Buying from outside of UK

[Drew Taylor]

What's the deal with buying from outside of the UK, power wise?

Just had an email about a GB on Ebay in Italy. It's expensive, however, I have been interested to find out if there's any issue with buying from abroad.

Not sure if it's even legit, looks it though. Your opinions would be valuable to me.

Cheers

 

[AlanJ]

20% vat due on import on the price paid plus the cost of shipping. don’t bother in a nutshell

 

[JT.]

This link might be helpful re. costs/process - the only thing I'm not 100% sure about in your case is whether ebay will administer the UK VAT payment as part of the selling process, so UK VAT would be added to the ebay bill automatically. I think they do, but not 100% sure. As an example, I know Amazon do, and are legally obliged to do so by UK Customs/HMRC, but then again, they differ to ebay in that they manage the shipping too. https://www.pinballinfo.com/communi...and-post-brexit-comparison.53309/#post-482634.

In a nutshell though, if the machine you are looking at is advertised including local VAT, overall it'll be pretty much no different cost-wise versus prior to Brexit - local VAT will be dropped, but you'll then pay UK VAT. If it's advertised without local VAT - e.g. a used machine sold by a private individual - then you'll need to add the UK VAT to the combination of selling price and shipping per Alan's post. Also worth reading the comments in that post that people made about their experiences actually getting shipping companies to transport on their behalf if they aren't VAT registered businesses.

From a power perspective, I'm not 100% sure, but the EU has had unified voltage specs for years (way before we left), so I'd imagine that's not a concern, or even a consideration. Others with more insight might comment otherwise though.

Edit: couple of sentences changed for clarity.

 

[AlanJ]

ebay will only collect vat if amt under the £130 limit. so in this case they won’t charge vat as it is over. it’s then up to uk customs to catch it when it comes in.

 

[Drew Taylor]

he won’t ship anyway but thanks for the info.

 

[Paul]

he won’t ship anyway but thanks for the info.

ROADTRIP!!!