[woodcote]

Yep - 20% VAT on anything valued on the customs form over £15 for purchases and £36 for gifts (calculated from the official HMRC monthly exchange rate here) - plus an £8 handling fee (£13.50 for express services).

That's been true for packages from all non-EU countries for a long time and now applies to the EU, now the UK has left. In order to streamline things - and avoid lengthy hold-ups in UK customs - the VAT is now sometimes paid at source.

While stuff from some (mostly Commonwealth) countries gets through customs without charges, I have never received a parcel from the USA with a value of more than £15 on the customs label that hasn't been stopped, processed and charged. That can add 2-4 weeks to the delivery time.

For people shipping to and from proxy races overseas, you absolutely must be savvy with the customs form - otherwise you (and the host) will end up paying large amounts of money in addition to postage. HMRC will treat any package as containing commercial goods. So, if the sender indicates the contents are worth £300, you will be charged £68 (plus the postage) to receive the car back into the UK. One option is to ask the sender to value the contents at less than £15 (although that may invalidate any insurance).

The official advice from the HMRC given to Alan (pondiless) was...

On the return shipment to the UK you the sender should attach a form CN22 or CN23 and Write "Returned Goods" clearly on it.

That also seems to work sending parcels to the US, although their customs service seem less hot on small parcels from the UK.