Slovenská pošta recently announced for fans of cheap purchases from China, excellent news about the new agreement with the largest internet platforms AliExpress and Wish. Now, however, there is a little less positive news, because some people still had to pay a customs duty of at least € 2.
The main problem is that the vendors themselves at AliExpress can send packages in a different way does not apply concluded agreement, resp. new shipment regime. The website draws attention to this fact zive.aktuality.sk.
Packages were to run in free mode
The new agreement between Slovak Post, AliExpress and Wish was supposed to ensure delivery without additional customs fees, i.e. handling fees for the processing of customs procedures. The minimum amount of this fee was 2 € in the case of automatic customs clearance. This has put a lot of people off buying cheap from China.
The good news was at least that AliExpress as a platform started to collect VAT right at the time of the order and they handled it with customs on behalf of the customers themselves. However, Slovak Post has determined a new handling fee depending on the method of customs negotiation. The fee could go up to 9 € per shipment, according to the sufficiency of the data indicated on the shipment. But that should have been the end, at least for goods with a low value of up to €150.
The new agreement, which was brokered through the Czech Post, because it has been working for our neighbors for the same time for a longer period, was to relieve all buyers of these handling customs duties. But this is not quite the case.
Customs duties are still imminent
However, complaints began to accumulate from people that, despite the validity of the new delivery regime, packages with levied fees were sent to their homes. Most often it was precisely fee 2 € for automated customs procedures. This is also why the web came about zive.aktuality.sk with information directly from the SP spokesperson:
"Third countries and sellers use several postal partners - currently, in addition to the Czech Republic, shipments also come to us via the Netherlands and Belgium - for shipment flows from their e-shops to the EU. For these shipments, the duty and VAT are usually already paid (the carrier will indicate this with a sticker on the shipment). It is true that the transport route of the goods and subsequently the consignments is chosen by the seller and it is only up to him in which flow the consignment arrives in Slovakia, “says Jana Lukáčová, head of the Slovak Post's communication department for the zive.sk portal.
Therefore, if the shipment arrives as if from one of the EU countries, then the customer no longer has to pay any additional customs duties.
Lukáčová further stated for the zive.sk website: "However, if the seller uses another transport and the consignment arrives in Slovakia (Slovenská pošta), then the post office is obliged to submit the consignment to the Customs Administration, which verifies the IOSS consignment number and if it is correct also VAT - they will find out according to IOSS), they will release the shipment, “usually 2 euros. Slovenská pošta is unable to influence the transport policy of the sellers, therefore we are unable to provide the client with guaranteed information on the flow of his shipment to Slovakia. ".
At present, therefore, the new agreement is not serving exactly as it should and customers are still not sure that they do not have to pay anything extra. However, we have verified some shipping on AliExpresse.
We have been shopping free of charge for months
portal China Planet also deals with cheap purchases from China and that is why this topic is important to us. We ourselves always test new merchants with our own orders, and we also tested orders from AliExpress after the new tax reform from July 2021. Already last year, you could shop without these customs fees, as long as you chose the right shipping.
Almost no one knows this trick on Aliexpress: A very precise way to search EU warehouses
How to buy at AliExpresse free of duty?
- All orders from EU warehouses are automatically duty free
- Always choose transport AliExpress Standard Shipping or AliExpress Saver Shipping
- Duty-free transport also works for all transports from the company Cainaio
- AliExpress Combined Delivery is a new service from the marketplace, all packages ordered at once will come in one big one (reducing the risk of having to pay customs duties for several packages)
It is therefore still possible to shop without customs duties, but even from the statements of some of our fans in the group or in the news, this is not 100% guaranteed. However, we have not yet had experience with additional payments and we order several orders a month from AliExpress.
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When notifying the payment from the self-proclaimed customs declarant, I simply do not accept the shipment and complain to the supplier. So far, he has always sent the shipment again.
So, after a long wait, the package delivered from Aliexpress via "Cainiao Super Economy Global" was delivered by Poša and the courier asked for €2, it was the first time I paid, I order a lot from Aliexpress...
Cainiao Super Economy Global is not duty free, I confirm from my own experience. The post office charged a firing fee of € 2.
It depends on the seller. We have already received many packages without customs duty.
Delivery via "Cainiao Super Economy for Special Goods" I can also confirm that the shipping is not free of charge, I also paid €2.
So far, all modes of transport called aliexpress have been verified free of charge, and CAINIAO is also free of charge, but in addition to the one mentioned above.
All China post and under are charged and I do not order through them to avoid the fee.