Cyprus-Forum.com

[cyprusgrump]

If you are thinking of bringing in anything from the United States then I suggest you take a healthy-sized pot of vaseline with you when you go to collect it from the post office/port/airport. I shipped a surfboard over here once and got screwed completely, the VAT and customs duty made the excercise totally worthless.

The last time I had to bend over for the customs guys they told me that they had a limit of CY£500. Anything below that they didn’t bother with and anything above they screwed you for VAT and duty.

[Tuberider]

What total b**tards !

The board was only worth 200 usd, was bought second hand AND I had a receipt !

[Kornmod]

Does anybody know what the import duty are?? Take it that it's a procentage of the entire cost (price of item(s) + shipping), but how big a procentage??

[andri_cy]

duty shouldnt be on shipping just the value of goods. It should be the difference between the VAt you paid online and the local VAT.

[Sotos]

I bought a Mini DV camcorder from the US some months ago. I had to pay 15% VAT but no import tax. It still came much cheaper than if I was buying it from Cyprus.

[Kornmod]

Apperently there is the CY£500 limit, so will you only be paying VAT of the value above CY£500 or will you pay VAT of the entire value?? Say you bought something for CY£700?? CY£730 ((200+15%)+500) or CY£805 (700+15%)???

Hope it makes some kind of sense.

[Kornmod]

Say you bought something for CY£700?? CY£730 ((200+15%)+500) or CY£805 (700+15%)???

Should of course be:
Say you bought something for CY£700?? Would the final cost be CY£730 ((200+15%)+500) or CY£805 (700+15%)???

[cyprusgrump]

In my experience they ignore shipments of under CY£500 although this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

Any shipments from the ‘States of more than this value could be inspected and subject to duty and VAT on the entire value of the shipment.

It seems that the duty value can be a number they make up at the time.

There are ways around it of course – goods which are ‘gifts’ or ‘replacement items’ are not subject to duty or VAT and some on-line retailers are prepared to mark the paperwork in this way. It is illegal however.

My advice would now be to buy from an EU based supplier if at all possible. They will charge you VAT at their local rate (i.e. 17½% in the UK) or ship VAT free if you are VAT registered. Some suppliers (Amazon for instance) are registered for VAT in Cyprus and will charge 15% VAT even though the goods are coming from the UK.

Hope this helps.

[Kornmod]

Thanx. Helped alot.

[Sotos]

Apperently there is the CY£500 limit

I don't know of such limit. My camera was less than CY500. Maybe this depends on the post office I don't think there is such rule. If they put VAT they will do it for the whole amount, thats for sure.

Some suppliers (Amazon for instance) are registered for VAT in Cyprus and will charge 15% VAT even though the goods are coming from the UK.

You can always buy from the USA Amazon not the UK one.