a mistake (if the senders documentation was correct and complete). Might be possible that they reimburse you.
But keep in mind that tea is also subject to the additional tare of 10% on importation, which is quite steep and based on the weight, packaging etc.
As you can see, this additional 10% is meaningless in case of tea.
Import VAT is based on import value and does not depend on the weight, and accordingly also not on the extra tare (= weight of packaging) .
Since tea (dry leaf in my case) falls into the 2.5% (soon to be 2.6%) category, the limit for duty free importation is chf 200 (at present) keeping the total below chf 5
Therefore I will continue to try contest it - and double check with the sender about their packaging. The bill did not arrive for a week after the package was delivered and so the paperwork with it had already been recycled!
Thanks again. So much clearer now!
The limit for duty free importation of tea is an infinite tons. You can import all the tea for the world duty free. The limit for tax free importation is CHF 200 of the total shipment value.
That is rather unfortunate and short sighted. Such important paperworks should be kept for a bit longer.
It's not the tax (I know that's low) but the handling fee that's quite commonly around 20chf per parcel.... that I want to avoid....
Anything else will attract a set of fees.
Costs are here%20%3D%3E%20CHF%20200.00)
Sometimes, even if the declaration keeps the tax/duty below 5%, the Post will still contact you for clarification if they are unsure of the value of the goods. I haven't been charged for this.
In my experience, FedEx are the worst couriers for charging. I think they see any fees as extra way of getting more money from the customer.
I've been in the exact situation before so let me give you a walkthrough with Fedex on how to contest it correctly:
1. Go to this site: https://www.fedex.com/en-ch/customer...-payments.html
2. Select "I do not agree with a charge on my invoice"
3. Select "Invoice Type Duty & Tax"
4. Select "Duty & Tax calculated incorrectly"
5. Fill out the form, entering 2.5% as the correct tax rate, you don't necessarily need to fill out all fields, if you know the hs code for your type of tea, you can add it too. See here: https://www.tariffnumber.com/2022/0902
6. Wait a few days, bill gets canceled.