I am really cross just now. I've just discovered that there will now be VAT and import duties on goods bought privately from the EU. It seems that eBay will add some of this to invoices automatically and that goods over £135 will be invoiced by the carrier. In the case of Royal Mail, this amounts to a standard charge of £8.00. Some carriers will pay the duties and VAT for you and then charge that amount plus a commission of about 2.5%.

All this will be great for UK suppliers who generally already have been charging significantly more than European mainland suppliers for the same items; this was before their own importation was subject to these charges, as I now assume it will be.

Some people may think this a minor point and to be a first-world problem. But I have found this out by committing to spend £130.00 in Italy, which may rise to over £170.00 by the time I'm finished.:bang:

I have other hobbies, which I find are also being negatively affected by changes in legislation. I never saw any of this on the side of a bus and I thought the idea was that we would pay less to the EU.....not much point if we all have to pay more to the UK.

******** to Brexit.

fiat500 said:

I am really cross just now. I've just discovered that there will now be VAT and import duties on goods bought privately from the EU. It seems that eBay will add some of this to invoices automatically and that goods over £135 will be invoiced by the carrier. In the case of Royal Mail, this amounts to a standard charge of £8.00. Some carriers will pay the duties and VAT for you and then charge that amount plus a commission of about 2.5%.

All this will be great for UK suppliers who generally already have been charging significantly more than European mainland suppliers for the same items; this was before their own importation was subject to these charges, as I now assume it will be.

Some people may think this a minor point and to be a first-world problem. But I have found this out by committing to spend £130.00 in Italy, which may rise to over £170.00 by the time I'm finished.:bang:

I have other hobbies, which I find are also being negatively affected by changes in legislation. I never saw any of this on the side of a bus and I thought the idea was that we would pay less to the EU.....not much point if we all have to pay more to the UK.

******** to Brexit.

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The money your are paying when buying from.the EU is not going to the EU

Most of it is UK vat /custom's dutys

chris3234 said:

The money your are paying when buying from.the EU is not going to the EU

Most of it is UK vat /custom's dutys

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I know....that's why I'm so cross....I didn't used to have to do so.
Maybe commercial purchases don't attract the selling country's VAT; in which case things are slight less irritatingly bad.

The seller is exporting to UK, so their price should be ex VAT. What you lose on the swing you should regain on the roundabout.

A private sale probably the same as getting stuff from USA. VAT and other BS costs get dumped on top.

DaveMcT said:

The seller is exporting to UK, so their price should be ex VAT. What you lose on the swing you should regain on the roundabout.

A private sale probably the same as getting stuff from USA. VAT and other BS costs get dumped on top.

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that is wto rules, we dont have that with the eu we have a boris deal, somewhere in the 500 pages he has probably agreed to vat in both countries for us buying but not for us selling.

I still have not seen anything come to light in the Boris deal that going to be good for us

My understanding is if you buy something privately from europe then our amazing deal is we get to enjoy paying European equivalent of vat and vat in the UK, on the total cost of the item including packaging and postage.

Customs duty kicks in on higher value orders(£135?including postage etc) if the rules of origin of the items say the items were manufactured outside the EU. Makes one wonder if a lot of times it's to onerous on the vendor to proove items meet the rules of origin are in the EU so don't bother and allow duty to be charged.

The point is; there's no clarity. Apparently, any EU business seller with sales to the UK of more than £70,000 per year will have to register as a UK VAT business for those sales and pay the VAT to HMRC. Not all retailers will know this yet. When they do become aware of it, I suspect that many of them will consider it not viable.

Currently, it looks like many retailers in the EU are charging their own country's VAT or equivalent, and then there is a risk that UK VAT will be added to the entire costs, including postage and any duties payable. There will obviously be a mechanism to unravel this and reclaim your overpayments; but how easy or reliable will this be?

There is no shade of rose-tinted specs available to me that makes me think this is a good thing. If nothing else, it has already had a chilling effect on my previous enthusiam and willingness to trade with private and business sellers in the EU. Many dealers seem to deliberately operate in a grey area where they act as if private sellers whilst actually being in the trade. From now on, I can't be sure that Parcelforce won't be trucking up to my door and asking for various additional fees which aren't necessarily possible to factor-in at the point of sale.

There is not a mechanism to unravel paying euro vat and UK vat on privately imported items from eu - that is the deal we have been given by our government.

It makes sourcing some hard to get parts from eu at a reasonable price impossible .

The politest word that I can use is--incompetence. Take 4-1/2 years to NOT reach an agreement, then rush one through at the 11th hour without reading the small print! The sad truth is Peter, they only put on the side of the bus just enough information to fool people into thinking it would just be like walking through a door---open door, walk through and shut it behind one--simples. As well as the total cock-up this has brought about, is the number of 'leavers' who have deserted their ship (not mine) and gone to live on the continent to get away from all the hassle they they created---the boss of INEOS being one such prime example, and he has not only moved residence to Monaco, he is having the 'Grenadier' land-rover look-alike built in France! End of very frustrated and angry rant.

jackwhoo said:

There is not a mechanism to unravel paying euro vat and UK vat on privately imported items from eu - that is the deal we have been given by our government.

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I'm hedging my bets and giving the Customs and Excise the benefit of the doubt, as I usually encounter people who will defend the indefensible in this sort of discussion. It's interesting to generally see such a broad consensus here. I fear that entering into a purchase with a private individual from Italy will come back to bite me on the bum.

jackwhoo said:

It makes sourcing some hard to get parts from eu at a reasonable price impossible .

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...my point exactly and very sad all round. :bang:

the hobbler said:

The sad truth is Peter, they only put on the side of the bus just enough information to fool people into thinking it would just be like walking through a door---open door, walk through and shut it behind one--simples.

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...my cousin's very helpful answer to heartfelt disappointments such as that ...."Hard luck..you lost!"

With morons like that making up a large part of the electorate, I doubt we'll ever get out of this.

The deal is an individual buying from the EU has to now pay EU vat and UK vat(If applicable ie items not zero rated for vat)


It is not a mistake it is a very bad deal for all the people in the UK who used to shop in the eu and had their shopping delivered to them in the UK.

It does mean that HM revenue and customs have a higher revenue because the costs of what we are buying goes up because we have to pay more from UK suppliers or we are paying more vat than we used to on items coming from EU.

It is not simple for zero rated(in UK don't know status in EU) items.
I have an elderly relative who needs a regular supply of zero rated protective wear. Just heard from Amazon that because of UK leaving the EU they can no longer supply the items! An alternate supplier within the uk was suggested for 30% higher cost than usual.

surely business sellers in the EU should remove their equivalent of VAT when they export the goods to the UK....

Bigvtwin996 said:

surely business sellers in the EU should remove their equivalent of VAT when they export the goods to the UK....

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The rules may say that they have to charge eu vat on items being bought and shipped to an individual in the UK. The wonderful deal we got for Christmas didn't deal with this.


Don't get hung up on both taxes being called vat think of them as tax a and tax b.

The rules are likely very different for large imports or commercial imports.

lots of these things can be avoided...by use of a 3rd party...
ship outside of the EU (not uk) then ship from there to the UK...
it is a paper exercise.... this is what many big businesses do....

Bigvtwin996 said:

lots of these things can be avoided...by use of a 3rd party...
ship outside of the EU (not uk) then ship from there to the UK...
it is a paper exercise.... this is what many big businesses do....

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It's been bad enough already, living in Scotland. In the past I have even had non-urgent items delivered to relatives in England, when suppliers either couldn't supply to Scotland (which is very common) or charged disproportionate delivery charges north of the border.

It would be possible to have things shipped to Northern Ireland so as to reduce the charges, but it's a bit extreme to think than any private individual has a means to do that efficiently.

I'm not interested in schemes that might avoid these new taxes, nor do I want to risk trying my luck that I might escape them. I despise the politics that thinks that these changes, and the bulk of the other changes that becoming an "independent nation" has brought to me, are a great benefit to the experience of being British.:bang:

I think that your cousin is correct Peter---we have lost. In fact, we have ALL lost. The 'classic car parts' situation is just a small mirror to a much bigger problem, and one that is going to cost us, and our children and grandchildren a great deal

Bigvtwin996 said:

lots of these things can be avoided...by use of a 3rd party...
ship outside of the EU (not uk) then ship from there to the UK...
it is a paper exercise.... this is what many big businesses do....

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The cost of shipping the items out of eu dealing with paperwork in intermediate country , handling the items, shipping to UK is likely to exceed any saving of eu vat. Plus extra delay in getting items to uk.

Providing a customer in the UK can find a third party in a third country.

We here in Ireland have been hit for years on UK imported cars into Ireland pre Brexit, even though we were importing cars from an EU country at the time, we had to pay extortionate import taxes. The fines issued by the European Union were less then our pox of a government charged therefore we continued to get hammered.....even more so now since Brexit!
UK cars are better spec'd and rhd so we are snookered!

Governments are an absolute **** show!

Can you collectively form a fiat buyers club and run it as a legitimate company with a vat number thus claiming vat back?