I’m trying to order some clothes from the UK valued at ¥22197, the shop is asking me to prepay Import duties, tax, fees at ¥5690..(not including postage). Does that sound right? I have the option not to prepay and pay on delivery if not.
That may be a little high – i.e., you could potentially save some money by paying on delivery instead – but only because generally japanese delivery services don’t charge outlandish fees for handling import duties. The charge is made up of import duty (no idea what this is on clothing from the UK, you could look it up somewhere), consumption tax (10%), and then a handling fee for paying those things on your behalf. In many countries it makes a ton of sense to prepay because it avoids putting you at the mercy of insane handling fees. A lot of international courier companies for example will happily charge you thousands of yen as a handling fee for an import duty of just a few hundred yen.
The risk is that if your delivery service does charge something wild (for example if it’s sent via DHL/UPS instead of standard post that ends up coming via Japan Post), you could end up very significantly out of pocket – paying up front sets a fixed price, paying on delivery will probably be a small bit less but could be a hell of a lot more. Personally I usually prepay because I don’t mind paying a little extra for avoiding the hassle of dealing with payment on delivery, but it’s down to your own preference at that point – the actual money you owe won’t change that much unless you get unlucky and cop a huge handling fee.
I’ve bought a fair few big-ticket audio items, also reasonably pricey ski gear, wear etc from overseas and never pay upfront unless it’s non-optional (some ebay iirc?). I’ve never been overcharged on this end, conversely been under-charged or not charged at all on a few occasions. Basically upfront is someone’s worst case scenario.
Wow… I didn’t know import tax for textille were that high. I have imported lots of stuff from China and U.S, and never paid anywhere near that value.
Printer from china $600- tax was around 1800 yen Huge press (30kg) $300 from US- tax was around 1300yen.
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https://www.customs.go.jp/english/summary/tariff.htm has “Article of apparel” listed at 20%, which doesn’t include consumption tax, so it doesn’t seem far off.
That may be a little high – i.e., you could potentially save some money by paying on delivery instead – but only because generally japanese delivery services don’t charge outlandish fees for handling import duties. The charge is made up of import duty (no idea what this is on clothing from the UK, you could look it up somewhere), consumption tax (10%), and then a handling fee for paying those things on your behalf. In many countries it makes a ton of sense to prepay because it avoids putting you at the mercy of insane handling fees. A lot of international courier companies for example will happily charge you thousands of yen as a handling fee for an import duty of just a few hundred yen.
The risk is that if your delivery service does charge something wild (for example if it’s sent via DHL/UPS instead of standard post that ends up coming via Japan Post), you could end up very significantly out of pocket – paying up front sets a fixed price, paying on delivery will probably be a small bit less but could be a hell of a lot more. Personally I usually prepay because I don’t mind paying a little extra for avoiding the hassle of dealing with payment on delivery, but it’s down to your own preference at that point – the actual money you owe won’t change that much unless you get unlucky and cop a huge handling fee.
I’ve bought a fair few big-ticket audio items, also reasonably pricey ski gear, wear etc from overseas and never pay upfront unless it’s non-optional (some ebay iirc?). I’ve never been overcharged on this end, conversely been under-charged or not charged at all on a few occasions. Basically upfront is someone’s worst case scenario.
Wow… I didn’t know import tax for textille were that high. I have imported lots of stuff from China and U.S, and never paid anywhere near that value.
Printer from china $600- tax was around 1800 yen
Huge press (30kg) $300 from US- tax was around 1300yen.