Hi,

I saw there are a couple of threads about iHerb but they're kind of outdated.

Anyone has any new experiences with iHerb and import duties? They have an option with DPD - all inclusive (link below) where, to my understanding, no duties are paid. My order should be around 100CHF (link below) and I have read that below 200CHF products are not subject to duties but this may be a very old information.

https://i.imgur.com/EKzlItQ.png

https://i.imgur.com/eUexm90.png

However, duties and taxes explanation says this:

https://i.imgur.com/U0XBonT.png

Now I am kind of bedazzled with that I am paying and not paying. Am I acquitted of paying duties or should I expect an overhead cost once I receive my products.

With iHerb you can elect to pay the Zol in advance, so your checkout including duties is correct. Are you using https://ch.iherb.com/ ?

My other half shops there all the time and Ive asked about the duties (because it gets delivered to my work) - she told me that it's paid in advance and I've never had to pay any Zol.

The delivery is super-fast as well.

As a South African I love saying Zol .

Customs duty and VAT start at CHF 62 - this includes the value of the goods and the shipping costs.

https://www.post.ch/en/business/a-z-...ustoms-and-vat

Books and things with the Special VAT rate of 2.5%: from CHF 200.

Gifts: from CHF 100.

I order from iherb all the time. When ordering at iherb or elsewhere, I always choose not to pay customs beforehand (if I can) because the customs duty and taxes are always added even if the total value is below CHF 62.

For an overview of the customs costs from post.ch for an order of CHF 233: https://www.post.ch/en/business/a-z-...earance-prices

So you pay no Zoll even if the products are worth more than 62CHF? I am also planning on getting these delivered to my workplace. I've read some nasty reviews about iHerb but it's mostly in the UK. Any yeah, I'm using the Swiss website

I have used iherb.com many times, shipping to Zurich. My orders are below $100 including shipping with DHL, which is over the CH60+ limit some have described. I dont know how iHerb calculates taxes, fees, duties, all that, but I have not yet had to pay anything above the total calculated at the end of the ordering process. And DHL delivers to my door, usually in about two days from the order date. Shipped from California!

Love it.

Hi. I have not read all the replies but i regularly order from iherb. Always between 100 and 200chf. Always with dhl and i have never had to pay anything extra. Usually 3day delivery time.

So I ordered for the first time a few weeks ago and kept my order under 62 francs, so I think it came to 59 with delivery. A few days later in the post I got a customs bill for around 30 francs if I recall correctly. I paid it as we were going on holiday but e mailed dhl a couple of times asking why and heard nothing back.

The same thing happened to me... Has anyone tried the prepaid customs option for SwissPost on iHerb recently?

I have done it twice in the last six months, the prepaid import tax option. Both times the orders were over 100 CHF. No extra charges on delivery = happy customer.

Both those times were DPD prepaid tax shipping, now it seems they have a PostFinance prepaid import tax delivery option, hopefully the same system.

Have been an iherb customer for years (in other countries) and still no massive complaints. Around July I ordered herbs/spices delivered to Zurich with DHL and one of the glass containers arrived shattered (contents completely unusable, contents all over the place) and another one with a superficial crack (contents were still consumable), sent iherb a facebook message with photos and they refunded the cost of both items.

Attached Images

 

Was it food you ordered? Or supplements/other things? I understand foodstuff is taxed differently.

spices, coconut flour, almond flour, cake/cookie mixes, teas, chocolate morsels, , salt, probiotics, vitamins and other supplements in that order.

Thanks! I just put in an order... Fingers crossed it doesn't surprise me again. Will update!

I always order from iherb, below CHF200 but above CHF65.- Never extra tax.
You'll be fine.

I order every few months as well, and never paid tax. My orders are usually between 50 and 100 chf.

Just as an update... Yup my order worked fine with the prepaid tax option! Ordered about 90CHF worth of supplements and snacks!

You shouldn't be paying any tax at all on supplements valued at less than 200 CHF (including postage). As long as the value (and the fact that it contains supplements) is declared correctly on the package, then there's usually no problem.

Yes. Although not everything purchased from iherb is a suppliment. Beauty products, for example, are probably taxed at the higher rate.

In that case, I would split the order between the 2.5% rated items and everything else (depending, of course, on whether the VAT savings outweighed the shipping costs).

BTW, do iherb really ship DHEA to Switzerland? The manufacturer (Life Extension) won't do that (along with melatonin in greater than 3mg doses). It's one of the things I normally stock up on when visiting the US.

I also ordered close to 60 chf and no hassle. I remember that adding a priority shipment option at the basked turned on the duty calculation as it detected correctly free amount so I reverted back to standard free shipment. No customs bill ;-)

I just tested ordering something from iHerb (I normally buy in bulk once a year direct from LEF in their 'SuperSale', but they're not so convenient for small orders) and I can confirm that they understand the SFr. 200 tax limit for supplements.

I ordered 5 bottles of NAD+, cost is SFr 179.88, using the 'Swiss Post Tax Prepaid' option, there was no additional shipping or tax cost. If I changed it to 6 bottles, which took it over SFr. 200, there was about SFr. 5 tax to pay.

I quite like iHerb. I'll use them for more stuff in the future.