Shipping personal goods to Germany
October 15, 2018 7:00 AM Subscribe
I'm shipping 10 boxes of personal belongings from the US to Germany via USPS. I talked to people at the post office, but I'm still confused about some details.
My wife and I are moving to Germany (in 2 days, actually). We are mailing out our personal belongings via USPS. USPS gave us a stack of customs forms, but it's not clear how to fill things out. Our move overseas has been a bit of a mess so far, so we just finished sorting and packing the boxes last night. Today we bring everything to the post office. We fly out tomorrow.
The shipping address is my new address in Germany. The ship time is 6-10 days.
We arrive at our new apartment in about 3 days. My coworker said I can use his phone number as contact, as I don't have a contact number in Germany yet.
I'm supposed to add a detailed description of contents to the box. How detailed is detailed? One box has all clothing, and 2 pairs of shoes. Is it enough to list "men's clothing" and use the total number of garments and "men's shoes"? Or do I need to itemize and say, "2 men's pants, 2 men's shirts", etc.
To pack the boxes, and get our things into as few boxes as possible, a couple of boxes are a mix of a bunch of different things. The contents of one is: clothing, books, a laptop power supply, a wifi router, a couple of security cameras and a kite. On the customs form, there are only 4 lines given to list goods. It says that if there is not enough room, use additional forms as needed. Does this mean I need to fill out a full additional form? Or can I just fill out the 4 lines per form?
Thanks for your help.
My wife and I are moving to Germany (in 2 days, actually). We are mailing out our personal belongings via USPS. USPS gave us a stack of customs forms, but it's not clear how to fill things out. Our move overseas has been a bit of a mess so far, so we just finished sorting and packing the boxes last night. Today we bring everything to the post office. We fly out tomorrow.
The shipping address is my new address in Germany. The ship time is 6-10 days.
We arrive at our new apartment in about 3 days. My coworker said I can use his phone number as contact, as I don't have a contact number in Germany yet.
I'm supposed to add a detailed description of contents to the box. How detailed is detailed? One box has all clothing, and 2 pairs of shoes. Is it enough to list "men's clothing" and use the total number of garments and "men's shoes"? Or do I need to itemize and say, "2 men's pants, 2 men's shirts", etc.
To pack the boxes, and get our things into as few boxes as possible, a couple of boxes are a mix of a bunch of different things. The contents of one is: clothing, books, a laptop power supply, a wifi router, a couple of security cameras and a kite. On the customs form, there are only 4 lines given to list goods. It says that if there is not enough room, use additional forms as needed. Does this mean I need to fill out a full additional form? Or can I just fill out the 4 lines per form?
Thanks for your help.
No, you don't need to itemize. "Men's clothing" and "shoes" will work just fine for the description. The USPS wants a general idea of the contents - they're not looking for "2 long sleeve men's shirts, 2 dress slacks, 1 pair men's loafers".
For the box of mixed items, you could use "clothes, books, electronics, toys" or something similar.
posted by Roger Pittman at 8:38 AM on October 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
For the box of mixed items, you could use "clothes, books, electronics, toys" or something similar.
posted by Roger Pittman at 8:38 AM on October 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: This is Germany we are talking about! Of course you should itemize! I found this out the hard way with a similar amount of boxes also containing books and clothing. The person in charge didn’t want to believe it wasn’t household goods and I had to obtain a significant amount of paperwork that shouldn’t have been needed to get the boxes released. They refused to actually look in the boxes to see for themselves... i wish I’d taken a snap shot of what was inside each box.
posted by catspajammies at 1:16 PM on October 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by catspajammies at 1:16 PM on October 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yeah-- my experience at the Zollamt is that you will need to OPEN these boxes in FRONT of a customs agent (after taking a number and waiting at least half an hour natch) and then prove to them EMPIRICALLY that you own these items and will not need to pay customs on them. Nonetheless I ended up paying something like 20 euro tax on a scarf that I myself had knit as a teenager which my mom sent me. Good luck? and itemize.
posted by athirstforsalt at 8:16 PM on October 15, 2018
posted by athirstforsalt at 8:16 PM on October 15, 2018
Response by poster: Well damn. I wish I had seen the last 2 comments earlier. We had to get to the post office before they closed. The postal worker said that the general descriptions would be fine. I guess we’re going to get screwed on the other end.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:46 AM on October 16, 2018
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:46 AM on October 16, 2018
Best answer: The term you'll want to bring up at the Zollamt on the other side (and should have referenced on the customs form) is "Übersiedlungsgut" (which translates to something like "immigration goods" and basically means an immigrant's personal property). Basically, if you satisfy the requirements (haven't lived inside the customs union for at least 12 months, have owned the goods at least 6 months, aren't trying to bring in alcohol or tobacco, ...), the goods that are your personal property are duty-free.
The fact that the shipment is from you and to you will hopefully help prove that you didn't buy these goods from someone. Good luck!
PS: Incidentally, the regs don't require that Übersiedlungsgut arrives in a single shipment. You have 12 months to bring all of your stuff over. So you can send additional shipments as part of your move.
posted by yggdrasil at 1:50 PM on October 16, 2018
The fact that the shipment is from you and to you will hopefully help prove that you didn't buy these goods from someone. Good luck!
PS: Incidentally, the regs don't require that Übersiedlungsgut arrives in a single shipment. You have 12 months to bring all of your stuff over. So you can send additional shipments as part of your move.
posted by yggdrasil at 1:50 PM on October 16, 2018
Response by poster: We got to Germany in one piece. So did our stuff (mostly).
The first 5 boxes arrived at our doorstep no problem. These contained a bunch of computer equipment, vables, wires and jewelry making supplies. For the remaining 4 (which contained clothing, a NAS without harddrives and a robot vacuum), we received a letter on the mail from DHL saying we needed to go to the Zollamt. I asked my corkers for advice, and all they could say was, "ugh, good luck, and remember to say, "Umzugsgut"".
We made the hike out to Garching via public transportation. The wait was about 5 minutes. They brought out our 4 large boxes (that looked like they were sat on by an elephant). The agent sat us down and told us the descriptions on the boxes were a bit vague (we did not itemize everything. The USPS form only had 4 lines, so we squeezed in "Books and Clothing" on one line, and did our best to itemize everything else.). I told his that they were Umzugsgut. He nodded and asked for our Munich registration paper (someone had told us the the Aufenthaltstitel would be enough. They were incorrect.) and the 8 pages of forms that we were supposed to have downloaded from the internet.
We explained that we didn't realize that we needed those things, and he started telling us that we had to go back and get them. But then he changed his mind and said it would be stupid for us to take an hour to go back home. He told us to remember to do this for the next time. We thanked him profusely, and he sent us on our way. We piled the boxes into a taxi and went home.
We got VERY lucky. My coworker told me, "well, the weather was nice, so he was probably in a good mood". Phew.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 4:57 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The first 5 boxes arrived at our doorstep no problem. These contained a bunch of computer equipment, vables, wires and jewelry making supplies. For the remaining 4 (which contained clothing, a NAS without harddrives and a robot vacuum), we received a letter on the mail from DHL saying we needed to go to the Zollamt. I asked my corkers for advice, and all they could say was, "ugh, good luck, and remember to say, "Umzugsgut"".
We made the hike out to Garching via public transportation. The wait was about 5 minutes. They brought out our 4 large boxes (that looked like they were sat on by an elephant). The agent sat us down and told us the descriptions on the boxes were a bit vague (we did not itemize everything. The USPS form only had 4 lines, so we squeezed in "Books and Clothing" on one line, and did our best to itemize everything else.). I told his that they were Umzugsgut. He nodded and asked for our Munich registration paper (someone had told us the the Aufenthaltstitel would be enough. They were incorrect.) and the 8 pages of forms that we were supposed to have downloaded from the internet.
We explained that we didn't realize that we needed those things, and he started telling us that we had to go back and get them. But then he changed his mind and said it would be stupid for us to take an hour to go back home. He told us to remember to do this for the next time. We thanked him profusely, and he sent us on our way. We piled the boxes into a taxi and went home.
We got VERY lucky. My coworker told me, "well, the weather was nice, so he was probably in a good mood". Phew.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 4:57 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by skewed at 7:12 AM on October 15, 2018