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Hi All I am not sure if people are aware of the charges by customs in the UK for gifts sent to family and friends. I have lived here for 6 years and posted (as you may imagine) many presents over this time. The last few i have been late sending so used Express Courier International. This is a 'quick' service which has proved to be a joke! They are suppised to take around 3 working days, each one i have sent has taken at least 2 weeks! They get held up at the sorting office, then when tracking it states 'delivery attempted' NO CARD IS LEFT, then when they do deliver they take to to any neighbour who happens to be in and get them to sign for it! Very secure NOT!!!! Anyway, i paid $80 to send my sisters 50th birthday presents on 1 October, they got held in customs and she has had to pay VAT and clearance fees on her present. Apparently these fees have always been there (even though there have never been charges before), so i have checked into this, after speakng with a 'stroppy Essex Girl' at Romford ( and i am from Essex so this is not a dig), who told me to call customs and then calling customs 10 times (from Brisbane at 11.41pm so i am tired and feeling stroppy) only to be constantly cut off as soon as the call goes through - i can hear them talking to each other!!!!! :arghh: I have found the following: 2.3 What are the limits for customs duty and import VAT? Commercial consignments of £18 or less are free from customs duty and import VAT. For example, goods purchased over the internet with an intrinsic value not exceeding £18, will not be charged any duty or VAT but this does not include alcohol, tobacco products, perfume or toilet waters, see paragraph 2.5, 2.6 and section 3. If you are sent a gift with a value of £36 or less, and which complies ,with the rules shown in paragraph 2.4. it will be free from customs duty and import VAT, but this does not include alcohol, tobacco, perfumes and toilet waters. Customs duty becomes payable if the value of the goods is over £120 but duty is waived if the amount of duty calculated is less than £7. There are a number of other circumstances where relief from some or all customs charges may be available. If you think your goods may be eligible for a relief you should contact the Helpline for further information. top ^ 2.4 Gifts Goods sent as a gift that are over £36 in value are liable to import VAT. Customs duty also becomes payable if the value of the goods is over £120 but is waived if the amount of duty calculated is less than £7. To qualify as a gift: the customs declaration must be completed correctly the gift must be sent from a private person outside the EU to a private person(s) in this country there is no commercial or trade element and the gift has not been paid for either directly or indirectly the gift is of an occasional nature only, for example, for a birthday or anniversary. Please note if you purchase goods from outside the EU to give as a gift to a relative or friend, whether or not addressed to that person, is treated as a ‘commercial consignment’ for which the import VAT relief threshold is £18 (paragraph 2.3 refers). top ^ 2.5 Do gifts of alcohol and tobacco products qualify for relief from import duties and import VAT? NO. Excise duty is payable on all alcohol and tobacco products regardless of whether they are a gift. Oh, and to top it all, she arrives here on Monday for a 3 week holiday so i should have just held them till she arrived! So, in future i will be sending several small parcels, all under 18 pounds in value or otherwise just lie about the value!! Rant over Cheryl

I am a Mom in England whose son is spending a year in Australia and I want to send him a few gifts so he will have something to open from home on Christmas morning. It seems there are a lot of restrictions on what can and cannot be accepted into Australia from abroad. Am I correct in thinking that if I include some chocolate and a few sweets that this will require quarantine and will incur an extra charge at the other end? What sort of items are acceptable for me to send? What do your relatives send to you without any problem? Thanks in anticipation of your responses.

Hiya:biggrin: Wandered if anyone could help me please? We are moving to Australia in 5 weeks time (eeek!!) and need to send over 6 boxes of our belongings including the children's Christmas presents, old clothes, kitchenware and 2 boxes of the children's old toys. My problem is I've never sent anything before and am paranoid about it not getting there or being returned. We are sending the boxes just before we leave so if they are returned for any reason we won't be in the UK to receive them. How specific do I have to be when writing out what's in the box? Can I get away with 'children's toys' or do I have to be really specific and write 'cuddly toy rabbit with an ear missing'?!! Also with the Christmas pressies, can I wrap them or not? I think we will send them with a courier like parcel2go but are there any other declaration forms we have to enclose + is there a limit on how much the stuff is worth? Will we be charged loads the other end for sending out new things like wii games, Nerff guns for Christmas presents and if so how much?? Apologies for the amount of questions but I really want the stuff to get there and am imagining a massive bill of $100's!! Please help? Thanks xx :err:

Hi all, whats the cheapest way to get a parcel back to the uk, it will be about 5kg, but could split into a few smaller ones if ths makes it any cheaper? any guidance appreciated sarah:wubclub:

I forgot my old username and email I posted on here previously with. Unfortunately, misplacing things is a bit of a habit at the moment for me. I'm finalising my documents for my 801 (de facto) visa application for permanent residency but am unsure if the checklist I have is the whole checklist or if I'm missing a page or not :confused: I'm waiting on my police check, but I've been informed by immigration to write a cover letter stating that and hand it in when it arrives (the same thing happened during my application for my 820 visa and they granted the visa when I took it in as that was the only thing they were waiting on). The other thing I'm forgetfull about is whether I have to provide evidence that I've still been living with my partner for the past two years or not. I provided bills and bank statements for my 820 visa to prove we had been living together for at least a year, but I'm not sure if I'm missing a page off the checklist requesting further documents to prove we've still been living together. I rang up immigration, but she wasn't too sure about the matter and said that if I've moved address I would need to prove evidence of that, but we're still at the same address. My inclination is to send off a few bills and bank statements anyway as it can't hurt to provide as much evidence as possible, but I'm unsure if it's a requirement for the 801 as I can't remember if there's more to the checklist or not :unsure:

Hi could anyone tell me which is the quickest way to send money back to England. Thanks

Hi guys, I'm making a 30 kg box to send with me with clothes and video games to bring to Aus when I migrate from Manchester to Brisbane. Could you suggest the cheapest and safest company to send with please? I'm considering the Post Office but any suggestions gratefully received. Travelling from Manchester to Brisbane.

We are moving to Sydney on 19th October, out household items are going via pickfords. But we are going to be sending a couple of cases roughly 40kg in total via courier. Stuff like clothes we need for when we get there but not the ones for travelling. Wondered if anyone else has done this or could recommend someone Cheers Paul

Hi, Can anyone help me with a query on sending parcels home from Oz and vice versa? I'm emigrating to the Hunter Valley on the 27th of September and would like to send parcels home as gifts for my friends and family. I'm aware that there are certain things that I can't send or receive (such as certain foods) but can we send dairy products such as chocolate? I've read somewhere that if an item has a dairy content above a certain percentage then it can't be sent from or received in Oz. Does anyone have a list of prohibited items to hand? Also, who would be the best couriers to use either in the UK or NSW? I'm also a bit baffled about how much sending a package would cost, obviously sizes differ but just as an idea does anyone have a ball park cost on say a shoebox sized parcel? Thanks for reading my post, my mum is adamant that she wants to send me little presents from home and keeps asking me the same question!

I was planning to send my application online but I have just been doing a bit of research and it says that I need to attach all my documents online as well. Has everyone else done this? Can I not send my application online and then send my documents by post???

I'm sure this question has been posted a million times but I hope some of you dont mind helping me out :wink: We are at the stage of working out what to bring with us and as its not a lot I feel a few boxes/crates will be more than enough, can anyone reconmend a haulier that will be prepared to ship a few boxes (we would rather pack these ourselves) any advice on costs, customer care etc would be great, thanks for taking the time to read this :chatterbox:

Hi there, I applied 175 online at Sep 2010. And received the March 18th email saying that a CO will be allocated within 3 months. Apparently there is no any further progress, been almost 5 months already! I'm thinking to send them a PLE, but have some questions: 1. Should I just fill out the form in following link, or should send an email to them as well? http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/forms/gsm/post.htm 2. In the PLE I'd like to emphasize that I have received the March 18th email. Should I just say these in the "Additional information" text box of the form above? Could anyone help? Thanks, Khing

We are looking at buying a house in the UK, (our first step to returning home). The exchange rate on 'Yahoo Finance' today gave a rate of 0.6646 and our bank gave 0.6480, which is a difference of 1.02562...... the amount of money "lost" thru these differences is (in our case) approx stg6000 , or about $9000. quite a considerable amount (our first shock) and is no doubt the difference between buying and selling currencies. For those of you who have already moved back could you please advise if there are more ecomical ways of sending money to the uk as there are probably more charges to be met what we don't know about yet. Do banks in the uk charge for receival charges?? is it easy to open a bank account in the uk?? is it possible to transfer into a relations account?? etc etc Sorry for all these questions, but we are still only in the prelimineries of money transfers etc. Cheers, Dave.

We are hoping to move to Canberra in August this year - we have already used our extra allowance as we have validated and now we will be stuck with 20kg as hoping to fly with Singapore (will try and get the extra 5kg some have got ...) Our things will be shipped 2-3 weeks before we fly, we are then stopping off at Singapore and expect to be in Canberra for 6 weeks before our shipping arrives. We think we are going to need more clothes and shoes (including interview outfits) and possibly a printer for job/house applications etc so are considering sending a box over early with these items in. Sevenseas will charge £120 for one tea-chest box. Has anyone else done this or do you make do with what you can put in your case?? Maybe I'm overly worrying!! Any tips appreciated!!

We will not be taking any furniture back, but have personal stuff(kids stuff,photos,books etc) that we want to send back. We used Voovit to send that stuff over a few years ago who were a bargain!, but they only transport out to Oz not back to the UK. It will be a few Tea chest size boxes only. Does anyone know of a good firm to use? I did read about one on here a while ago but didn't write it down(Doh!) and can't find it again now.

Hi, I am sending my skills assessment today to Engineers Australia. Would people reccomend courier or Royal mail Recorded/special delivery? I'm in no particular rush, I just want it to get there in one peice. Thanks. Luke

Hi all, After being in Oz for three and a half years we are happily moving back to the UK at the end of July. Most of our furniture we have decided to sell before we leave as we have furniture already in storage back home with different family members. But can anybody out there give me any info about just sending small quantities back such as packing boxes of clothes, books and CD's etc, Are there any companies out there who can send just a few packages such as this. Hope all is well with everyone.... Cheers Dave

Dear all, Just to update, finally, after the wild goose chase, we got a CO. Form 1100 re-sumitted on the 16/3/2011. Within 2 weeks, we got a CO. For those of you still waiting, please check your form 1100. Cheers, Violet

Hey guys I hope someone can help me with this I want to send my grandfathers oil paintings (x2) over to Australia but can’t find a company that will ship them safely, they have no financial value, however they are emotionally irreplaceable and I’m so paranoid about them being sent and getting damaged. There is also a large print I want to send too if anyone knows the best way to send these I wil be totally gratful forever :jiggy:x

Just thought I'd let others know as we have just been stung not to send your visa application by courier as it will get rejected! :mad: We didn't know the reason why until my OH spotted something on the Australia House website to say that as from 04.05.2010 they will no longer accept them by courier and must come by Royal Mail 'Special Delivery'.

Hi, hope somebody can assist us. We got SS with SA on 3rd March without using our agent. I clicked on the form 1100 thinking it would open a new document but it didnt and sent details to the DIAC of our application (received email back stating this). Our application was submitted by our agent and we have received an email stating to let SA know our TRN number? Iv gone on the page where you monitor your application for SS and there is nothing to click onto? Iv sent them an email on the back of the confrmation of the 1100 form stating our TRN number but have no idea if this will work. Have we messed up?? hope iv made sense. Lisa

Dear All, Have anyone entered OZ without the visa label on their passport? I've heard of visa evidencing from VFS/ Australia house for the stamp. Will the Visa grant letter do the trick or do I really have to get that label stamped before entering OZ? I'm currently working in the MidEast and I dont want to send my passport away due to the volatility of situation here. Appreciate the confirmation, thanks.

Hi Everyone, Who do you send yout TRN number to in QLD, can you e-mail the person who sent you your confirmation of state sponsorship or do you have to send a formal letter? Cheers Lee

Hi all, New member here ... first week in Melbourne ! I have a couple of boxes of clothes and shoes (approx 20kg each) that I want to send from the UK via FedEx. I have to complete a commercial invoice which lists the contents of the box. Does anybody know if I have to list every item individually or if I can just state "clothes and shoes" as the contents ? Also, I understand that if I value the box at over $1000AUD then I have to pay GST and duty on it ! Does anybody have any experience or advice on how to complete this form to easily get through customs ? Thanks in advance. Tom

I need to send some flowers to my better half and wondered who people have used and can recommend to order online through. Thanks guys