Selling to the UK, Switzerland and Norway

A parcel from an EU warehouse to a customer in London, Zurich or Oslo leaves the EU customs area, and each of the three countries taxes it on arrival under its own rules. The rules decide who pays the VAT, when, and whether your customer meets a bill at the door.

Incoterms for consumer parcels

Under a delivered-at-place arrangement, the recipient pays the import VAT, any duty and the carrier's clearance fee before the parcel is handed over. Some recipients refuse to pay, and a refused parcel comes back at the shipper's cost. Under delivered duty paid, the seller pays those charges and the customer receives the parcel with nothing to pay. The Incoterm is stated on the commercial invoice and on the shipment, so the carrier knows whom to bill. For consumer parcels, delivered duty paid avoids the bill at the door that leads to refusals.

The United Kingdom

For consignments of 135 pounds or less, the UK collects VAT at the point of sale: the seller charges UK VAT at checkout and accounts for it through a UK VAT registration, and no import VAT is collected at the border. The 135 pounds is the value of the whole consignment, and it excludes transport and insurance unless they are built into the price and not shown separately. Above 135 pounds, normal import VAT and customs rules apply at the border. For a brand selling regularly to the UK, that means a UK VAT registration and, on most parcels, the VAT already in the price.

The question for each market is the same: does your customer pay at checkout, or at the door?

Norway

Norway's VOEC scheme, VAT on e-commerce, applies to goods valued below 3,000 Norwegian kroner per item. A seller registered in the scheme charges Norwegian VAT at the time of purchase, and the VOEC number is stated digitally when the parcel is shipped, so customs knows the VAT is paid. Goods outside the scheme are taxed on import.

Switzerland

Switzerland does not collect import tax on small consignments where the tax amount is 5 francs or less. A seller, in Switzerland or abroad, whose turnover from such small consignments reaches 100,000 francs a year has its deliveries treated as Swiss domestic supplies: it registers for Swiss VAT and charges it on all its sales to Swiss customers. Below that threshold, the import tax on larger parcels is charged to the customer on delivery. The standard Swiss VAT rate is 8.1 per cent.

Parcel paperwork

Every parcel needs a commercial invoice with the seller, the buyer, a precise description of each item, its customs code, its country of origin, its value and currency, the Incoterm, and the registration number for the scheme that applies: the UK VAT number, the VOEC number, or the Swiss VAT number. Customs data per product lists the per-product fields. On Next Horizon those fields live on the product record and travel with the label, and the parcel is tracked on the same page as a domestic one. From France to the United Kingdom you can ship on our negotiated rates, rebilled at the carrier price with zero markup; to Switzerland and Norway you ship on your own carrier accounts, with the labels, tracking, returns and invoice audit working the same way.