Further to my recent post Shipping a non-EU registered bike to the EU I've been looking at alternative destinations (to Bremmerhaven)in Western Europe.

Rotterdam is the first place that springs to mind and after a little searching I came across THIS article posted my Milton Miller. In it he lists the destination charges he had to pay (in Rotterdam. In 2011?). They include the equivalent of U$488 for 'Unloading the bike from Container' and totalled U$692.
Back in 2009 I shipped my F650 from Lima to Hamburg and paid a total of 200 euros in local fees (in Hamburg).

Milton shipped his bike uncrated whilst I shipped my bike crated.

Is the difference in price crated vs uncrated or are there huge variations in local fees across Europe?

I'm currently trying to ship my bike from New York to Europe and have a quote for U$500 (all inclusive at the US end) and so U$488 just to wheel it out of the crate seems ridiculous.

I would like to hear what others have paid in destination fees at the numerous ports throughout Europe and whether they shipped crated or uncrated.

Cheers

Adam

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Not very recent, but in June 2008 I collected my bike from the port in Helsinki, where it had arrived (crated) by sea from Sydney. I picked it up on the first possible day, so no overstay charges, and I payed around 170-180 euros at the port.

Ocean freight, and in fact everything else I payed at the sending end was just a bit under 500 euros total. So I remember thinking that last payment was a bit steep, keeping in mind they didn´t really do that much (compared to transporting the thing half-way around the globe!) But all in all, I think the price was still quite good. By air the quoted sums were almost triple.

Hi Adam:

You are going to encounter those kind of 'port' charges no matter what you ship or how you ship it. You could be shipping a ham sandwich from America to Europe, get a great deal on the freight (only $2.50 air freight for the ham sandwich), and you will still get nailed for a couple of hundred bucks of port charges at the other end (warehousing the ham sandwich for 3 hours, inspection fees, etc.)

I've shipped my moto (a ST1100) from Canada to Europe several times, mostly by air but once by ship, and there is really no way to avoid those port charges. You need to consider them to be a 'tax' of sorts that is levied by the port of arrival.

You might be able to minimize port charges by shipping through a freight forwarder who has more involvement in the process at each end (rather than dealing with the carrier alone, whose involvement is limited to when the shipment passes over the ship's rail at each end of the journey), but you won't be able to avoid them entirely no matter what you do.

By example: Last time I shipped my moto by air from Canada to Paris, I was a passenger upstairs on the same aircraft. The plane landed at 6:00 AM, I picked the moto up at the freight office at 8:00 AM, and was on the road at 8:30 AM the same day. But I still got hit with port charges of about $250, of which the biggest component was 'warehousing' (storage) for the 30 minutes that the bike was in the freight shed between unloading from the aircraft and the time I picked it up a few minutes later.

Michael

A couple of hundred bucks is one thing, U$692 is another - which is entirely the point of the post.
I'm not trying to avoid the unavoidable. I'm trying to learn where's acceptable and where's outrageous.

During my RTW journey I've shipped my bike by sea 5 times and by air 3 times so the shipping process isn't new to me. U$692 in local fees...that's new to me.

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Adam:

Let me put it this way - the fee issue for ports is similar to the fee issue associated with landing at foreign airports.

In the course of my 'day job', during the past 3 weeks I ferried an aircraft through Canada, Alaska, Russia, Japan, Guam, Micronesia, a host of little dinky island republics along the way, and finally delivered the aircraft to Tahiti.

At the least expensive airport to get in and out of, the total bill (landing fees, overflight fees, ground handling fees, customs fees, agricultural fees (!), etc.) came to $290. That was in Northern Alaska. At the most expensive airport, the total bill came to $7,100. That was in Japan. I didn't use any more or less services at one airport than another, and all the runways I landed on were paved with asphalt - none were paved with gold.

What I am getting at here is that the fees you pay at ports (water ports or air ports) have nothing to do with the quality or the quantity of the services provided. They are set arbitrarily, or perhaps to "what the traffic will bear".

To a very limited extent, you might be able to influence the fees by seeing if there are any services that you can avoid having to pay for (for example, loading or unloading out of a ULD). But, for the most part, if you are given a high quote for one destination, about all you can do is go price shopping for a different destination, or perhaps try purchasing the complete package (shipping plus ancillary charges) in a different manner, for example, through a freight forwarder who will give you an 'all-in' quote, as opposed to first getting a freight-only quote, then discovering what the port authority is going to charge you once the load passes over the ship's rail at the destination.

Michael

Sounds like a nice day job...



I thought I'd made the purpose of my original post clear but perhaps I didn't.
I thought I was asking what people had paid at various ports in Europe and wheter or not they'd shipped crated or uncrated so that I could choose how and where I'll ship my bike to.
Nowhere have I mentioned avoiding fees, quality or quantity of service.


Now that's what I am looking for...thanks pecha72

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in 2010 i shipped a yamaha xt 600e from suriname to amsterdam by sea. the bike was uncrated . the was 278.94 euro at the suriname end and 180.00 euro plus 8% tax in holland so of the 495.66 euro i paid only 111.86 euro of it was shipping .
the fees in amsterdam were
customs clearance 80.00
handling 30.00
unloading 50.00 ( this goes up depending on size of shipment )
laatvolgen 20.00 ( dont know what this is )
grand total 495.66 euro

Thanks Kito. That sounds much more reasonable.

220euros (U$293) in local fees is much more in-line with the 200euros I paid in Hamburg in 2009 and pecha72 paid in Helsinki in 2008.

That's about what I was expecting/hoping for an EU port.

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Adam:

Please don't be so critical and condescending of replies that other make to your inquiries.

Often, fellow forum members won't be able to provide exactly the information that someone asks for, but they will be able to provide closely related ancillary information that will assist the person asking a question to "comprehend the big picture" or to approach a problem from a slightly different perspective. Replies that fit these two categories can be extremely useful - I have benefited from these kind of replies in both conversations I have started, and when reading archived conversations.

My only experience with "port fees" has been a result of shipping my moto to/from Europe by air 3 or 4 times, and by sea once. In each case, the fees at the arrival port (early 2000s) were consistent with your original comment - around $250, more or less. But, as I noted earlier, I have tremendous experience dealing with port fees for a similar form of 'arrival for temporary import' (transient aircraft), and in my two replies, I tried to provide ancillary information about alternatives to the conventional 'FOB' shipping (such as using a freight forwarder to avoid direct billing for port charges), and I also tried to give you a broad overview of how and why port charges vary so much.

Obviously, I have no way of knowing how much or how little you know about these things when I write my reply. So, if you are already familiar with the information provided, the best thing to do is to simply say "thanks" and leave it at that.

If you write condescending replies to people who have attempted in good faith to assist you - as you wrote above - you will soon find that fewer and fewer people answer your posts, and that is not good for you or for the forum as a whole.

Michael

Michael:

I apologise if you found my above post (#6) condescending.

No offense meant but neither of your replies contribute to answering my original post and the suggestion that I was trying to avoid port charges (rather than ascertain fees in different locations) niggled me.

Perhaps there's some misunderstanding here on on both our parts. Easily done online.

Adam

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