Customs Duty On Personal Effects

[Dannie Boy]

Dannie boy

Agree you should not have to pay anything as long as you provide an accurate packing list, in our case there were many things that we did not list for obvious reasons.

We done the lot ourselves and had the container brought to our door, pickfords and others were twats in that they expected us to provide a packing list with size and weight of all our items including our settees.

The 5000bht was very happily paid to ensure the container was not opened by customs at the port of arrival otherwise I may have had a much larger bill due to the contents.

At that time like now the only containers coming this way were empty so we were able to ship at a silly rate.

Ttm

Maybe we were fortunate, but we used Allied Pickfords to pack everything in the UAE where I was working and it was fairly pain free, although we did have to provide a detailed inventory of what we were shipping but no weights or dimensions. As mentioned before, the agents in Thailand were also AP and all I can say is that at both ends it was pain free.

[designer]

Hi there if I come to thailand on a retirement visa can my wife who is Thai bring her car in and not pay duty as she is are terming Thai national?

[Frank Hovis]

Should be possible but there are rules about how long she has lived outside Thailand and how long it's been registered in her name in (presumably) SA. If it's registered in your name then it's not her car and she cannot import it without heavy taxation.

On the Thai customs website is a list of rules you need to meet, http://www2.customs.go.th/Customs-Eng/P ... ersonalPer
There are also unwritten rules about what kind of car a Thai national can bring in, best to get your wife to contact Customs regarding make/model. If it's a model readily available in Thailand they probably won't let it in.

If it's a high end model, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo(why?) or exotic then your chances of running into trouble at customs are extremely high on the basis that if you can afford one of those, you can afford to pay the customs lads a little too.

You also won't know if you are liable for import tax until your wife and the car get here, you could be looking at paying import tax of hundreds of percent of the cost of your car (the cost in Thailand not the used value in SA).

Bottom line - Get your wife to phone customs and find out.

[frank1957]

We had our container arrive in Hua Hin at the end of December 2012, everything was listed, no duty paid result.

[Dannie Boy]

We had our container arrive in Hua Hin at the end of December 2012, everything was listed, no duty paid result.

That's more than often the case for normal household effects, but cars are a different matter altogether, so the advice from Frank H is best followed.

[Bomber]

We are shortly retiring to Hua Hin on a type O visa and will be bringing in a limited amount of personal household effects. We have been advised by our shipping company that we require a one year work permit (which we obviously don't have) to be exempt from duties. Do we need to provide a copy of our O visa and are we likely to pay any duties and if any payment is required how and when is it paid?

[musungu]

If you do a SEARCH I am sure you will find all the information you need, as this question has been asked and discussed quite a lot.

[nomad127]

I am here on a Business Visa and had my personal belongings as well as my office items to include a desktop computer shipped here with no problems, no searches and no duty fees.

[hhfarang]

I think it depends on what you ship, who handles your incoming shipment, and more importantly the duty officer that receives your paperwork. Do not ship a lot of electronics, i.e. one computer at most or many brand new items. If they perceive you are shipping multiples of the same item or brand new items they may assume you are selling them here, which is one of the triggers for a big duty payment.

The following are all instances or advice I've been told by others as I came in with a Thai wife and our container was not even opened.

First if you are unlucky enough to get a dishonest duty officer who wants to extort you, you could be charged more duty than the shipment is actually worth. This happens, but I think it is rare.

I assume you are both foreigners, but if your wife is Thai, ship it in her name only as a returning Thai citizen and you'll not pay any duty.

Use a company to ship that has a customs agent on this end (or you can hire one). These people know how to get shipments through customs with a minimum of hassle and duty.

Should you have to pay, they will hold your shipment hostage in a not very secure area until you pay, so if you ship anything you care about pay up fast and get it released before precious items mysteriously go missing. This has happened to a couple of people I know.