Importing To Belgium & Neighboring Countries

[oli4_182]

Hi everybody

 

I would like to know some experiences from people in Belgium and close countries (Germany, Holland, France, UK,...), when they imported a sword from Japan.
I'm interested in buying a sword from a very known online seller in Japan (AOI). But i'm not certain about importing.

How long will it take until the sword gets here, are we speaking about weeks or months?

Did someone never received their sword, do you always have to pay customs fees, what if customs don't allow it?

 

And then specifically for Belgium. Do i have do to any registration/paperwork before importing a sword into the country?
Or where can i find this information?

 

I know it's a lot of questions, but i would really like to know. Because this is something i've never done before and it's something that i'm not so certain about, if everything will work out.

 

Thanks in advance, with kind regards

Olivier A.

 

 

 

And a happy new year to everyone here!

[Emma]

Hello Olivier

I have bought from two Japanese dealers , one directly and the other by e-bay , and everything went fine . But you have to pay taxes: sometimes high because of a big packaging (???) to the postman when he delivers the item.In France.

Best Regards

Emma

[TADAYOSHI]

Happy New year to everybody

 

My shipment from Japan came EMPTY at my house near Brussels last week .

The KOSHIRAE I have ordered in Japan via EBAY has been retrieved from the box by a postman

Actualy the box passed the  belgian customs, they calculated the VAT and the Duties, meaning that the box still contained the item at the very moment. 

The Koshirae has been stolen between the customs office and the delivery of the empty box at my place.

Thank you Bpost

 

Todayoshi

 

BTW for Oliver... In Belgium it is forbiden to import swords and any other weapon parts via internet, that is the reason why I only try to import a Koshirae with a wooden blade ( Tsunagi)

I dont remember the detail of the (recent) law but I recommand not to do if you dont want to have the "milkman" at your house at 6 AM 

[Nihonto1973]

Hi Olivier ,

 

I took the easy way past year .

I found a nice katana with koshirae in france .

Theire's a salesman who helpt me out verry Well .

Look at his site ( nihontofrance ,florian sala ) , maybe you will find there what you are looking for ???

I had a great contact with him .....

From france to Belgium only took 3 days to recieve the package .

No fees,btw,customs .......not compicated.

I'm flemish , my english is crap ( but i'm trying ), if you want to cominicate in flemish for more questions , send a pm ????

 

Kind regards ,

 

Joo

[Nihonto1973]

happy newyear to all the members !

[Emma]

Todayoshi, I thought antique Japanese swords were antiquities and not weapons ? So I was inguinely going on ...

Emma

[DirkO]

Hi Olivier,

 

It's perfectly possible to correctly import nihonto in Belgium. A few remarks :

- any weapon over 100 years old is considered an antique, this should also allow you to get the 6% import duty instead of 21%, be sure to use the correct harmonized tariff

- you can use EMS/BPost/USPS as a carrier, however if you use DHL/UPS, it will save you some time seeing they do their own declarations

- make sure everything is labelled correctly, but try not to use 'sword' 'weapon' or similar terms. I usually stick to Japanese Antique.

- on average it will take you roughly 2-3 weeks of waiting before the package will arrive at your door.

[Jean]

Minimum more or less three weeks because the sword has to be deregistered first, it takes two weeks.

[DirkO]

Minimum more or less three weeks because the sword has to be deregistered first, it takes two weeks.

Jean is right, my 2-3 weeks are counted from when it is actually shipped from Japan. Also seeing you're from Brugge, it would be wise to contact Zénon Van Damme, a very knowledgeable and helpfull man who only lives a few minutes further. You can always PM me for his details.

[Jean]

In France, it is generally two weeks from shipment.

[oli4_182]

Hi everybody

 

Thanks for all te replies! This gave me a good overview about everything.

I'm not in a hurry so i will look into everything, thanks for all the tips.

 

Happy New year to everybody

 

My shipment from Japan came EMPTY at my house near Brussels last week .

The KOSHIRAE I have ordered in Japan via EBAY has been retrieved from the box by a postman

Actualy the box passed the  belgian customs, they calculated the VAT and the Duties, meaning that the box still contained the item at the very moment. 

The Koshirae has been stolen between the customs office and the delivery of the empty box at my place.

Thank you Bpost

 

Todayoshi

 

BTW for Oliver... In Belgium it is forbiden to import swords and any other weapon parts via internet, that is the reason why I only try to import a Koshirae with a wooden blade ( Tsunagi)

I dont remember the detail of the (recent) law but I recommand not to do if you dont want to have the "milkman" at your house at 6 AM 

How is it possible to import a real sword into Belgium then?

 

 

Hi Olivier ,

I took the easy way past year .
I found a nice katana with koshirae in france .
Theire's a salesman who helpt me out verry Well .
Look at his site ( nihontofrance ,florian sala ) , maybe you will find there what you are looking for ???
I had a great contact with him .....
From france to Belgium only took 3 days to recieve the package .
No fees,btw,customs .......not compicated.
I'm flemish , my english is crap ( but i'm trying ), if you want to cominicate in flemish for more questions , send a pm

Kind regards ,

Joo

Thank you, i will look into this, you never know that i will find something that suits me.

 

 

Hi Olivier,

It's perfectly possible to correctly import nihonto in Belgium. A few remarks :
- any weapon over 100 years old is considered an antique, this should also allow you to get the 6% import duty instead of 21%, be sure to use the correct harmonized tariff
- you can use EMS/BPost/USPS as a carrier, however if you use DHL/UPS, it will save you some time seeing they do their own declarations
- make sure everything is labelled correctly, but try not to use 'sword' 'weapon' or similar terms. I usually stick to Japanese Antique.
- on average it will take you roughly 2-3 weeks of waiting before the package will arrive at your door.

So if the word sword or weapon would be on the package, it wouldn't be allowed in to the country i guess?

 

 

Jean is right, my 2-3 weeks are counted from when it is actually shipped from Japan. Also seeing you're from Brugge, it would be wise to contact Zénon Van Damme, a very knowledgeable and helpfull man who only lives a few minutes further. You can always PM me for his details.

PM send, thanks!

 

 

Thanks again!
Kind regards
Olivier A.

[Wim V]

BTW for Oliver... In Belgium it is forbiden to import swords and any other weapon parts via internet, that is the reason why I only try to import a Koshirae with a wooden blade ( Tsunagi)

I dont remember the detail of the (recent) law but I recommand not to do if you dont want to have the "milkman" at your house at 6 AM

Dear Francis,

 

I hope you don't mind me asking, but I wonder where you got this information? A friend of mine is a police officer and he keeps me up to date from time to time on the legislation in Belgium: to his knowledge Japanese swords are not mentioned as being forbidden or illegal weapons in the Belgian law. There might be an exception for moroha-tsukuri blades, as double edged knives or daggers are mentioned as being illegal, so a moroha-blade could give you some problems maybe when it is inspected by customs. I don't know if anyone in Belgium has experiences trying to import such a blade.

 

Just like other Belgian collectors, I have ordered more than one Nihonto in the last 10 years from Japan and from the US, and I never had any problem importing them. One of my purchases was from ebay (a blade located in the US), and this also went smoothly, so there is no issue buying through the internet.

 

Like Dirk said, 2 to 3 weeks waiting time (from start of shipment) is normal, and you will always have to pay the import taxes, 6% or 21% depending on antique or not.

 

Wim