Buying knives from outside the USA and shipping into the USA, duty due!!!

So I bought a beautiful knife on BST which the sender sent by DHL with the declared value of what I paid for it naturally enough. Turns out if a "kitchen" knife cost more than $200 there is a duty of between 5 and 6% payable to the customs people (and DHL charges a fee of about 1.5% for sending out the bill as well). I never noticed this before because it seems the post office isn't quite as careful about this as DHL (and I assume FEdEX and UPS will be)

Kind of like an unexpected sales tax

Anyway, forewarned is forearmed...

Sorry to hear that, never had this happen thru DHL or anyone else. Has anyone else seen this? This is going to hit a bunch of us :curse:

out of the 20 or so international orders i have made, i've only been hit with a customs fee one time, albeit it was over $500 declared value..

Yes this was over $500, gorgeous knife though

many of the vendors from Japan put nominal values on the EMS packages and I have never had to pay duty on those but this was DHL ...

Thank you for posting this! I've been considering ordering a petty directly from the maker in Japan but wasn't sure how big the duty hit would be. It'll definitely be under $200, so glad to know there isn't one.

Yes every country has it's own set of duties and tariffs. Anything you buy abroad and is sent to you, you basically are importing goods.

In the USA you can technically buy and ship anything abroad under US dollar amount of 200 and not have to pay taxes. 150 if you are shipping it another person. If it's over USD 200 USA customs might hit you with an import tax to pay. Sometimes they let it go by without taxing you. It just depends on the people working.

Be glad you do not live in Europe where you can expect to pay average of 15% to 20%
On anything over 70 or 80 euro

In theory it seems they could still zing you the 5 or 6%, this is a "waiver" for goods valued under $200, that having been said I have never been hit for anything until this DHL package.

osakajoe said:

Be glad you do not live in Europe where you can expect to pay average of 15% to 20%
On anything over 70 or 80 euro

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25% (20% vat, 5% customs over good + shipping price) and the limit is 15EUR. That is why US vendors are just out of the question for the most of us in the continent I need to find a job with frequent visits to US and Japan soon.

Thank god for our rules over here in Aus... anything under 1000 and they don't worry about it. Now if only our dollar was better.

osakajoe said:

Be glad you do not live in Europe where you can expect to pay average of 15% to 20%
On anything over 70 or 80 euro

Click to expand...

So true... Germany for example: If the value of the goods+shipping is less than 20€, you don't pay any VAT or customs fees. Less than 150€ you "only" pay 19% VAT and above that you pay an additional 8.5% custom fee for kitchen cutlery (or ~30% price hike if you multiply VAT&customs).

And with the recent loss of value of the Euro compared to both the Yen and esp. the dollar, even buying directly from the cutlery company isn't that much of a bargain anymore. I paid less (~30 bucks) for the Konosuke I bought from a dutch vendor, that I would have if I had ordered directly from Konosuke...

Yep, paid it just recently. DHL has a guide Here that gives information on importing into the USA. (They may have other guides for other countries.) Page 8 gives a breakdown by the value of the item you're importing. Items valued less than $200 are duty free. The amount of duty you pay varies based on what you're importing. I think the classification on mine was "Kitchen Cutlery", and the fees (including the DHL processing fee) ended up being just under 4%.

Came across some interesting information when I bought mine.
--As the buyer bringing it in the country, YOU are the importer, and and if there are any legal problems (like undervaluing the item you're importing) YOU are the one legally liable.

The US Customs web site actually has a lot of good information, although the reading can be a bit tedious. There are some rules regarding marking knives with country of origin--and if they aren't correctly marked, customs can have them destroyed. Something to bear in mind. (p. 15 of the DHL guide--"Marking Requirements".)

As it turns out, if the paperwork had been correctly filled out, my knife would have been a duty-free return since it was made in the USA and returned without any improvements. With duty and fees less than 4%, it wasn't worth it to fight the system to try and get it straightened out.

Is the duty fee based on each individual item in a package, or total value of the package? If I were to import 5 knives, each individually under $200, would I get hit with a duty fee? Would it be better to purchase each knife individually so they are sent separately and avoid duty on each?

It's the total value

Lucretia said:

...Items valued less than $200 are duty free. The amount of duty you pay varies based on what you're importing. I think the classification on mine was "Kitchen Cutlery", and the fees (including the DHL processing fee) ended up being just under 4%.

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Wow here in Canada I believe it's only $20 (and $50 or $60 if a gift) before you have to pay duty and/or tax. Duty on knives is 7% (I believe 9% or 11% on steak knives???), unless it is from a NAFTA country of origin. Depending on your province tax will be an additional 5% - 13+%, and depending on the shipper you may get raped on brokerage fees too (I do my own if not Canada Post / USPS since I live in the "port of entry" as per CBSA standards). With the crappy exchange rate going from bad to worse it's becoming a PITA to buy anything.

malexthekid said:

Thank god for our rules over here in Aus... anything under 1000 and they don't worry about it. Now if only our dollar was better.

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+1，thanks to whichever PM that lifted the limited from 100 to 1000!

pkjames said:

+1，thanks to whichever PM that lifted the limited from 100 to 1000!

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I would like to see this in Canada too, I'm not gonna hold my breath though.

The strong sucks big time for a lot of people who've gotten used to go bargain shopping in the US. I am happy we just extended our stay in the US for another two years. If the dollar vs. euro trend continues I will be able to buy a nice apartment upon my return to Europe .. hehe...

Anyway, if it helps .... I am frequently traveling to Sweden (Stockholm, Gaevle), Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Duesseldorf) and Spain (Barcelona) and usually do not bring a lot of stuff so always staying below the value of goods I can bring into the EU without paying any custom fees/taxes. Depending on the specific request I'd be happy to bring a knife from the US if it helps. PM me if interested.

I agree that it sucks for the buyer (i.e. us), but you need to think about sellers too.

Take Maksim at JNS. He lives in Denmark and so has to sell to EU customers with 20% VAT. If those same customers can buy knives from the US or Japan without paying VAT, then Maksim may end up going out of business because he can't compete. He can (and does) sell without VAT to non-EU customers. The VAT regulations are there to protect European businesses from social dumping by countries like the US that have much less strong welfare systems.

In short, I don't mind paying the VAT (that's why we have free universities in Denmark, free care for the elderly, etc.). What really sucks is the administration charge imposed to process the VAT payment.