Tax and Duty to USA New Options Offered

[Fergus Macdonald]

In all honesty if it's possible I avoid anything international that ships FedEx or UPS, both as a customer and as a vendor.

Both of these two shippers act as their own customs brokers (I believe DHL does as well). On the face of it, that is a good thing. The problem is that the end customer usually
gets assessed ~$50US/£30GBP for this "service", in addition to the actual shipping fees AND any tariffs/taxes due.

I'd much rather use Royal Mail/Canada Post/USPS. In almost every case they are as quick as FedEx, in my experience they are more reliable, and in almost EVERY case they are less expensive (and that's before the brokerage fees).

I could tell you horror stories about Canadians who purchased $15US worth of repair parts for scuba regulators only to end up with a $37 customs&brokerage bill.

ith:

Agreed!

Difficulty with Royal Mail is that the maximum package size is 2kg and the fastest service is around 3-4 days. FedEx more often than not is next day to the US so both are can be useful.