HI, My wife and I are moving out there next year but are presently sending out a container full of our furniture. Are the customs very strict, ie; do they check every box to see if you have any new items (to charge the levy on?) or are they happy to just see the boxes are all intact and go into your property. We have some old furniture and new, that is expected when filling a container. We all know that moving to a new life/country you are going to buy some new items, but to expect paying a 80% duty is a little high. Any ideas ?????

I think that you have to assume that if you have no exemptions a full inspection of the container is always a possibility and then duties are assessed.

I think it all depends on the day and who looks into it... My things arrived and nothing was opened or checked. Luck of the draw I suppose, as Zanne says, probably best to expect you may have to pay.

Sue

My things were not opened as well, the only exception was when they removed the plastic wrap from the palette, the officer asked me to start opening the boxes and I went straight for the one containing my sons (intentionally) icky highchair-- that was enough for the officer. But...while I was waiting there I watched plenty of people behind the little cubicles opening all, or almost all of their stuff.

We shipped one pallet and had to pay about 2000BD$ which was about double what we expected to pay.
We didn't have any receipts for the items (who does) so we just had to barter with the customs officials otherwise they would have still been at the airport.

As in one skid? That is ridiculous, was everything new?

It was mainly original artwork, so they charged us 300BD$ per painting. Some of them were gifts. There were a few other small items, photo's etc;

I think they suspected that we were going to sell these paintings on for millions....lol

Just as well we left the other paintings in the UK.

Hey all,

Have any of you had small packages shipped from home to Barbados? I'm thinking of small parcels that you could send via regular post. I'm wondering if we'd be better to ship a couple of things or try and stuff them all in our suitcases and just deal with it if it's overweight and costs us.

We have learned that it's not worth the cost to bring extra suitcases on the airplane - holy expensive, batman!

Thanks,
Foxy

Hi

It all depends on who you ship your container with, when I shipped my container across, I had to go the customs office with the company rep who was handling my container.

When I meet the customs officer, I had to declare what new items I had brought with me and the value in Barbados dollars, then pay the tax. But I was blessed (lucky) that the guy from the shipping company knew the customs officer and i never had to pay that much, and that was with new white and brown goods.

Bengi

Hi, thanks for your note.

Luckily, I will not be shipping a container. Just perhaps small parcels (i.e. 1-foot square box). We'll probably just use our visitors to bring us some of our leftovers, as we'll probably be leaving a few things behind. Trial run of packing resulted in some pretty heavy suitcases (I am to blame - typical girl with a lot of shoes).

We arrive in a week! Very excited. It's near the end of June and I'm still cold in Canada. Boooo to that

Foxy

Hi ya

Not a problem , have you thought about sending a barrel across to Barbados, it should be quite cheap and you will be able to fit quite a bit in there. Also with barbados it's all about who you know really, or if they like you.

Have a great time

What exactly is a barrel? And how big is it? My mother-in-law mentioned it to me a while back.

http://www.tropical-lcl.com/barrel/barrel_trade.htm

check out the tropical shipping page re barrels.. this isn't for ship whole homes, but smaller items like kitchen things, christmas presents, books, etc..

shipping is done by volume not weight, so this takes up little space on a container ship (in a container), and doesn't cost that much to ship.. but there are other costs involved.. paperwork fee, customs, duties etc..