X-Mid Too X-pensive? Save Some £££s
UPDATE (12/09/2024)
This post was initially written when Durston Gear was only selling DCF models. Since then Durston Gear has included regular X-Mids in their shop, so this post applies to them as well. If you order from Kaviso, which is US based, this information is not valid. Durston Gear now offers some Fedex options. I haven’t heard anyone successfully receiving a refund from Fedex at the time of writing this update.
UK - Canada Trade Agreement
X-mid and X-mid Solid tents are sold & shipped by Kaviso in USA, and the Pro versions are sold & shipped by Durston Gear in Canada. This is an important distinction, as parcels from USA and Canada to UK are treated a bit differently by the UK Customs when importing them. However, Durston Gear will eventually sell & ship all the Durston products, so this will help bring the price of the regular X-mids down as well in the future.
After Brexit, UK now has a separate trade agreement with Canada and that trade agreement covers tents as well. Normally trade agreements only cover products manufactured in the country of shipping, but I didn’t find any more details about this rule. The trade agreement states that no duty (only VAT) to be charged for tents shipped from Canada. Please note that apparently this applies to tents manufactured in Canada, not shipped from Canada. However, at the time of writing this, the rule of origin goes unchecked and tents shipped from Canada seem to receive duties refunded.
When I received the dreaded ‘There’s a fee to pay’ card, the invoice included duty and VAT. Well, technically I didn’t receive the card, as I track all my deliveries on an app so I knew that when the parcel was at the customs, I just logged on to Royal Mail Pay a Fee website, typed in my tracking number and I was able to pay the fees before even receiving the card. I paid the invoice and received the tent. couple of months later, someone in Facebook said that they had been able to claim back the duty for tent, which shouldn’t have been charger, so I thought I give it a shot too. Here’s what I did.
How To Claim Back Duty
Download the reclaim form ‘Customs Duty and/or import VAT relating to imports by post’
Fill out the personal information and your bank account details.
For the section ‘Details of Customs Duty or import VAT incorrectly charged’, I typed out the following information:
The item which was imported from Canada is a tent and under the Commodity 6306220000 rule the tariff for synthetic material tents from Canada is 0.00%. This means that on the Royal Mail invoice the customs duty of £(fill in the amount from your invoice) was incorrectly charged. I’ve attached the email copies of the order and the Royal Mail receipt for the payment which shows the incorrectly charged customs duty.
I printed out the order form from Durston Gear, and the shipping confirmation with the tracking details, so that the customs can match the order form with the shipment.
I then signed out the form, and printed it out, and post it off to the address on the bottom of the form.
Result
After about 3 weeks, I received an official looking letter which notified me that my reclamation was accepted and I was to be refunded the duty charged. A few days later, the money was deposited on my account.
From what I’ve heard, this refund is much easier to reclaim back from Royal Mail & Customs, than courier firms who do their own processing. Luckily, Durston Gear uses Canada Post (and thus Royal Mail in the UK) for shipping tents.
I’ve also ordered guy lines and a groundsheet from Durston Gear (on separate orders) and all of them have come through with out duty or VAT. Both orders have been under $50 of declared value. The government website states:
Alternative shipping option
Other option is using a shipping agent. Buying from Kaviso (which is in the USA), you can easily ship it to Stackry and use their shipping options. This allows you to consolidate other orders and/or use the shipping option of your choice. I’ve written how to use Stackry here.