Let’s say if I were to import a game console that’s close to ¥63,000 ($401) instead of paying $581 including sales tax if purchased in US, however would that alone save me approximately $180 after paying shipping costs? There’s no sales tax as the item is sold abroad as you are the one importing it, but the real question remains: is there a guarantee that the package will arrive tax free or not?
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Adding to the other replies, if you’re in the US, you also need to be mindful of your state’s import tax laws, as laws overall can vary from one state to another.
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There’s no guarantee it will arrive tax-free. There are really no guarantees about anything when importing anything. You get a border agent in a bad mood and they might pick on your shipment. Or, depending on what country you’re in, you might get a bribe request. But you can probably find out what the import duties/tariffs should be on the consoles and figure that is the most you would pay importing it yourself, then add that up with your shipping cost and see which would cost you more.
Usually if something is being imported in bulk by a retailer it will be cheaper than importing a single copy yourself. They’re probably getting a wholesale discount, their duties would be paid on the discounted price, and their shipping costs would be lower divided across the units they’re importing. If you can avoid the duties you might come out ahead, or if the retailer is marking up the price too high.
So I will say probably no.
When you import something in the US, you will get a Import Sales Tax, which is close or might be more than your local sales tax. But you will also be putting up the import tariff in full as well. And also the probably high shipping fee as well.
There is a chance you slip past the import costs, but depends on how much of a gambler you are if you want to take that risk.
I work with this stuff all day. Will you be able to provide the HTS code to Customs? That along with the country it’s made in determines the duty rate on the invoice value . If I remember correctly game consoles have a pretty straightforward HTS so I can check it tmrw at work. Do you know the country it was manufactured in?
It’s a Japanese version of the Switch 2 (日本語・国内専用) and those are manufactured in Vietnam from what I’ve heard. So, there are two countries: Japan being the one holding the inventory while Vietnam is the one making the units that are being sold in Japan. I think there’s a 12.5% tariff on both Japan & Vietnam, would it be 25% (WTF?!), add duties on top of that. The customs value of this specifically is ¥62,980 ($401).
For duty purposes, it’ll only matter where it was made. The HTS code for game consoles is 9504.50.0000 and you are correct that being made in Vietnam it will have a 12.5% duty. There is also an additional Customs fee of $34.58 called a “Merchandise Processing Fee” on the goods, so all together you’re looking at est. $84.71 in duties and fees on the import. Plus you’ll have to pay for the shipping and for the courier service (or whoever) to actually do the Customs Entry, so there may be additional charges there.
