Hi everyone,
my girlfriend and I are currently travelling through Japan and took advantage of the tax-free shopping option. As we are lazy people, we thought it to be a smart idea to ship the stuff to our home address back in germany just to save some weight in the backpack when going from one place to another. The employees at a small post office in Shinjuku were very friendly and helped us a lot with the correct declaration of the content for customs. The package seems to be already shipped out of Japan and we have a note with shipping number. Unfortunately, the note only displays the first two articles and not the whole content of the package.
We are aware that we might have to repay the tax when leaving Japan at the airport custom’s and that is totally fair. But now we read about that it is actually forbidden to ship these tax free goods beforehand and that you can be charged with a hefty fine or even jail.
Do we have a problem and if so, is there anything we can do to avoid a fine or any trouble?
The goods were not that expensive. By far the most expensive article was a knife for 22.000 Yen.
by paDDy_bo