Dumb question... TAX free shopping in the UK?

[Efour]

Next time i come back to the UK. If Covid ever ends, will I actually be able to buy stuff in the UK and bring it back to Sweden and be able to get a VAT refund?

That's actually a huge saving on some stuff especially PC hardware.. 3090GTX im looking at you....

I should probably be aware of this kind of nonsense....

 

[Pudney]

I can confirm that the correct answer to this question is the answer to most taxation based questions.

Maybe.

Depends where you visit.

Edit: in a fit of helpfulness I'll also expand the above. The Northen Ireland Protocol means you may still be able to do so in Northern Ireland. It's withdrawn elsewhere in the UK though. For fun details see:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...t-scheme-and-the-tax-free-shopping-concession

 

[IceBear]

I thought you could claim the VAT back but apparently not anymore unless its sent to you abroad..

From 1 January 2021
Purchasing items in Great Britain
From 1 January 2021, you will no longer be able to purchase items in store in Great Britain under the VAT Retail Export Scheme. For goods purchased before this date, you can still make a claim under the scheme on departure from the UK or EU, in line with the current rules, which allow three months from the month of purchase to claim.

You will still be able to purchase items VAT free from Great Britain if the retailer sends them direct to your address outside the UK.

 

[weringo]

Pretty sure they scrapped this as part of Brexit - previously non-EU tourists could purchase items in the UK and reclaim the VAT on departure. This would have been expanded to all non-UK (i.e. EU) tourists post Brexit (as a result of the UK becoming a third country for VAT purposes) but they obviously decided that the tax intake outweighed the extra business we would have gotten from tourist shopping, and abolished the scheme entirely.

Funnily, I believe it does now work the other way around - i.e. when visiting the EU from the UK you may be able to get your EU paid VAT back on departure, although you then may have to pay UK VAT on importing it to the UK.

 

[Efour]

Bugger