Taxes - UK to EU shipping (VAT question)

Hi,

Hoping to get some clarity on a situation I haven't encountered before when buying from the UK post-Brexit. I am located in the EU and have made several purchases from UK online stores earlier this year and the price I paid included customs charges and VAT that DHL as the shipping agent has paid on my behalf when the items arrived in my country, everything went relatively smooth with no added cost on my end.

Yesterday I have acquired a Forstner bracelet from a well-known UK online strap retailer at the price of GBP175 which I figured was inclusive of 20% VAT since the same bracelet is GBP145.83 (net of tax) on Forstner's UK website. My thinkin was that the GBP175 price included taxes and I won't have to pay anything extra in my country (similar to previous situations). Problem is that the store said today that I will still need to pay import duties and local VAT which I found odd as it suggests I am paying the same price as a UK buyer (incl UK VAT) and I'm also expected to pay my country's VAT. I'm wondering if anything changed recently and this is now the norm or I'm missing something here.

Kind Regards,
Catalin

The shop should charge you without VAT as they are exporting the bracelet from the UK.

When it arrives you will have to pay the local VAT and some handling charges.

Tell them to look here -

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-expo...g-goods-abroad

That's odd - I've just looked at the Forstner uk website and the price was originally showing as £175. Their website quickly picked up the fact that I was in France and the price dropped to £137.50.

Are you using a VPN ?

Not using a VPN, the price on Forstner's UK website is indeed net of VAT which makes sense as a non-UK buyer would pay the net price to the supplier and then be required to pay whatever import duties, local VAT and handling charges when the item arrives in the buyer's country as MB2 points out. Alternatively, there are other UK websites (Farfetch) that do factor in VAT and import duties in the price the non-UK buyer pays and the shipping carrier would act as an agent on behalf of the buyer and pay these to the local customs office. Both options are pretty transparent and are pretty straight forward.

Problem for me though is that I paid the full price of GBP175 (not on Forstner's store) even though I selected my location and then was told I would need to pay VAT and import duties as well upon arrival: https://www.watchobsession.co.uk/pro...39564890734663

The only reason I didn't buy from Forstner is that they're closed until the end of June. Maybe watchobsession are just 20% more expensive than Forstner and the GBP175 is the net price, should have enquired before ordering, lesson learned.

Kind Regards,
Catalin

Neil (I think) at Watch Obsession is a good guy so I would email him and I am sure he will sort it out.

I have only bought a deployant from him but he was really helpful when it was my mistake.