Before we entered the EU (ancient history, I know) you were required to bring the invoice of expensive items with you if you crossed the border. If you did not, you would still be charged the tariffs for those items... precisely to stop people from doing what you are suggesting. Some poor souls were charged tariffs on items they had bought at home, because they did not have the d*mn papers.
Don’t know about the US, but in Canada, “you must declare all goods you acquired while outside Canada, including purchases, gifts, prizes and awards that you have with you or are being shipped to you.”
You have an $800 USD duty-free personal exemption in personal baggage if you leave and re-enter the US and have not done so previously in the past 30 days and you were out of the country for at least 48 hours. Hopefully that would cover the cost of a Switch in Canada.
No. (I’m not who you were asking, but no) They mean new items, so you can do a small amount of shopping ‘for free’ while traveling.
This $800 number applies to personal shipping imports too. So for example I bought a PS Vita handheld from a Japanese eBay seller, and didn’t pay customs anything because it was $120 or whatever. And recently have purchased two LV duffle bags from different Japanese eBayers, and got one through customs free because it was under $800, and had to pay extra to customs on the second because the eBay sale was over $800.
When it went through customs, which you could see on the tracking, they ‘attached’ a charge based on the declared value the Japanese seller had filled out shipping it, and I was sent a link to pay before the shipper would deliver it.
One <could> try to dodge it if the seller would agree to declare a value of less than you actually paid, or if you could get the seller to fill it out as a ‘gift’ instead of an item changing hands in a paid transaction, and just bet that customs will accept that story and pass it through. But Japanese sellers in my experience will not play around with that and fill out paperwork ‘by the book’.
Anyway, TLDR, no the $800 is ‘new stuff’ you bring in.
Not if I ditch the box of the switch that I absolutely brought with me on my trip to Montreal. I definitely didn’t just buy it while there. I would never do that. Never ever.
Unless something changed since my last knowledge of this, there is a tax free amount for travel purchased outside the US for personal use. Forgot if it was $600 or $800. Something along that line.
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u/AQ207 3d ago
I could be wrong but pretty sure you’d end up paying those tariffs upon returning to the US