Customs duty for bringing two laptops into France
I'm a PhD Student who will come to Toulouse to work on a computer science project. I have one little concern since laptops are especially important to my work, I would like to bring two with me, one is a Macbook Air 13in, while the other is a Macbook Pro 15in, both are mine and used for a year. I have read somewhere that I can only bring less than 500EUR of goods to be exempt from duty tax. Has anyone got the same experience?
Best Answer
As I understand it in most western countries.
Generally duty and/or tax are due on items that are permanently imported into a country. There is usually an exception for small amounts of items imported for personal use or as gifts.
The reasonable personal effects of a short-term visitor, that enter and leave with the visitor are normally not subject to any duty, tax or customs paperwork.
Other temporary imports are also usually not subject to duty and tax but may be subject to customs paperwork and/or deposits to ensure that they do-in fact leave the country again.
There are often exceptions for people moving thier residence to a country allowing them to bring their personal and household items without paying duty/tax. There may be some paperwork and conditions (such as not immediately selling the items) associated with such exceptions.
If you are just visiting to do some short-term research then you most-likely count as a short term visitor. OTOH if you are doing a whole PHD course in France then that may well count as taking up residence, which may in turn mean that paperwork is needed to bring your belongings in without paying duty/tax.
The reality is that a couple of laptops that look like they are being used (i.e. are in a laptop bag, not in their original boxes) are highly unlikely to raise any concerns on the part of customs. Even if some paperwork should theoretically be done.
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Can I bring my laptop to France?
Most of your American electronic devices cannot be used in France, with the big exception of laptop computers, smartphones (i.e. iPhone, etc), and tablets (i.e. iPad) (more on that below).Do I need to pay customs duty for laptop?
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Generally, the customs duty for importing a laptop from the USA to India is 28% and can be split as below; 10% BCD. 1% HEdu Cess. 2% Edu Cess.How many laptops are allowed in customs?
One can bring two laptops to India and for more laptops, they have to pay customs duty. There are some exemptions like if the laptop is a used one and you can prove that with its original receipt.Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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