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Mailing extra (surplus) clothes to USA from France

Posted by (Boulder, CO, USA) on

Does anyone have any advice on the lowest-cost (to avoid customs duties) method to mail some boxes of used, personal clothes home to the USA from France (winter clothes we brought that we no longer need)?

Rick mentions in his guidebook that you can mark a package (and/or a customs form) "American Goods Returned To USA" and "slow boat" it to the USA (I don't know exactly what he means by using the slang "slow boat"). I am guessing the purpose of indicating "American goods returned" is so you avoid paying USA import duties on clothes you had actually bought back home in the USA.

Unfortunately, Rick does not elaborate on mailing things home in his guidebook... just kind of quickly mentions that you can do this without providing much detail (probably because he's hoping that, as a traveler, you never brought more clothes than needed!).

As most people know, mailing anything from Europe to the USA is ridiculously expensive (and probably vice-versa). So any help is appreciated.

Posted by
505 posts

Greetings

The cheapest way to send things home is via sea-freight - i.e. in a container on a ship via the Atlantic. Cost is calculated by weight - it's not cheap, but not as hair raising as air-freight costs.

Your best bet is to contact an international shipper - with a few boxes, you can't hire a whole container & the shipper can arrange to pick up the boxes, calculate the cost and make sure they get into the US OK. The only issue is once they're in the US, you'll either need to pick them up at the east coast port or pay for further shipping to Colorado. The shipper will charge more to get stuff through customs.

I'd also contact US customs to clarify the forms you need to return stuff. I know how it works US to UK, but am going to contact customs about shipping stuff back the other way. For returning non-residents (I think you have to be gone for set period of time to qualify) you are allowed up to £2000 worth of goods before the forms get more complicated.

Hope this helps!
Kate

Posted by
157 posts

Recently shipped an pre-paid box of stuff home from France to USA. The cost for a very large box was about $50 (seems like it was about 35 euro). I don't know if you think that is expensive or not, but it was way cheaper than checking a bag and way more convenient than lugging it around. The box arrived in about a week.

You can also check out the rates online at La Poste (http://www.laposte.fr/particulier_4.html). All in French, but you can poke around the tariffs and get a good idea.

But the pre-paid box seems like one of the better deals going.

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