Tax-Free Shopping  
for International Buyers

  One of the many things that most International buyers enquire about when shopping from the UK is how they can claim the 20% Value Added Tax (VAT) paid on goods purchased from UK retailers back, since they will not be consumed or used in the UK, and the final destination of such goods is outside the UK. It also doesn’t help that since the 1st of January 2021, after the end of the Brexit transition period, the UK government abolished tax-free shopping and VAT RES (Retail Export Scheme), which allowed retailers of goods to sell at ports and airports, and zero-rate the sale to passengers departing for non-EU destinations; or allow non-EU visitors to recover the VAT on purchases made on Great Britain high street, taken home with them in their luggage. The same can be said of online shoppers from outside the UK too. 

 Unfortunately, online retailers in the UK who are registered for VAT purposes and do not ship abroad cannot sell to international buyers tax-free, neither can they refund the VAT paid for such purchases even when they allow them to shop on their website since they can only send their order to an address in the UK, such as a parcel forwarding company.

How Others Save you 20% VAT

As a response to the end of tax-free shopping in the UK, what other parcel forwarding companies that wish to still enable tax-free shopping from the UK to international buyers are doing is to provide international shoppers with a tax-free warehouse address in some of the self-governing Crown Dependencies like the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man. They then ask their customers to use such addresses when checking out from a retailer's website. This on the surface sounds like a smart way to cut off the 20% VAT. However, the challenge with this is that apart from the fact that most online retailers will not agree to ship to these destinations, and some will only refund the 20% VAT after the package has been delivered; most importantly, once these packages are in any of these warehouses, the shipping options available to forward these packages to their final country of destination drastically reduces, and there is a potential risk of receiving higher quotes from the parcel forwarding company and paying more to forward your package to the destination country of choice.

Bypass Paying VAT by using Our Personal Shopper Service

As a VAT registered business that ships packages internationally, we are legally permitted to zero-rate VAT sales made to international customers with a final delivery address outside the UK. Hence, when you come to us and request a personal shopper quote for items you wish to purchase from another VAT registered online retailer, provided the item(s) are not already zero-rated for VAT purposes, we promise to respond with a quote that is lesser than what is displayed on the retailers’ website by removing the 20% VAT. You also do not need to wait until your package arrives at our warehouse before getting back the 20% VAT. Your final quote from us instantly reflects the 20% VAT deduction, regardless of the number of online retailers you require us to purchase from in a single quotation request submitted, leaving you to use your savings on whatever suits you best. The only fee we will charge you which will be added to the quote will be our 10% processing fee or £15, whichever is greater. This means that if you are making the purchase(s) from online retailer(s) with a final price, including VAT, of £100 and above which ordinarily you are required by law to pay as they do not ship abroad, the total we will charge you to make the same purchase on your behalf will be £98.33 and above, no questions asked, and no additional paperwork to complete. All you need to do to take advantage of this is to create an account by following this link, submitting a ‘Personal Shopper’ quote request by using the ‘Personal Shopper’ tab on your customer dashboard and completing the form on the page. We always respond to quote requests within hours of them being submitted during working hours, or within 2 hours on the next working day.        

All Forwarding Options Still Available at the Same Price

Unlike other UK parcel forwarding companies that will have very limited courier options to forward your tax-free shopping to you at your international destination, due to most mainstream couriers not having a good presence in some of the self-governing Crown Dependencies, where parcels are required to be picked up from; we guarantee that our full forwarding options and services will still be available to all our customers regardless of them benefitting from our Vat free shopping or not, from UK online retailers. We also will not charge anything more on top of the specific parcel forwarding fees that those who have not used the tax-free shopping are required to pay to forward their package to the same country. That way all our shoppers with similar volumetric weight packages receive the same forwarding quotes to ship their order to the same country.

UK Delivery Address

Our UK online personal shopping service is available to all members. You can make your request as soon as you sign up. A team member from our dedicated staff team will then access and respond to your request. You can be guaranteed that provided the item being purchased is from a VAT registered UK online retailer who has the product available for sale, and the good(s) is not already zero-rated for VAT purposes, you will receive a quote from us, requiring you to pay a fee 20% less than the final price displayed by the retailer, except for our 10% or £15 (whichever is greater) processing fee, added to the sub-total.

You can count on us for the most reliable UK personal shopper service that gets the job done. Signup today and start enjoying your time to unwind while we do the hard work for you. You can also chat with us directly by following this link or ring us during our office hours at +44 1902 272004.