I understand that at least one French supplier has said that he will no longer supply spares to the UK because of the paperwork involved.
I have been looking at the import requirements for businesses and it does seem somewhat daunting. It appears that every item has to be declared with its category code and that there are no categories such as “Classic Vehicle Spares”. Every item – clutch cable, wheel cylinder etc. has to be listed separately.
There are personal allowances for drink and tobacco which are fairly generous – 18 litres of wine plus 42 litres of beer plus either 4 litres of spirits (>22%) or 9 litres of fortified wine (,22%) or a mixture of the two.
In addition a personal allowance of £390 (travelling by car) for private use or as gifts.
It is not very clear whether this £390 includes personal effects, tools etc. that you may be carrying back and forth to work on your property in the EU.
There are other conditions whereby you can bring EU produced items into the UK, above these values, without paying duty but the documentation starts to become onerous and you are still liable to pay import VAT.
I tried to understand the rules regarding reclaiming VAT paid within France when the goods are purchased but got lost in the mire of French bureaucracy.
When we arrived in France in July, we found the French customs very relaxed – but maybe we were just lucky. We were asked whether we spoke French, whether we had more than €10 000 and whether we had a house in France, and were happy when we told them that we had tools and things to work on the house.
Has anybody else had an recent experience entering or leaving France and entering or leaving UK?
Roger Grix