Effective March 25, 2021, the Postal Service™ is revising the Individual Country Listing for the United Kingdom (UK) in Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM®) to note that the UK has implemented a new model for collecting a value-added tax (VAT) on an item arriving from outside the UK to ensure that postal items containing goods from online marketplaces and overseas sellers account for the VAT at the point of sale.
This revision is based on a formal request that Royal Mail Group (the designated operator of United Kingdom) made through the Universal Postal Union via International Bureau Circular 207, dated December 21, 2020.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM)
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Individual Country Listings
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United Kingdom
Country Conditions for Mailing
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Observations
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[Add a new observation to read as follows:]
8. Effective January 1, 2021, for all goods sent to the UK not exceeding £135 in value, the UK will not accept for importation an item that has not had the value-added tax (VAT) collected at the time of sale, before importation. For international postal items containing goods exceeding £135 in value, the UK will continue to collect the VAT at the UK border at the time of import. Online marketplaces that facilitate the sale of goods will be responsible for collecting and accounting for the VAT. For goods sent from overseas and sold directly to UK consumers, the overseas seller will be required to register and account for the VAT to HM Revenue and Customs. These changes will not apply to consignments containing excise goods or to noncommercial transactions between private individuals (known as Consumer-to-Consumer or C2C). Further guidance is available at gov.uk/eori and at gov.uk/vat-registration.
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Although effective March 25, 2021, the Postal Service will incorporate this revision into a later edition of the online IMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification,
Product Solutions, 3-25-21
