Ins and outs of importing guitars from the states

Chris-Mason

I am looking at importing 2 Guitars from the states for personal use.
Can anyone provide me with the process required.
Saddle and Nut

babbalute

Saddle and Nut wrote: I am looking at importing 2 Guitars from the states for personal use.
Can anyone provide me with the process required.
Saddle and Nut

Rather let the company or guy in the States "export' them to you. If it is a shop or company then they will be ready to do this. If you buy form a private individual you have a problem which is solved by contacting one of the local courier or freight forwarders to do the job for you. Courier companies are preferred due to speed but might be more expensive.(double the rate then exporting form the States)

In either case the local freight forwarder or courier company will collect from the place of origin of the goods and will give you an accurate quote for that. This quote will include duties and vat payable as well as delivery to you locally if you prefer this. You can also collect from the freight forwarder or courier company to save maybe R100.00

Duties will most certainly be charged if you "Import" yourself unless you get the shop or individual to put the correct HS code on the commercial or tax invoice. Customs goes by the commercial invoice and both should be included in the shipment. If no customs code is provided and you advise the freight forwarder or courier company of this detail before the goods land in SA (you should get a airway bill from the freight forwarder or tracking reference number from the courier company) to avoid paying duties. Customs will always try and charge you even on goods that do not have duties. VAT is always payable on the value of the goods only in the commercial or tax invoice. These values should be the same. You will not pay VAT on the delivery charges if the goods are exported from the States. If you import the goods via a freight forwarder or courier company the VAT will be higher as you pay for a local service.

It is always better and less expensive to let the seller export and ship the goods for cost reasons. The bad thing is that you have no control over the shipping and delivery to you as this is paid by the "exporter" in the States in this case. With experienced sellers oversees delivery is not a problem they done this numerous times and are not interested in not delivering the items you purchased.

Regarding payment : when you let the export the goods they will demand up front payment of the costs of the goods and delivery charges(some of them even include local SA duties and VAT in their invoices. This is called DTD(Door to door) all responsibility lies with the "export"in the States in this case and you have no control over it at all but you know exactly how much you.
A local freight forwarder might let you pay COD(Cash on delivery) Courier companies as well but if you do not have an account with them they will want up front payment as well. This will only cover "import" as described above, you will first have to pay the seller in the States for the goods, including bank charges which might be included in the invoice he will send you. Local bank charges are to be paid by you. If you do the transfer you will need to advise the bank to share costs(mark it on the bank money transfer form)

There are many other issues you need to take care of like insurance, make sure the commercial invoice or tax invoice is setup correctly to pay un-necessary local VAT and also make sure you do not pay the sales tax in the States as you are not liable for that.
I am an importer(not of musical instruments) I always use the sellers delivery service but have the goods shipped to my local freight forwarder/clearing agent. Note that I am the buyer but the delivery address is my freight forwarder. They organise clearing(which they charge me for) and give a tax invoice indicating paid VAT so I can reclaim this when I resell the imported goods. Unless you resell the guitars on a Tax invoice and you are registered for VAT in SA you can not claim VAT back

Hope above helps.

AlanRatcliffe

babbalute wrote: Hope above helps.

Excellent post. Thanks and thanked.

In fact, I'm going to make this thread sticky as this is a FAQ.

Norman86

I have always paid vat on the shipping from the states, and everything was exported.
Unless the shipping was free, then only vat on the item.

Only once where i was charged more for things being imported coz some idiot decided that parts needed more than just vat charged.

StephenG

from the import tarrif duties book :

Heading CD Article Description Statistical Unit General EU EFTA SADC
92.02 Other string musical instruments (for example, guitars, violins, harps):
9202.10 4 -Played with a bow. u free free free free
9202.90 6 -Other. u free free free free

patrik-steens

as far as I know there is no import duties on guitars into RSA, but you have to pay VAT

Hasie

I know this is an old post, but I was wondering if someone can recommend some US shops that know how to export guitars, with the correct HS codes on the invoice, handling of sales tax, organises insurance on goods in transit, etc.?

Also, about how much does a clearing agent charge for handling the VAT and whatever else is needed and can anyone recommend a clearing agent?

Thanks.

babbalute

Your problems are as follows:
1) find a shop that is willing and capable (paperwork) to export too RSA
2) is willing to use a courier service example : TNT( I find them good and fast from the US) or any other courier they are or want to use.
3) they must be willing to provide you with an invoice that must include and indicates the follow:
- the cost of the guitars only (you will pay vat on this amount only after it is converted at a very minimal increase rate used by customs in South African Rand as the invoice will be in USD)
- the courier delivery costs (if they can get a door to door delivery cost you will only pay VAT in SA on arrival prior to delivery)
- the cost of insurance ( they must contact the courier company and obtain this cost)
- a total cost of all above items
- their bank account details for TT payment.
- they must indicate on the HScode or customs code for musical instruments.(92.0200)
- It is best that they provide a packing list with the parcel as well, customs likes this as they can clearly see what is in the parcel. (packing list can be the same as an invoice but excludes any costs, it is called packing list and must include the items name (e.g. guitar, the number or quantity of each etc., the hscode. The number of boxes on the packing list is also important. (in your case could be 2 or if they are tight together into 1 parcel or box it will be 1)

You will provide the following to the shop selling to you:
- proof of TT of the total amount due ( on the date you do the payment via email or fax or other) As they are behind us in time the money will in their account when they wake up. Most SA bank can TT direct into an oversees bank account providing you have the following available to them to do this: - Account holders name - their physical address - the bank name and physical address - the account number - the branch name or number - the SWIFTCode - any other info they provide. (Make sure you get their direct bank account details as not to use a intermediate bank as this will cause delays and increase bank transfer costs.
- your physical address where the goods need to be shipped to (consignee) This cannot be a post box or private bag or similar, it must be a street name, city, country etc.
- who they need to invoice (name of the buyer) I assume this will be you, so your name and the same address as delivery address it will make things easy.
- a contact number in South Africa so that the courier who makes deliveries can contact you for payment of VAT and a possible clearing fee after which they will deliver the goods to you. The courier local company will send you their invoice for payment of vat and other possible fees. Note that if the seller in the US gets a door to door delivery fee from the courier company in principal there will be no additional clearing or other fee payable in SA.
-

Note the following:
- costs of TT from SA to US seller are normally shared unless the seller in the US indicates a cost to you in his invoice for their local bank charges. In principal we are not responsible for oversees bank charges unless the seller insist you pay these.
- get a copy of the courier tracking number from the seller(normally) or the courier company so you can track the shipment.
- courier companies are a bit more expensive but it is worth the extra as you can track the shipment and they will on your behalf clear the goods from customs and deliver to you at home. You have them to do all the work so if something goes wrong you know who to deal with locally.
- if one of above details is not available from the seller you can expect delays and possible difficulties from customs or the local clearing agent if you don't use a courier company.
- if you don't know the clearing agent(mostly if the seller doesn't use courier companies to ship) A local clearing agent will pick the shipment and they normally charge additional fees for clearing and other deemed expenses.
- if you do not have a customs clearing/export code the bank who does the TT of funds oversees will allocate the amount to your once of total allowance of foreign exchange purchase. If the amount is over R50K you might need to provide the bank with proof of import of the goods. They might want to see the import document from the courier or clearing agent. You will get these.

To avoid difficulties and delays follow above and all will go well and simple. Any short coming from your side will cause delays and difficulties at customs when goods arrive resulting in you the buyer having to provide additional info, documents or other. Unless you have good relations with the seller oversees(this does not mean a once of purchase) they generally do not provide you with additional and original documents as they are not responsible for our local issues.

Any further questions I will try and answer as good as possible.

Hasie

Thank you for all the info. It sounds like a lot of effort. Especially finding the right shop. Maybe I should consider asking a dealer here to import it for me and take the financial knock. It will also be better for guarantee purposes for the odd chance that something goes wrong with it.

Rabbit

My experience had been that the local distributors' prices are usually better than the cost of importing equipment oneself. Obviously, there are notable exceptions, but my interest in importing equipment has almost vanished since I started doing the maths. For example, $477 = R5600 + R1400 duties + R3000 shipping = R10000, so getting a new PRS SE locally is cheaper than buying second-hand from the US.

And remember that most music ships will give you about 10% off the RSA list price.

So you are not necessarily going to take a knock on the price.

Norman86

might be so for PRS, but other well known brands, not so much.
I have seen a $200 amp going for over R8000. wont name names. but that was on a sale.
Just depends what you want.

Rabbit

True...

As an aside: Musician's Friend (http://musiciansfriend.com/) does not ship much stuff to RSA, but their prices are (very) good when they run specials and their shipping is insanely cheap on what they do ship here. I am guessing that they reduce the shipping by an amount equal to the "free USA shipping" that most shops offer. They also handle all full import-duties and customs labelling. The only problem is that they do not sell anything I want to RSA! ;( But for example, if you are looking for a G&L and are prepared to wait for a special, you could get a very good deal.

amori

I import a lot of guitar related peripherals from the USA (and elsewhere), no complete guitars though - I do export almost all my handmade guitars to the USA. I always have to pay taxes and duties and I imagine there is no reason why they don't charge import duty into SA.

Exporting to the USA is a big hassle, it takes weeks to complete the relevant forms pertaining to cites etc, I would imagine importing is not nearly as much trouble.

The question is why? Why do you need to import?

Skylark

Get a Aramex Global shopper account, very competitive courier rates and then you can order anything from anywhere in the US, you get a us shipping address. Look for a voucher code, an ASG account is normally 50 dollars but there's vouchers last I looked that can get it for 10 dollars.

Big bonus is they charge by weight only, not volumetric.

se7ent7

I've eBay'd a guitar (Martin) and had a friend send some (once with DHL (gibson les paul and PRS) and once through the post USPS (Martin 000-18GE)).

No issues at all. If the buyer is not a shop or your friend they can even choose a "conservative" value declaration and you can save a bunch ? I think I paid R800 customs on the Martin 000-18GE ($2000 ebay (I got lucky)), the "tannie" at Capemail in Goodwood even gave me off more saying "sjoe seun maar die kitaar is darem baie duur") ?

In summary, it's not a problem at all. The only enemy is the exchange rate. Just ask the seller for a shipping price before you buy/bid.

On "stock" new items on ebay many ebay stores have relatively cheap shipping. For a Martin OMCPA4 I got in about 2 years ago the shipping was $225, which is very affordable for a high/medium-end guitar.

Lastly if the seller doesn't want to ship to SA you can have them ship it to a freight forwarding company in the States like shipitto.com. I haven't used it myself but a colleage has used it for years without issue.

se7ent7

This may be of value for eBay buys...

Here is the spreadsheet I made for the total cost of buying the guitar.

The "paypal exchange" rate is the current exchange plus 2.5%
The VAT is always slightly more than 14% but it's in the ballpark. (I underestimated by R150 in this case)

Martin OMPCA-4 eBay purchase end-2013:

current exchange rate 9.88
paypal exchange rate: 10.127

guitar $: 1069
shipping $: 225

eBay total paid (R): 13104.338

SA estimated VAT 1654.4913
SA VAT final paid 1801

TOTAL cost: R 14905.338

tubescreamer63

Can anyone assist? I bought a rare collectible guitar on Gumtree a while back ( Ibanez musician MC550 Wn)and I want to sell it in the USA on ebay or craigslist or whatever. My wife is going on holiday to the USA this weekend, and I was going to send it with. Can I expect any customs problems getting it into the USA?

Gearhead

Your wife should take it as carry-on to avoid damage and make like she makes a living playing the thing. I take guits across borders like that no probs.

amori

I have never imported full guitars but do import lots of hardware and electronics. Just watch out what they charge you for import duty, they take chances at customs. I often have to send the stuff back to customs for re-evaluation and they always come back less expensive. Murray Kuun