On January 1st 2021 the United Kingdom left the European Union. EU residents are now required to pay EU VAT charged by the destination county to receive goods imported from the UK.
To make shopping with us easier and more affordable we have introduced a brand-new tax and postage system incorporating the EU’s IOSS scheme for orders with a value under £135 (€150) . This means that EU VAT is now charged upfront at the point of ordering, with no additional import duties or handling charges demanded by customs or delivery agents at your door!
For orders with a value under £135 (€150) costs including the correct EU VAT for your delivery location will be applied at checkout. We will do the work of forwarding this amount to the receiving country’s customs, so there should be no more additional requirements or charges to receive orders with a value under £135 (€150) for our EU customers.
Our products do not include UK VAT for international customers, so you can be assured that you will not be paying more than you should, and as a literary shop we are happy to report that most EU countries offer greatly reduced rates for books!
However, on your initial visit to our site, prices will be displayed with UK VAT included. To view products without UK VAT please either log in to your account, or enter your delivery address in your basket or at checkout to continue browsing our site with your appropriate prices on display.
PLEASE NOTE: Our orders are sent fully customs compliant, with our IOSS number and customs information provided digitally, and on our packages which are correctly labelled with CN22 labels, customs declarations and invoices where applicable. HOWEVER this does not always prevent silly people at customs from issuing erroneous charges. If you believe you have been charged additional fees in error please contact us before paying so we can advise, as once paid these can only be contested with your country’s customs by you.
Orders over £135 (€150) will be sent ‘Delivered Duty Unpaid’ (DDU). This means EU residents will be required to pay VAT and additional charges such as import duties and handling fees at the point of delivery. Some countries will not charge import duties for UK products on top of VAT for orders over €150 – please check with your country’s customs office.
You will be contacted by customs via phone, e-mail, or post prior to delivery to arrange payment of these fees, so please ensure you enter appropriate and correct contact details when submitting your order, and check your SMS, email inbox and junk folders regularly when awaiting an order from us.
VAT and import duties depend on the value and nature of the items in the order, and handling fees may be requested by the delivery company to collect these charges. Global tax charges are not our expertise, so for peace of mind we recommend consulting your own country’s government and postal service’s information on import tariffs and fees for receiving goods from the UK.
If you are buying as a gift, please do not ship orders over £135 (€150) directly to a gift recipient in the EU unless they have agreed to pay additional costs. We currently need to split larger orders due to weight restrictions imposed by the Postal Service, so please bear in mind that additional handling charges may be levied per package. Please contact us before ordering and we can advise whether your order may be shipped in separate packages.
Royal Mail are working on building a service for merchants to offer Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) for orders with a value under £135 (€150). We hope to integrate this service when their work is complete and available to all the countries that we send to.
