Customs fees experience?

[Wompet]

As someone associated with the Men In Blue, here are a few facts people here might find useful.

US Customs officers determine the amount of duty to be paid based on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. That link will take you to the index of chapters within the schedule. If you want to search the entire schedule at once, the whole thing is available as an Adobe .PDF file here. In either case, you can search the chapter or schedule for the commodity you want, and the applicable duty will show up. Canada's equivalent of the Treasury Department should have something similar.

Some examples of interest here:

• kilts - no tariff, duty free (apparently the American kiltmakers don't have a good lobby - which works in our favor. Sorry guys.)
• all leather sporran from the UK (or, say, Finland) - 9% duty rate. Actually, I used tariff 4202.21.9000 - handbags. After all, how many Customs officers know what a sporran is? (Out of the 500+ I know - 2)
• bagpipes - duty free (no domestic bagpipe manufacturers?)
• clothing under $200 - duty free
• Auld Argonian's tartan shawl - <$200 duty free, >$200 wool/cashmere is 9.6% duty rate, >$200 silk is 1.5% duty rate.
• same shawl from Canada - duty free!

Oh, and one more thing - FedEx, UPS, DHL among others do enough international business that they are their own customs brokers. They know how to avoid incurring duty whenever possible.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Wompet,

That is great! Thanks for the official word. And kilts are duty free! Woohoo!

[mkmound]

. . .
Oh, and one more thing - FedEx, UPS, DHL among others do enough international business that they are their own customs brokers. They know how to avoid incurring duty whenever possible.

Wompet,


Thanks for the detailed explanation. My experience with one or two of the carriers, is that they do add a rather handsome fee for their brokerage services.




Regards,

Mark