Items shipped internationally may be subject to duty and excise charges. These charges are determined by customs declarations which are created by the shipper (that's us). The customs declaration includes the type of goods, their value, country of origin along with a 'Harmonised System' (HS) code. The HS code is an internationally recognised code that specifies the type of goods for the purposed of determining duties payable. 

The customs department of the destination country uses this information to determine the value of any duties and excise that needs to be paid. Charges are then levied appropriately. 

The actual INCOTERM used at time of shipping will determine who pays these charges as outlined below.

Duties paid by recipient

Goods are sent DDU - 'Delivery Duty Unpaid'. This is also sometimes known as DAP - 'Delivered at Place'. 

When the goods are processed by customs, the recipient is contacted to pay the charges. Charges must be paid before goods will be released.

Charges may include tariffs, duty and taxes as well as processing fees.

When selecting DDU (DAP) at checkout, no duty estimate will be displayed

Duties paid by Sender

Goods are sent DDP - Delivery Duty Paid

Duty is paid by the sender. These charges generally include all duties tariffs and taxes and collectively are known as the 'Landed Cost'.

The goods may still be inspected by customs but as duty has already been paid the goods will normally be released to the recipient without further charge.

When selecting DDP at checkout, the estimated Duty costs will be displayed in the order summary.

All duty, tax and tariff charges collected by us are processed by Zonos.

Mandatory DDP destinations

The following destinations have mandatory DDP requirements in place.

​USA and its Territories - (CBP Tariff Regulations & De Minimis Suspension) Threshold: $0

Optional DDP destinations

If you wish to elect to pay duty up front, you can select DDP at the checkout stage.

​United Kingdom 

​European Union 

​Canada

​New Zealand 

Rest of World / DAP

If DDP is not selected, or if carrier DDP service is unavailable for your specific destination, orders are shipped DAP (Delivered at Place). Any applicable local import duties, TAX etc, along with clearance fees will be billed directly to you by local customs upon arrival before the goods will be released to you.

A note on HS Codes and declared product value

As the HS Code is used to determine the nature of the goods it must be accurate. It cannot be falsified. These codes are already built into our system for each of our products and cannot be changed. Similarly the product value is automatically determined by our system and cannot be falsified. Please do not ask us to do this to try and circumvent duty obligations. 

We are mindful of the cost of doing business internationally and monitor our pricing to try and remain competitive in this market. Don't be too put off by the duty value, just focus on the bottom line price and hopefully you'll see that we are still more competitive than buying locally.