Paid customs duties, but had to return your purchase?
Handling fee
A handling fee is a fee charged by a courier company for handling customs charges on your behalf.
Anyone who imports goods from abroad worth over £135 is liable for customs charges. Couriers like DHL or DPD pay these charges on behalf of UK shoppers to release the goods from customs.
For this service, they charge a handling fee. Once import charges and a handling fee are paid back to the courier company, the goods are delivered.
The rate of handling fee depends on the courier company. Some companies charge a fixed amount, while others charge either a fixed amount or 2.5% of import duty and VAT.
Customs charges on returned goods are refundable. However, the handling fee is not since it isn’t charged by HMRC but by the courier for their services.
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Questions?
And there are time limits too.
If you returned the item because it was damaged or defective, it can’t have first entered the UK more than 365 days ago. And if you returned the item because you didn’t want it anymore, it can’t have entered the UK more than 90 days ago.