shipping-what to ship?
 

dear all,

I am organising our moving.

I need to ship some boxes from Italy. Question is:

Is it permitted to ship:

- toys and games (my child's ones)

- books in Italian (novels, my child's books - I'll avoid essays on politics)

- non perishable food (I would like to bring something Italian, for a dinner with new friends-colleagues- of course no pork no wine)

otherwise, is it better to bring these items with us in cabin luggage and ship clothes, instead?
thanks a lot

Primula

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Sorry, I didn't say: we are moving from Italy to Doha.

thanks

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

i wouldnt ship any food, no candles when the metal box arrives in the hot country it can sit outside for a long while especially in the summer heat they will melt.

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Are there any duties to pay on used stuff when it gets there?

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

I did not understand it either.
I found that there is a tax of 250 QR to pay on shipped items below a certain declared value plus 5% of duties of the declared value. The duties should not apply to personal items but there is some discretionality.
This is what I found but I do not know if these information are reliable.

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

There is no duty on used stuff. Don't ship food. Kids toys are OK - but not anything like remote control cars, walkie talkies etc. They tend to get seized - although you can buy them here freely. Adult toys are best left (in your) behind too :lol::lol: Books are fine too.

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Personal belongings shipped within six months of you arriving are duty free. You won't have any problems with anything other than the food if your shipment is inspected. They seem very relaxed about you bringing in food in your hand luggage as long as it's not alcohol or pork.

Toys are no problem but as someone else said, not radio controlled items. No problem with books or DVDs although occasionally these are seized for a week or two to check that nothing is too pornographic/religious so leave your copy of The Ten Commandments and your stash of Readers Wives at home!

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

thank you very much!

I'll ship clothes and bring some Italian specialties and some books with me.
DVD: we did a hard disk of our favourite movies and we will bring this. Same with music and pictures. I have a lot of pictures of my daughter skating in her skating competition dress (artistic skating); I hope they will not think they are obscene!

About movies in the hard disk, we don't have anything pornographic but I have no idea of which is the level. E.g. any movie with an explicit sex scene, as Last Tango in Paris or "9weeks and a half" are considered too hard?

and what about crime movies?

thanks
primula

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

We brought about 600 DVDs with us and we didn't actually go through them as I know we had no porn or anything more religious than The Magdalene Sisters! From what I can see if you can buy it in a store and it's rated, even 18, you should be okay. They are more worried about the religious stuff. The new Noah film is banned here! I can't think of any crime movies that would be seized.

Photos of your daughter are fine. They are not that prohibitive. She couldn't get away with a short ice skating dress in the malls but as a sport related activity, it would not be an issue.

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

if they check, make sure that no dvd covers are a little bit risky as they will take them. they have gotten a bit better in the days when princess diana was alive, they would black felt tip pen her skirts so they were below the knee!

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Ha ha - I remember that! I used to get so annoyed when they censored ads in my "Good Housekeeping" mag and the black marker would transfer to the other pages and make articles unreadable. All this and then you had to pay a vastly inflated price too (at least 30 Dhs)

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

yep that black marker pen went everywhere..... stuck the pages together!!!

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Are they likely to go through a hard drive if I ship it? I am a photographer and want to take my photos with me, I have thousands of photos (weddings, personal photos etc)... would it be better to stick it all on Google Drive and access it (via VPN if required) when I get there?

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

I think it extremely unlikely they'll go through a hard-drive, and even if they did, if your photos are as you describe then they'll have no interest in them.

In fact, I think there is more risk that your hard-drive will develop heat-induced mechanical failures (while sitting in the ISO container in the sun) than it will be wiped by customs. If you only keep your photos on one hard-drive, then you are asking to lose them all. You can buy 1TB hard-drives these days for next to nothing, so I'd definitely copy everything onto a second drive and carry that with you in the plane.

Re: shipping-what to ship?
 

Good plan!

Another question - how do items get classified as 'new' (and taxable)?

I have an obviously used/worn bicycle frame and recently bought a bunch of new parts for it - wheels, bearings and so on. My plan was to ship the parts in a flat box with some new tools and build it in Abu Dhabi, but worried I'll end up paying tax if things are new. Is it just a question of making sure there are no tags etc on the wheels?