There have been a few posts recently asking about the situation regarding importing games from the EU post-Brexit - whether it now costs more, questions about the tax situation, and questions about moving machines to other EU countries before moving them to the UK. I did a bit of investigating and updated one post, but it was a wanted ad, so not very visible, so thought I'd put what I found in a separate post. I investigated in relation to machines, and the example below relates to buying from The Netherlands, but the rules are the same across all EU countries, and countries with customs agreements with the EU (Norway and Switzerland). I expect the same applies to machine parts and peripherals, but didn't specifically look into that.
Import situation pre-Brexit
You place an EU export order with an EU vendor, as an example, with a Dutch vendor. You would pay local VAT (Dutch VAT is 21%) on the list price of the machine and on shipping. There would be no additional taxes to pay if that machine moved across EU borders - to the UK, then a part of the EU, or to any other EU country. From your perspective, this process would work exactly the same as if you had bought from a UK vendor - the only small difference is you would have paid the Dutch VAT rate @ 21%.
Import situation post-Brexit
You place a non-EU export order with an EU vendor, again, as an example, a Dutch vendor. The Dutch vendor should apply a zero percent rate for Dutch VAT, as this is now an export out of the EU (as confirmed here). The value on the invoice should be just the list price of the machine (no tax included) + shipping. The Dutch vendor arranges the export of the machine, completing their local export paperwork. The machine is shipped, and at the UK border becomes liable for UK import VAT (same rate as standard UK VAT - 20%). The shipping company will typically administer this process for you, so you'll either pre-pay it with the shipping company, or they will bill you. The machine will sit in port until the bill is paid by someone.
There is no import duty on pinball machines (there is now import duty on many other things, but pins are zero % rated).
Comparison of costs pre- and post- Brexit
Pre-Brexit, you would have paid list price + shipping, + Dutch VAT @ 21% on that total
Post-Brexit you will pay list price + shipping + a small fee to the shipping company to administer the payment of UK VAT at the border on your behalf (you can do it yourself, but I don't know how that would work, and it's almost certainly not worth the hassle), + UK VAT @ 20% on that total.
Overall, the difference in cost pre- and post- Brexit is immaterial, a few quid either way.
Other scenarios I've seen mentioned
I saw a post where someone was asking about buying a machine, picking it up themselves from the Dutch vendor, then moving it to France themselves, then trying to move it to the UK. In that scenario, the process and costs would be as follows:
Place a standard sales order with the Dutch vendor. The Dutch vendor would apply local Dutch VAT @ 21%. You collect the machine yourself, and transport it to France - there would be no tax implications in that move between the EU countries of the Netherlands and France. However, when eventually moving it to the UK, the total invoice value would be liable for UK import VAT @ 20% at the border - and that 20% would be applied on top of the total invoice value of list-price and Dutch VAT.
This post mentioned not declaring it at the UK border, which is obviously illegal (I don't know what the penalties might be, beyond being forced to pay UK import VAT) - but even if you did make it through without being caught, you would still have paid Dutch VAT on the purchase at 21%. Rather than doing it legally and correctly and incurring a 20% UK import VAT bill + admin fee.
Basically, there is no cost upside to this suggestion, but the massive potential downsides of having to pay both Dutch and UK VAT, and risking prosecution and any associated penalties.
Hope this is helpful. If anyone spots any errors let me know and I'll edit this post as needed, but after lots of online digging around, I'm pretty sure this is all correct.
UPDATE 1:
Orders of less than £135 in value, placed with online sellers ("B2C ecommerce orders")
For orders under £135 (mods, spare parts, etc), placed with online sellers, the VAT payment situation is slightly different to the above due to the 'UK B2C ecommerce and marketplace VAT reforms' (2021). In this specific situation, using the example of a Netherlands based vendor, the local Dutch VAT should be zero 0% rated on the invoice, then they should apply UK sales VAT at 20% on the invoice, then complete their local export documentation and (different to normal) customs paperwork, and ship to you. No additional VAT should be due at the UK border. The foreign vendor then takes responsibility for paying a VAT return to UK HMRC.
For large online vendors like Amazon this works fine, but for small vendors it is a lot of extra effort and administrative expense. In this situation, people on pinballinfo.com have reported this process working correctly with large vendors like Amazon and ebay, but not always working as legislated with small vendors- i.e. situations have included it sometimes working as legislated, sometimes being charged no VAT at all, and sometimes being charged VAT twice: by the vendor at point of sale, and at the UK border by customs.
More information here.
UPDATE 2:
The exception in Update 1 now applies to imports from any country (including those outside the EU) and regardless of how the sale was facilitated (sale via online marketplaces, and/or any other sales methods - like, phoning an order in, etc).
More information here.
Import situation pre-Brexit
You place an EU export order with an EU vendor, as an example, with a Dutch vendor. You would pay local VAT (Dutch VAT is 21%) on the list price of the machine and on shipping. There would be no additional taxes to pay if that machine moved across EU borders - to the UK, then a part of the EU, or to any other EU country. From your perspective, this process would work exactly the same as if you had bought from a UK vendor - the only small difference is you would have paid the Dutch VAT rate @ 21%.
Import situation post-Brexit
You place a non-EU export order with an EU vendor, again, as an example, a Dutch vendor. The Dutch vendor should apply a zero percent rate for Dutch VAT, as this is now an export out of the EU (as confirmed here). The value on the invoice should be just the list price of the machine (no tax included) + shipping. The Dutch vendor arranges the export of the machine, completing their local export paperwork. The machine is shipped, and at the UK border becomes liable for UK import VAT (same rate as standard UK VAT - 20%). The shipping company will typically administer this process for you, so you'll either pre-pay it with the shipping company, or they will bill you. The machine will sit in port until the bill is paid by someone.
There is no import duty on pinball machines (there is now import duty on many other things, but pins are zero % rated).
Comparison of costs pre- and post- Brexit
Pre-Brexit, you would have paid list price + shipping, + Dutch VAT @ 21% on that total
Post-Brexit you will pay list price + shipping + a small fee to the shipping company to administer the payment of UK VAT at the border on your behalf (you can do it yourself, but I don't know how that would work, and it's almost certainly not worth the hassle), + UK VAT @ 20% on that total.
Overall, the difference in cost pre- and post- Brexit is immaterial, a few quid either way.
Other scenarios I've seen mentioned
I saw a post where someone was asking about buying a machine, picking it up themselves from the Dutch vendor, then moving it to France themselves, then trying to move it to the UK. In that scenario, the process and costs would be as follows:
Place a standard sales order with the Dutch vendor. The Dutch vendor would apply local Dutch VAT @ 21%. You collect the machine yourself, and transport it to France - there would be no tax implications in that move between the EU countries of the Netherlands and France. However, when eventually moving it to the UK, the total invoice value would be liable for UK import VAT @ 20% at the border - and that 20% would be applied on top of the total invoice value of list-price and Dutch VAT.
This post mentioned not declaring it at the UK border, which is obviously illegal (I don't know what the penalties might be, beyond being forced to pay UK import VAT) - but even if you did make it through without being caught, you would still have paid Dutch VAT on the purchase at 21%. Rather than doing it legally and correctly and incurring a 20% UK import VAT bill + admin fee.
Basically, there is no cost upside to this suggestion, but the massive potential downsides of having to pay both Dutch and UK VAT, and risking prosecution and any associated penalties.
Hope this is helpful. If anyone spots any errors let me know and I'll edit this post as needed, but after lots of online digging around, I'm pretty sure this is all correct.
UPDATE 1:
Orders of less than £135 in value, placed with online sellers ("B2C ecommerce orders")
For orders under £135 (mods, spare parts, etc), placed with online sellers, the VAT payment situation is slightly different to the above due to the 'UK B2C ecommerce and marketplace VAT reforms' (2021). In this specific situation, using the example of a Netherlands based vendor, the local Dutch VAT should be zero 0% rated on the invoice, then they should apply UK sales VAT at 20% on the invoice, then complete their local export documentation and (different to normal) customs paperwork, and ship to you. No additional VAT should be due at the UK border. The foreign vendor then takes responsibility for paying a VAT return to UK HMRC.
For large online vendors like Amazon this works fine, but for small vendors it is a lot of extra effort and administrative expense. In this situation, people on pinballinfo.com have reported this process working correctly with large vendors like Amazon and ebay, but not always working as legislated with small vendors- i.e. situations have included it sometimes working as legislated, sometimes being charged no VAT at all, and sometimes being charged VAT twice: by the vendor at point of sale, and at the UK border by customs.
More information here.
UPDATE 2:
The exception in Update 1 now applies to imports from any country (including those outside the EU) and regardless of how the sale was facilitated (sale via online marketplaces, and/or any other sales methods - like, phoning an order in, etc).
More information here.
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