Importing from China? Help!

inmypocketnottheirs

ukbill69 wrote:

You will have to pay a few things, one is continer price from china shipping. 20" should be around £800-1000, then you have VAT at 17.5% and customs may charge to scan your shipment, if its your first time expect to pay around £75 and wait up to 30 more days for them to scan it. Also you have doc charges etc and they are around £250. Also delivery of a container from the port will be around £300.

You said 20 inches, see above!

raptorman

Thanks everyone for your help so far with this.

I now have my commodity code and am reliably informed by HMRC that the product I am planning to import is duty free, yippeee. Apparently I only need to pay 17.5% VAT.

My question is when do I pay the VAT?

Sorry for the extra questions but this is all very new to me

PS. I am setting up a DHL account for delivery of goods as I'm not importing a container load.

inmypocketnottheirs

raptorman wrote:

Thanks everyone for your help so far with this.

I now have my commodity code and am reliably informed by HMRC that the product I am planning to import is duty free, yippeee. Apparently I only need to pay 17.5% VAT.

My question is when do I pay the VAT?

Sorry for the extra questions but this is all very new to me

PS. I am setting up a DHL account for delivery of goods as I'm not importing a container load.

If DHL are importing the goods for you, as I guess they will, you will have to pay them their charges before they deliver or maybe on delivery. This will include the VAT. As advised by my asking a question on another thread, it is a good idea to get the supplier to put the commodity code on the aiway bill or bill of lading.

gil13

Hi, if you want to PM me I work in the industry and will be able to hlep you further.

ukbill69

You will have to have a forwarder that deals with vat and container clearance.

Pm me for the firm I use.

martindow

Won't DHL deal with the clearance themselves? If you've set up an account I think you will be invoiced.

buglawton

ukbill69 wrote:

Importing is a big business....

Importing can be done at many levels, £500 orders are quite possible if you know the numbers regarding your importing overheads and have a reasonable import agent. You've got to start somewhere.

Buying wholesale however may be a big business as most, though not all Chinese manufacturers are hard to deal with on small orders - which can just as well apply to buying wholesale from within the EU.