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If YOU ship international READ THIS

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If YOU ship international READ THIS

Psycho Pixie

Vacations are a grand thing
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The USPS has changed the customs forms. I do not know WHEN they did, but when i refilled my "stash" for packing from home last week, the customs forms looked different.

The part about what you are sending has NOT changed.
  1. Mark your item GIFT.
  2. If you are listing them at different values(for more than one item) list individually by $ value.
  3. Marking your TOTAL $ value over 19.99 USD may cost the person recieving the item to be charged a customs fee. If possible keep that total value under $20.00.... for insurance purposes this may be unavoidable though.
  4. SIGN the bottom portion!!!

Here is where it changed. They used to just have a space for your info, and then below that about 7 blank lines to fill in with the recipients info. NOT anymore.

This is what it looks like now:
  • Last name, first name.
  • Business *this you can leave blank*
  • Address
  • City, State/Province, postal code.
  • Country, Telephone/fax (telephone is required if you use a PO box?)

For Canada addresses this is pretty simple to figure out, and the Canada addresses fit perfectly on there. HOWEVER, for Europe and UK addresses it can get confusing......

Can our Europe and UK folks please Help out, so we dont have to muddle through?

below is a made up address for a UK location, Can someone please tell us which part goes where on the customs form??? Which part is the city? the postal code? the province????

Mr English Uklander
1 Jumpinjellyfish Rd
Buckingham
Bucks
YZ12 3AB
England

So, here is how it works....
Name: Mr English Uklander
Business: ----------
Address: 1 Jumpinjellyfish Rd
City, State/Province, Postal Code: Buckingham, Bucks, YZ12 3AB
Country: England

list of customs maximums:
UK: $20.00 *mark as $19.99 MAX to avoid your recipient getting a customs fee.*
Canada:
Italy:
Belgium:
France:
Hong Kong:
Tokyo:
 
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Yes I have several of the new ones stashed away,I like you can add a email addy,I actually use the dpf user Id.,I like you can wait a week and type the number in the USPS tracking and it says the pkg is overseas
that helps me out as I can Pm the person that their pkg is coming soon to them,I usually write on the form ,the way I recieve their addy as written ,never had a prob yet.judy
 
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I shipped a packaged out to Wally (toykodisneydad) and there was so not enough room on the address line... so I just ended up cramming everything wherever it could fit..
 

With most addresses the last three lines generally make up your City, Post Code and Country. So in your example above I dont know what you based it off on but there is one extra line because Bucks was separated on its own line it is the County (not Country but County). Usually you dont need to add the county as they can work it based on the city, post code and country. Buckingham is the city/town, the post code would be the YZ12 3AB and the Country would be England.
 

i used an actual address of a DPF member and changed all the numbers, but they do live in buckingham, bucks, and that is how they gave me the address originally. This is why i wanted clarification.

anmicki said:
Does international shipping still require you to take it into the post office?
Click to expand...

I think you can get international rate via USPS.com? IDK i never tried it. I use paypal/shipnow, and it does not offer first class international shipping, it only offers the more expensive options. so i still have to take every. single. International... to the P.O.

chroll said:
They have had those forms since I started trading in April...
Click to expand...

Yeah, i had a stack of like 50 at the beginning of the year, finally ran out and picked up the new ones. lol
 
Psycho Pixie said:
i used an actual address of a DPF member and changed all the numbers, but they do live in buckingham, bucks, and that is how they gave me the address originally. This is why i wanted clarification.
Click to expand...

No worries, I thought that might have been the case where you based it off someone's actual address (as it was pretty accurate, well not the name of the street which was pretty funny but the rest of the address at least). Some people like to add more details than necessary to ensure the address is correct or in some cases it may be necessary to include because the street name could be the same another place within the same city. So it may be worthwhile just putting the whole address in where you can fit it just to be safe I guess. That is sorta why I asked where you got the address from because the person may have put that extra information in there for a reason, I just didnt want to give you misleading information especially since I dont live in the Bucks area. But at least now you know what information is the city, post/zip code and Country as that can be confusing sometimes, especially if it is not a country that you are familiar with.
 
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Things seem to be chaning a lot lately.
For Belgium, whenever shipping to the US now, we don't *need* the form anymore! I keep asking about it when I post a package to the US, and they tell me each time, we don't need it anymore. But, because I'm scared they'll charge the other person something, they'll give me a standard form they use inside Belgium for tracking service, so I can still fill out what's in the package, and the amount of € it is.
I feel safer like that.
 

Using this info you would lay out the address like this:

Name: Mr English Uklander
Business: ----------
Address: 1 Jumpinjellyfish Rd
City, State/Province, Postal Code: Buckingham, Bucks, YZ12 3AB
Country: England

The city is the first part of the address reading down (usually a town). The state/province is known to us as a county.

Hope this is what you were looking for if it isn't sorry. But I hope it helps.
 
Those 'new' forms have been around for a while, as some others stated. I said something to my PO counter people and they said just cram it in. And that's what I do.

Leave it to some government moron to expect outside US addresses to look just like ours. UGH!! Maybe someone with a brain will catch on, but I doubt it.

As for the gift amount. I have been asking the person in whatever country I am mailing to what their top value can be, before incurring a customs charge. That way I don't have to send $50 worth of pins for $20 if I don't have to.

As not to hijack this thread, if anyone outside the US, besides France, would like to let me know what the gift limit is for their country, please PM me so can add to my chart. Thank you!!
 
God bless Her Majesties revenue and customs! For the UK the allowable limit is very low before the dreaded tax man wants a cut, so $20 will ok but $50 would probably incur import duty of 20%. This a nasty sting in the tail if you have just completed a nice high end trade for let's say Tangled beloved tales @ $200 if you quote eBay price and declare this on the form.
 
Back on topic and think of the County as being the same as a State (but much smaller) so the town of Buckingham is in Buckinghamshire or Bucks for short. The first letters in a postcode like BN tell the post office the destination is near BrightoNthe rest narrows it down to the town and street. If you have the correct postcode the name of the County is less important .
 
Thank you folks. the question is answered fairly well. I am going to add the info to the OP.

PLEASE continue the conversation. It would be nice to add a list of max amounts for customs to the OP as well.
 
UK is confusing to me as well, but in most other parts in Europe (incl. Germany where I am from) it goes as this

Sarah Madeupname
Somethingstr. 11
00000 GreatCity

[The zeros being the zip code^^]
 
thanks for this--and FU USPS because they just changed the forms in Jan when they tripled shipping. I for one am NOT leaving a phone number--thats insane!

So everysingle person who works in every usps office that handles you package can have your phone number and anyone who handles it in the air and over seas? idiotic.
 
Wow Kristine, we were told 6 months ago to quit using the old form. They told us they would no longer accept them. So we have been using the new form for quite a while. We were also told to cram in the addresses as long as the address on the envelope is correct they can figure out what they have to enter into the computer. Stupid arrogant postal service assumes all addresses across the world are supposed to be like ours. What I hate is that they now have to enter all of that info into the computer so it takes about 5 minutes a package or more if the clerk is slow, which it seems like all of ours are always slow. I have never seen a larger group of hunt and peckers!!! It isn't just at one post office here either. We have 2 we frequent and both crews are the same plodding individuals. I guess they figure they get paid by the hour any way so why hurry, and they wonder why they are getting used less and less and can't make money.

Sorry, enough of a rant.
 
David, I have solved that plodding along at my PO, for the most part! I chicken scratch/cram the receiver's address in the silly space provided, on that ridiculous customs form, so the PO worker can't read my writing. I then print out a label and attach it to the LBE, so they can't claim they can't read my writing..lol I always point out it's printed beautifully, by my computer, for their ease of filling in the blanks!! LOL
 
Wait... is there a new "new" US customs form that was released over the last few days??

The form I normally use is Customs Declaration CN 22. There is also a larger form, Customs Declaration and Dispatch Note CP 72, but that is used for other purposes and generally, it's to be used for Priority/Express International Mail.

I know my post office always runs out of the smaller CN 22 forms so people are always using the CP 72 form which is incorrect, however I have seen some clerks take that form in lieu of CN 22... either they ran out of the small forms or they're too lazy to correct the customer.

Is this what we're talking about or is there a completely new form out there?
 
Cn 22

 
Ok, nevermind... I pulled my copy of the last customs form I used and I see what Kristine is talking about. There are only five lines to write six (and sometimes seven) lines of information.

Meh, I just ignore the "business" and "telephone" area and just fill in the areas as if they were blank lines and combine information where appropriate. Such as...

NAME: Mr English Uklander
BUSINESS: 1 Jumpinjellyfish Rd
ADDRESS: Buckingham
CITY: Bucks, YZ12 3AB
COUNTRY: England

And yeah, I never enter anything for "telephone" - it's unnecessary.
 
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