This thread had been extremely helpful to me before my trip back to Europe 2 weeks ago! So I will share my experience with U.S customs here.
We came back from CDG airport and landed in JFK 7:15pm on 9/13. It was Thursday, and it didn’t seem to be that busy in the airport. There was absolutely no one on the customs line.
So we declared our roughly $5500 purchases at Paris & London. I showed my drafted list of the items, with the prices without the VAT. I also had all of my receipts ready. The agent first asked us to claim our luggages first. Then, he looked through my list, and tried to match the listed items to the ones on the receipts. He got confused and said the prices don’t match. So I explained the prices on the list I made were without VAT. He said U.S doesn’t look into the VAT, so I should list whatever prices were on the receipts. And he didn’t care they were in euros and so he didn’t do the conversions.
Then, he did his math on a piece of paper by adding the numbers up. There were two of us, so the first $1600 were exempted. The next $2000 were charged at a flat rate of 3%. Then anything above will be based on the materials. By this point, since we were fully prepared with our receipts, he was pretty relaxed and kindly explained the types of materials and the rates for customs. He said leather is charged for a comparatively lower rate (unless it is something exotic) than other materials for shoes and handbags, but still it was about 9%. Someone could correct me if I’m wrong. Surprisingly, costume jewelries are a higher rate than fine jewelries (I bought two pieces of Chanel costume jewelry - one necklace and a pair of earrings). Then, he reassigned the leather and costume jewelries into the first $3600 to give us good rates (remember, first $1600 is exempted, the next $2000 is 3%)! So the final charges were $178 for the roughly $5500 we declared!
During the entire process, he also shared that they had caught people not declaring when they had bought over $20,000 - $30,000 goods. Those people were being fined a huge amount of money and some even had their purchases confiscated!
I was ready to pay, then he said the cashier has left for the day and thanked us for being honest, and sent us out the ‘green’ door!
Our parents said if he wanted to, he sure could give a bill or something for us to pay later!
So that was my experience and hope it will help some of you here!
We came back from CDG airport and landed in JFK 7:15pm on 9/13. It was Thursday, and it didn’t seem to be that busy in the airport. There was absolutely no one on the customs line.
So we declared our roughly $5500 purchases at Paris & London. I showed my drafted list of the items, with the prices without the VAT. I also had all of my receipts ready. The agent first asked us to claim our luggages first. Then, he looked through my list, and tried to match the listed items to the ones on the receipts. He got confused and said the prices don’t match. So I explained the prices on the list I made were without VAT. He said U.S doesn’t look into the VAT, so I should list whatever prices were on the receipts. And he didn’t care they were in euros and so he didn’t do the conversions.
Then, he did his math on a piece of paper by adding the numbers up. There were two of us, so the first $1600 were exempted. The next $2000 were charged at a flat rate of 3%. Then anything above will be based on the materials. By this point, since we were fully prepared with our receipts, he was pretty relaxed and kindly explained the types of materials and the rates for customs. He said leather is charged for a comparatively lower rate (unless it is something exotic) than other materials for shoes and handbags, but still it was about 9%. Someone could correct me if I’m wrong. Surprisingly, costume jewelries are a higher rate than fine jewelries (I bought two pieces of Chanel costume jewelry - one necklace and a pair of earrings). Then, he reassigned the leather and costume jewelries into the first $3600 to give us good rates (remember, first $1600 is exempted, the next $2000 is 3%)! So the final charges were $178 for the roughly $5500 we declared!
During the entire process, he also shared that they had caught people not declaring when they had bought over $20,000 - $30,000 goods. Those people were being fined a huge amount of money and some even had their purchases confiscated!
I was ready to pay, then he said the cashier has left for the day and thanked us for being honest, and sent us out the ‘green’ door!
Our parents said if he wanted to, he sure could give a bill or something for us to pay later!
So that was my experience and hope it will help some of you here!
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). I declared everything but the customs agent didn't care one bit about the leather goods.... he was a LOT more interested in whether I had brought back foie gras*. Luckily didn't have to pay any duty. Seems like SFO is a bit more lax?
