New EU Trading Conditions Following Brexit.

As the trade deal was only signed on 24 December, every day we have been learning more about what it means for us and our customers.

When you place an order from outside the UK, we will send you a link to DHL so you can find out what charges you will receive on your incoming shipment.

It is important that you do this before we send your order so you are prepared for the charges. Unfortunately, as the situation in each EU country is different, there is not a master set of information that we can share with you. 

In summary, you will receive new charges for: 

VAT – we still invoice you without any VAT on the invoice. Now your own country will apply import VAT on your shipment. If you are VAT registered this can, of course, be claimed back.

Duty – many of the products we sell have 0% import duty applied to them. There are some products that do attract duty, but the rate of duty varies by country. 

Admin Charges – when you import your order, DHL in your country will pay the VAT and duty to the customs authorities on your behalf. DHL will then invoice you for the same VAT and duty. There will be an admin charge for doing this, and in some cases, we are seeing other admin charges and/or local taxes applied. We are working closely with DHL to find out more about this, and to understand what the charges are for.  However, in most cases, the charges are fixed regardless of order value, so the charge is less of an issue for larger orders. 

With each shipment that is delivered, we learn more about the new trading conditions. We are very grateful to our customers that are sharing information with us. If we work together it is definitely much easier!

For instance, we now know that it is very important that we have your EORI number. If you have an EORI number please send it to us and we will use it when we ship to you. 

And we have recently learned that the DHL admin charges can be avoided if you have a deferment account and an associated ‘deferment account number’ (or DAN, as it is known in the UK). If DHL charges the VAT and duty to your own deferment account, there is no admin charge. You can usually settle the VAT and duty amount with customs at a later date by direct debit. If DHL has to use its own deferment account, then the admin charges will apply. So please check this with your customs authority to see if the same scheme exists in your country.

We are pleased to be able to keep working with our customers across Europe and we would like to thank you for your ongoing support.