Importing commercial samples

NoNameNoNumber · 1 Dec 2016 at 16:56

A company in the states has offered to send me 2 items totaling $600 in value as samples on the basis of what they will likely make from me down the line if I was to use them for future builds... Which is obviously very kind of them but I've offered to pay for them up front so as to not 'owe' them anything. Issue being if I'm stung for £200 of import duty when they get here then it'll mean I should've just stuck to an arguably inferior variation of the same product that is already available here...

Essentially, can a gift/sample whatever you want to call it be imported without paying duty and is it insured for the value should anything happen in transit?

tom_e · 1 Dec 2016 at 16:59

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...rting-commercial-samples-free-of-duty-and-vat

TacticalFish · 1 Dec 2016 at 17:07

Well, if you pay for them they are no longer samples...

All goods (sample or not) need to be given a customs duty, which is set by the shipper. This is normally the value that the goods will also be insured for by the courier.

NoNameNoNumber · 1 Dec 2016 at 17:26

Cheers Tom

So it seems this is going to be a ballache... They can be imported and free of duty providing I write to them to tell them (National Import Reliefs Unit ) what it is and what I'm doing with the samples... They can come round to the premises and check and state they cannot be used for publicity etc etc... Also they like to think all samples are destroyed as part of testing... Not really the case :/