Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a guitar to ship to Germany and I am unsure of how to proceed. When any of you ship to Europe, how do you handle the taxes and custom duties? Will shipping through USPS help in the same way it will when shipping to Canada? Any advice you can give will be appreciated!
Thanks,

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I have shipped one guitar to Great Britain and will be shipping to Sweden soon and as far as I know, the recipient is responsible for taxes & customs.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

If you don't mind John, which shipper did you use?

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Fedex, it is expensive no matter who you use to ship international.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I live in Norway and have received various items from the USA via mail - golf club components, guitars, guitar parts etc. The sellers have used USPS, DHL or UPS. UPS tends to be the quickest, to Norway anyway. As receipient I am always responsible for taxes and customs: The cargo company pays when clearing the goods into the country, adds a small fee for the service and sends the bill to me. I always pay the seller directly for shipping, so the bill from the cargo company is taxes (no customs fee on guitars here) and service fee only.

Hope this helps.

Åsmund

Of stuff I get sent from the States to the UK, Fed-ex always seems to be the quickest, but whoever, it always seems to get here OK. As far as taxes etc are concerned, they will be the responsibility of the recipient. The shipper as agent will pay the tax at the customs and charge a handling fee, then bill the recipient. In the UK for instance they'd add about $25 handling fee then the tax would be 17.5% of the value, including shipping and handling fee. So if the guitar including shipping was say $2500, then the amount payable by the recipient would be just over $440. German VAT is higher at 19% so that would make it $480. But as has been said this is the responsibility of the recipient not the sender.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

And those charges are based on what you say it is worth, correct? I have done some more research and the USPS seems to be less than half the cost of the other shippers as long as it stays under 70 lbs.. I am not sure why. Thanks for your responses.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I shipped a guitar to Finland. All taxes/customs are handled at the receiving end. However, for some reason, the guitar was in a holding pattern on the other side while waiting for these to be taken care of, and was not picked up for 5 extra days. The guitar developed a crack - I am assuming form being stored in less than desirable conditions.

Glenn