Custom Fees for Tonearms on Ebay From Japan


Has anyone bought tonearms from Japan on Ebay from USA recently?  Trying to get an idea on what custom fees would be.  Tonearm price range around $3k.  I've googled this topic, but haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer.


rdk777

Showing 2 responses by chakster

I’m not in the USA, but when I checked for a friend I realized the tax free limit is $2500 (for good for personal use) and then you pay 3-4% import tax if declared value is over $2500. READ THIS!

Slightly different information here.

It doesn’t matter what shipping method do you use. At the moment you can’t use Japan Post (EMS) to ship to USA (covid restrictions by Japan post), only sea mail available. But you can use DHL from Japan to USA.

Ask the seller to declare lower value for custom control and you will not pay any import tax. When I sell something to USA (or elsewhere) declared value is very low, no one never paid any import tax, but every parcel was inspected my custom control in USA (it can take from 2 days to a week).
You guys are lucky in America, because in Europe they change import tax on everything over 30-40 EUR and the tax is about 20-30%. In my country the tax is 15% on everything over 200 EUR and they only want to low down the limit to zero to charge more.