Account
Wanted
International shipping?
Does anyone have experience of shipping a tandem from the USA to the UK???
I purchased a custom built Santana tandem from Santana in California in 2017 and arranged for it to be shipped to myself in Scotland. Having obtained several quotes for air freight, I went with DHL Global Forwarding who were significantly cheaper than the others. The cost was around $460 from the factory in LA to the DHL depot at Glasgow Airport from where I had to collect it. Bear in mind that if you're importing a tandem from the US, you have to pay VAT at 20% on the cost (or value if it's secondhand), and import duty too. The rate of duty is a further 14% on a complete bike, or 4.7% on 'bike components'. This will be paid by the shipping company to HMRC, and they will generally only release the goods once this has been reimbursed to them. It can be quite an expensive business!