Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Zark]

I am ordering perhaps close to $150 of hard-to-find training books and materials and am curious if anyone has had to pay duties or taxes on stuff shipping into Korea via Amazon.com from the USA. Particularly curious about customs if you have ordered higher $$ amounts.

Thanks!

[kylehawkins2000]

I've received books worth about $200 Canadian. I wasn't charged anything beyond the original billing amount from Amazon.com. I think some other items (besides books) would be charged customs duties....but books are not.

[Dawn]

Educational materials, including books, are supposed to be duty-free. I've placed orders in excess of $300 before with no problems. (And they included books, games, manipulatives, visuals, etc.)

[rudyflyer]

no problems with books, I've also place US$ 200 orders before.

CD's hmmmmmmm once we paid duty on a cd

software they won't ship here

DVD's no problems though when they see a Korea shipping address and the DVDs are region 1, it will keep asking you "Are you sure you want to order this?"

[Zark]

Thanks for your input! Apparently no worries at all.

Gracias,

z

[lawyertood]

Shopping on the internet

It can be quiet convenient and practical to buy goods over the Internet. In some cases, you can acquire the goods of your special need only through the Internet.
Before shopping on the internet, it is important to note that the advertised price on the sellers web-site is not always the same as the total price that you might end-up paying. It is because if the total value of the goods (it includes purchase price plus freight and insurance) exceed 100,000 Korean won(about US$ 80), you will need to pay Customs duties and taxes.

For most of the industrial products, you will probably pay 8% Customs duty and 10 % VAT. However, some goods are liable to special excise taxes & other taxes. For all the details of Customs duty and tax rates applicable, you can refer to the Duties and Taxes in Korea of this web-site or Simplified Duty rate at Simplified Clearance.

Besides paying Customs duties and taxes, you might end up with other governmental procedures depending on the goods that you have purchased. The most likely item is food, alcohol, pets, medicine, firearms & dangerous articles, phonography and cars. For details, please read more about on importing individual items.

Books
The items most frequently shopped through internet are books. Books are duty free, however audio books (tape and CD reading books) are subject to 20% taxation.

Notebook computer
Customs duty rate on notebook computer is 0%, but value added tax of 10% on the CIF value(the price + freight + insurance fee) will be charged.

Firearms & Dangerous articles
In order to bring in firearms, ammunitions and dangerous articles into Korea, you need to get special permission from the police department. For all the license details, please do contact the national police agency at http://www.police.go.kr

Pornography
In Korea, you can not take in Pornographic books, CD, Video tapes and other obscene materials purchased on the Internet.

Taken from http://www.customs.go.kr/eng/

[justagirl]

Just an idea....try www.yesasia.com if you haven't already bought your books on amazon.com.

Their shipping to Korea is free (and faster, from my experience). Those international shipping rates can be nasty, and yesasia has about 95% of the same supply available as amazon.

justagirl

[Swiss James]

Searched for 5 or so CDs on Yesasia.com, came up a complete blank- the music selection is pitiful. I did get some stuff delivered from Amazon yesterday and wasn't charged duty on it though.

[Honeybee]

On Amazon, you can elect to have your books sent as soon as they are available for no extra cost, that means you will get several parcels of books, rather than the one bigger parcel,

Last year I was hit for a custom fees on CDs valued at over 100 us bucks,