JLCPCB - DHL Shipping to the UK

[Magiciaen]

I placed my first order with JLCPCB last week, and it was manufactured in just over 24 hours and shipped to the UK by DHL shortly after. As it was my first order, the total came out to just $32. I thought I would give a heads up though to users in the UK. I've just been contacted by DHL in England that they will deliver my package once I pay the import fees of $20. Puzzled, I gave them a call, as I shouldn't have to pay duty on such a small purchase. Apparently, the law is VAT has to be paid on anything over 15 GBP, and they add a further 10 GPB handling charge. Not happy about that at all... I think I may just not pay the charge and abandon the boards, since I've updated my design in any case. If one pays the full cost of DHL shipping with an order, it doesn't seem so cost effective anymore to order from China. A 4-layer PCB would cost in total $75 with all the charges. I looked at Wurth Elektronik, and my 4 layer PCB would cost 106 Euros with shipping, and of course no duty. The quality would of course also be far away better.

[bd139]

You have been charged correctly. In UK if you want snail mail with JLC then it'd attract the RM £8 fee. Anything over $15 attracts customs. Recently I bought an inverter for $20 from US and with duty, handling and shipping etc it came out at £45. That's life unfortunately.

JLC quality is pretty damn good. I'd like to see a comparison with Wurth.

[Magiciaen]

JLC quality is pretty damn good. I'd like to see a comparison with Wurth.

I'm interested in this too. I'm curious, so I think I'll pay the difference on the JLC boards just to check them out. While I was in the US, I almost always used Advanced Circuits and the quality was excellent. Their business model is quite outdated now though. I also used  to use Quickturn PCB, they made really high quality boards I needed for fabricating nanoscale neural probes. The specifications on those were pretty exacting. The only other vendor I've used is Seeed Studio - the boards 'mostly' worked, and the quality difference was very obvious. Now that I'm in Europe, I'm looking for the best 'go to' PCB solution over here. Seems Eurocircuits and Wurth are the two to I need to try. The price really isn't that much higher than JLC for a prototype board.

[stmdude]

So, I've been wondering..  Aren't _unpopulated_ PCB excempt from import duties?

TARIC "8534 00 11" is for multilayer PCBs, and the duty is "Free" according to https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R1602&qid=1546288201726&from=EN

 

[Mr. Scram]

So, I've been wondering..  Aren't _unpopulated_ PCB excempt from import duties?

TARIC "8534 00 11" is for multilayer PCBs, and the duty is "Free" according to https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R1602&qid=1546288201726&from=EN

Import duties and VAT aren't the same thing. It just means you don't get another fee slapped on.

[Wilksey]

VAT has to be paid on everything, import duties are different.

DHL seem to be the worst for charges.  Most snail mail from China come through RM with no fees attached.

The trick is to get the sender to mark down the package or send it as samples of no commercial value, most will do this, or send it as gift under $35 I think is the threshold.

I got lumbered with this before as the seller actually marked the price wrong and put the price is as more than I paid    Unfortunately it didn't much ice with DHL, fortunately they "lost" my package and they said it has been both....Delivered and sent back to the sender....so they have been "investigating" since November, not heard a sausage from them, and I don't honestly expect to.

[xdave]

As mentioned blank PCBs into the EU are duty free if correctly declared.  VAT is charged on the full cost of the transaction, which is both the material cost (which can be under-declared, unlawfully) and also the shipping costs (which cannot be under-declared as the shipper knows what they charged).

As all DHL Express shipping from China to the UK is above the current import VAT threshold you will always pay VAT plus their disbursement account fee.  If you are VAT registered and you are importing to carry out a trade then you can usually reclaim the VAT aspect so under-declaring won't make any difference, and as mentioned it is unlawful anyway, but the fee for using DHL's disbursement account is a non-recoverable cost.

If you are importing a lot then you can apply to HMRC for your own Deferment Approval Number which lets you defer both import VAT and duty and DHL will use your DAN when declaring with no extra fee, but you will need to post security to be a debtor to HMRC (either directly, or via a letter of credit).  It is not a good route for everyone - having a good locally-based freight forwarder is almost always a better option if your import volumes justify it.

With DHL it is easy to have them invoice you without delaying your shipments, so you can pay via a debtor account (not the same as a shipper account).  All you need is an EORI which anyone can obtain - individual or company.  Provide it to them along with your name/business name and any delivery addresses you may use and they will automatically link the imports to your account and send your invoice either electronically or in the post.

[Durandal]

Hey everybody, first post here. I just placed an order with JLCPCB to test the whole process. Chose DHL since I want to get the baords before spring arrives..
The cost of the boards is about 6 €, almost 30 € with DHL shipping. Would not surprice me if the total cost is around 50 € before it's all said and done (for 6 € worth of boards) but not a lot of choices...

I looked at what Eurocircuits and Wurth offer and their prices are easily doubled and that for only one or two boards wth no frills. So bottom line, even with VAT, DHL fees and possibly customs duty it's still difficult to beat China pricing for small proto type boards.

[TomS_]

Dont forget, that the value of the product includes the cost of shipping it, so if your product costs £10 and shipping costs £20, you will pay VAT on £30.

DHLs handling charge is a bit ridiculous. I had a bill for some boards recently, it was about £20 VAT and £11 for their handling charge. I was expecting it as Ive dont this a couple of times now, but it still sucks. I hate to think how much they are raking in each day from these charges.

VAT is an "end consumer" charge, and as the "end consumer" of the product you are importing you have to pay it. If you are importing as a business for the purpose of resale, you would be able to claim back any VAT paid because you are not the consumer.

Chalk it up to experience, and factor the cost of shipping plus taxes and other charges in to the price of each of the boards you order next time around.

[ciccio]

I've just finished a phone call with DHL customer support asking some explanations about their custom charges, but I did not fully understand their reasonig.
This is the story of 4 orders with PCBway:
order no. 1 : PCB price : 23 US$ , DHL delivery : 20 US$  : total 43 US$ = 38.41 Euro : DHL freight charge : ZERO (?)
order no. 2 : PCB price : 41 US$ , DHL delivery : 20 US$  : total 61 US$ = 53.58 Euro : DHL freight charge : 28.25 Euro
order no. 3 : PCB price : 42 US$ , DHL delivery : 25 US$  : total 67 US$ = 58.31 Euro : DHL freight charge : 38.53 Euro
order no. 4 : PCB price : 11 US$ , DHL delivery : 21 US$  : total 32 US$ = 28.06 Euro : DHL freight charge : 31.78 Euro

The DHL freight charge  includes import VAT (22%) and DHL administrative charges (fixed at 13.50 Euro + VAT = 16.47 Euro)
A simple calculation shows that DHL used a supposed  value of 53.55 Euro for order no 1(correct),  100.27 Euro for order no 3, 69.59 Euro for order no. 4

I asked to explain these differences, and I was told that maybe they added the cost of insurance to the cost of goods + delivery to obtain what is called "statistic" value, even if it is not exposed in the invoice, and I never paid for it..
My opinion is that I was ripped off, but they told me that if I want to open a dispute I must pay them a fixed (by law) fee of 30 Euro.
This is a total rip-off, and next week I'll search for advice.

The nice part of this story is my very good esperience with PCBway The quality is really good, and their customer support is amazing.
Order no 4 was plagued with errors I made in generating the Gerber files (sent on friday evening).
We exchanged e-mails on saturday morning, sunday afternoon, monday mornig.
To-day (friday) I received the PCBs, with only  one day delay on normal delivery time.

Best regards

[RobBarter]

Just had my first order with JLCPCB arrive.  Went the snail mail route but still only 10 days from uploading gerber files to the 10 boards (9.98cm * 8.5cm) dropping through my letter box here in the UK.  Total cost £7.48.  I've paid more for a pint of beer!

Oh - and they look good as well.

[rbm]

DHL shipping is the one factor that dissuades me from using JLCPCB.  I used their service one and, like you, was very happy with the quality of the product and responsiveness of the company.  However, whenever I compose an order with them for boards, the only shipping options to Canada that I am offered  are via DHL.  I've been burned too many times with DHL to ever risk agreeing to a product delivery through them.  This is very unfortunate for JLCPCB because I prefer them over many other PCB houses.

[Doctorandus_P]

I have bought for thousands of EUR of stuff from ALi express.

DHL are lying bastards. I have no better words for it, only worse.
Here in the Netherlands they do all the customs processing in house, and they charge redicilous handling fees.

I've had packets of around EUR 100 for which I've had to pay extra customs and BTW costs of around EUR 30.
DHL however manages to inflate costs for a EUR50 packet for which I also already paid EUR25 for shipping with additional extra EUR45 for "customs and handling costs".
I have bluntly refused to DHL that I ordered a packet. Anybody can write my address on a packet and I'm not responsible for that.

When doing business with Ali Express then I always try to make sure that it is NEVER shipped with DHL.
Sometimes they still ship with DHL.
Once I had a packet (worth EUR 400), which was "free shipping" with DHL, and EUR 75 shipping with another method.
I selected the other method and had a back and forth conversation with the seller.
Later I discovered in the tracking information that is was still being shipped with DHL and I started inquiring before the packet arrived.
The response was: "Special delivery, customs already paid for, do not worry".
And indeed I got the packet from a DHL employee without any extra charges.

In most of Europe cents are considered not worth the trouble, But I've had DHL deliveries for which I had to pay EUR 24,02 and then DHL insists on paying the last 2 cents in cash, while nobody has cents anymore. (I checked, they are legally allowed to demand those 2ct).
Once I got so angry at one of those poor little guys who try to scrape a living together by working for DHL that I phisically wrestled my packet out of his hands and threw the door closed in his face without paying.
And then of course proceeded by making a bank transfer to pay for billed costs.

TNT and FedEx handle it differently.
They simply deliver the package, and then one or 2 weeks later you get a nice bill for the customs & BTW (much lower than DHL charges) which you can pay within a reasonable timeframe.

Another trick of DHL is to throw away the tracking numbers and invent new ones.
Some times I have more than 10 packages under way and then such a DHL courrier comes and wants you to pay for some packet without having a decent bill and not even knowing wat is in the packet. It could be any of those 10 or more items.

If you can wait a few weeks, then I believe JLCPCB has an alternative cheaper shipping method.
With those alternative methods packets below EUR 60 often arrive here in the Netherlands without having to pay extra customs fees.