Heyhey I recently visited Japan. During the flight back I forgot my Laptop at the airport (it was my second flight and I’m always overwhelmed with everything regarding airports) Luckily I was able to send the laptop from the airport to a friend who is currently a semester abroad in Japan. Now I am trying to figure out how to get it back to Germany. There are a couple of things I am still confused by and do not know how to deal with so any help would be immensely appreciated!

  1. It’s a Mac Book Pro - there are lithium Ion batteries in there. I found out that the packaging has to extra careful with these because they are ignorable - any recommendations regarding packaging and disclaimers on the packaging?
  2. I can’t find my receipts for the laptop. When I looked further into shipping items I found out that certain items apparently need a receipt for the customs authority (German: Zollbehörde). 2a. Do I have to pay a payment of duty (Verzollung) for the laptop? 2b. Am I even able to ship the laptop without the receipt?

English isn’t my first language, I just copy pasted some german words in the text. I hope these are the correct ones and you understand what I mean 😅

Thank you so much for any advice and help! I have never shipped something overseas and it’s hella confusing. Oh and in case I am on the wrong subreddit it would be really kind of you if you could tell me a better subreddit (or maybe even a company I could call for help. Regarding the calling part. - idk if its me but - I found it rather difficult to contact customers support so far! But that could be just a big L on me 😵‍💫)

  • iskender299@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You can send electronics with batteries, not all carriers accept, but FedEx does.

    And yes, unless you can prove you paid tax in the EU (with the purchase invoice), you’ll have to pay VAT on the commercial value + cost of transport and insurance, duty (if applicable for the TARIC code) and the broker fee (most probably the freight carrier).

    The sender will also have to prepare a commercial invoice, stating the value of the item(s) and based on that you are taxed when it arrives.

    However, even if the shipping commercial invoice has a “gift” option, it never worked for me (I get stuff often from Japan)… And if you put a lower value (e.g. 200 EUR) it will raise red flags and you’ll probably have legal issues, depending how the german customs deal with tax evasion.