|
Importing goods into Croatia seems to be one of the biggest problems that new owners are currently experiencing.
You may be considering driving down to Croatia with a van of furniture to stock your house once you have bought a property. This will lead to problems at the Slovenian border. The Customs officials are there to make sure that goods are not smuggled into Croatia without paying VAT (PDV) and Duty. The Croatian government wants to protect their local industry from imported goods.
PDV (or VAT) is chargeable on all goods that you bring into the country, as are any Import duties.
This applies to new goods as well as old.
In the past if travelling with a small amount of used goods-vans have been waved through by saying "used goods" (upotrebljene stvari) and nothing new (nista novo).
These days appear to be behind us!
If wishing to import the safest way is to have a Temporary or Permanent Residence visa.
If you have applied and been GRANTED a Temporary Residence Visa, then there is no Duty or PDV to pay if the following stipulations are met:
1) The Croatian customs provisions regarding the treatment of foreign residents are mostly harmonized with EU Custom's provisions, i.e. with Council Regulation No 918/83, with few differences regarding time limits.
Natural persons transferring their residence to the Republic of Croatia shall be admitted free of import duty. According to Article 187 Paragraph 1 Item 11 of Croatian Customs Code, the relief shall apply to household articles, if the relief user:
- has been resident of a foreign country over a period of at least 3 years before the transfer
- has not used neither this relief nor any other corresponding relief granted by any repealed customs regulation before the transfer, and
- imports the household articles which he had possessed and used at his normal place of residence abroad for a minimum of 12 months
An application for the relief must be submitted to the customs office competent for the relevant place of residence or temporary residence in the Republic of Croatia, accompanied by a document on his residence or temporary residence in the Republic of Croatia.
If you do not have a Temporary or Residency Permit then the following applies:
2) Foreign natural persons which do not have a temporary residence in Croatia, but which have bought property (holiday houses) in Croatia should pay all import duties (customs and tax rate) for all furniture they import into Croatia.
What is increasingly happening is that your lorry will sit at the border whilst the authorities work through their paperwork.
Import Duties are decided by the Customs Officers who works through a Spedicija to levy any charges from the importer. Spedicija charge for their services / administration and this is typically between £50 & £100 (max). There are no hard and fast rules on the charge amounts for Import and Tax duties, the Customs Officers supposedly have a guideline book they work off, but this is not available to the public.
It should take approx 1 day for the Customs Officers to release the lorry / goods and it can take anything from a few days to 2 weeks to get an invoice. The Spedicija should though be able to tell you if there are any extra charges likely to be levied, but he is unlikely to be specific until the paperwork has come through from the Customs officer.
The solution
If you have no intention of applying for residency but wish to import goods from the UK to furnish your new holiday home then you must employ a reputable removals company to take a secure container over the border to various customs points in Croatia. They then deal with the paperwork on your behalf and pay any taxes and will usually then forward the goods on to your residence.
Recouping these costs
In the case of the import of goods, a tax liability shall arise on the day a customs debt arises. The tax shall be calculated and collected by the customs house that carries out the customs clearing proceedings at the same time as the calculation and collection of the customs debt, according to regulations about calculation and collection of the customs debt. In practice, a forwarder which one uses for custom declaration calculates custom and VAT. The amount of value added tax calculated and collected by the customs office in the course of imports should be treated as tax prepayment.
Basically this means that if you have a Croatian registered company and are declared for PDV, you can offset the charges, and claim the PDV back. You are unlikely to be PDV registered if your declared turnover is less than 85,000 Kuna. You should speak to your accountant to get more details.
Also the actual removers costs are charges that are deductible business expenses from any profit you generate, no matter if you bought as a company or as private individual.
The official customs website (English version planned!) is at:
http://www.carina.hr
There is another way!
You could always hire a van in Croatia and drive to places like Split and Zagreb and equip your house using Croatian goods.
The following removals company is recommended by Croatia Holiday and Home:
KMG Usluge (Services) d.o.o.
A Croatian registered company run by an Englishman and his Croatian wife. KMG offer a range of service to assist UK Nationals to buy, build, renovate and relocate to Croatia. Their services include:
- Relocation Services
- Removals from the UK to Croatia
- Import Paperwork
Click here for more information about KMG's services.
|
