urgent help...customs probs in Brazil
 

Help...
we~re stuck in Rio awaiting Brazillian customs to release a package of urgent replacement parts for things that are knackered after our two years on the road. They´re considered personal items (i.e. we already own them) but customs here want import tax of almost 100% the new comercial value. We just don´t have the money!!!

The box contains a new seat for my R1100GS that i picked up in SOuth Africa, a new visor and electrical leads for our bikr to bike comm´s.

Does anyone have any advice how we can get round this. It just seems crazy to pay import duties this high on kit we already own, will not be sold in Brazil and will be exported (connected ot our bikes) in 8 weeks time.

Any help would be really appreciated, as we now need to be heading North before our time here runs out.

Simon & Lisa Thomas
www.2ridetheworld.com

Hi there,

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Brazil is the wrong place to ship anything to in South America. The customs guys have a book which lists the price of any item you try to send and will nail you accordingly. Anything that comes in you will pay duty on and it is the highest in South America.

I wish you well but fear that you may be stuffed. I shipped lots of kit into Chile under similar circumstances and faced only a 25% fee.

Good luck.

Matt

Sorry to hear of the issues - I shipped replacement parts into Santiago earlier this year and had exactly the same arguement. Customs wanted 100% duty on goods that would be leaving the country.

After several hours argueing I managed to convince them this was wrong. They made me go to the customs hall in the main airport terminal to get a signature - where I found a leaflet in English describing exactly what I was trying to do.

I was given a temporary importation certificate and excused all duty. I gave up the certificate on leaving the country.

That was Chile - I have no idea whether Brazil has the same system.

Good luck!

Lisa
Was an invoice inside or acompaning the box?
Or a value declaration?
Here in argentina they asked 52% of stuff and shipping.
But in most cases i advice to send the box from a friend who "rebuild"the thing and not with the logo of a company.With invoice and the complete value!
And then it passes a sort of generator with a red and green light.Of course green means no customs.
And if you get red you need to pick it up at the customs.You can take 25 US dollars from your bill the first time.And if you tell them that you are just passing by as a tourist with bike problems they let you take the box with no payments.Put a miserable face...
Thats here in Argentina.
Could you solve your problem?
Have a safe trip.
KH

Greg!

You back in Guildford these days? Fancy that beer we were gonna have in Chile?

Matt

Thanks for all your advice guys....for a while it was looking real doom and gloom. But just a couple of days ago we managed somehow to talk them into releasing our package and got to the bottom of the various problems they were having.

One of the bigest issues they had was that the seat for Simon's 1100 was sponsored by Touratech and was therefore supplied with a zero invoice. This immediately caught their attention as did a few other zero-rated items in the box! We heard however from many Rio DJ business people that the crux of the matter however is that customs in Brazil are after a pay-rise and their strategy is simple.....they are being meticulous and doing everything 'by the book' and intentionally backing-up the system until eventually the 'powers-that-be' give them the extra dosh.

Another lesson we learnt is that irrespective of whether you are importing items as personal items or commercially , if you import into the country using a courier (Fedex, UPS etc.) then you will pay 100% of the value of the items. And if the items are not valued then they will value them for you... end of story!

In the end however, this did not happen to us...we just got the right help from the right people and came away relativley unscathed....we were just lucky.

Thanks again. We are now on our way again up to Salvador.
Lisa Thomas
www.2ridetheworld.com