Prohibited Items, Customs and VAT: A Buyer's Survival Guide

The most expensive mistake a first-time buyer makes is not choosing the wrong shipping tier. It is putting one prohibited item in a parcel — because seizure is charged to the whole shipment, not the offending item. Your other nine items go with it, and no compensation is payable.

Here is what to know before you buy.

Absolutely prohibited

No legitimate agent will ship these, and asking is a red flag against you:

• Counterfeit goods — replicas, unauthorised branded goods, fake receipts or authenticity cards
• Weapons — firearms, ammunition, parts, locking-blade knives, batons, tasers, pepper spray, crossbows
• Drugs and controlled substances, including precursors and paraphernalia
• Live animals and plants, animal parts, ivory, endangered species products
• Currency, counterfeit money, negotiable instruments, bullion
• Human remains, organs, bodily fluids
• Child sexual abuse material
• Hazardous materials — explosives, flammables, compressed gases, corrosives, oxidisers, toxins, over-limit magnets
• Radioactive material
• Stolen data, account credentials, card-skimming devices

Our full list, including the legal reasoning, is at Prohibited & Restricted Items.

Restricted: shippable, but conditionally

Why one bad item costs you the parcel

Customs officials assess the consignment, not individual lines on a form. A seizure notice applies to the shipment. There is no mechanism by which the authority unpacks your parcel, removes the offending item and forwards the rest.

So the arithmetic is brutal:

one prohibited item  →  whole parcel seized  →  no compensation  →  freight not refunded

This is why we refuse counterfeits even when a buyer insists, and why we will cancel an order rather than ship something we know cannot clear.

How customs assesses value

Three inputs, in order of weight:

1. The declared value you or we put on the paperwork.
2. The invoice or receipt, if the shipment is inspected and the declared value looks low.
3. The authority's own reference price for the category, used when there is no credible invoice.

Under-declaring is the mistake that turns a routine clearance into a seizure. It is also pointless on a tax-included line: the line has already pre-settled the duty, so under-declaring saves nothing and only caps your own insurance.

Describe goods specifically. "Gift" or "sample" on a commercial shipment invites inspection. "1 × cotton men's jacket" does not.

VAT, duty and who pays

The handling fee is the part buyers forget. On a cheap parcel it can exceed the tax itself. See What is DDP shipping?.

If you are VAT-registered and reclaim input tax, a DDP line can be the wrong choice — you cannot reclaim VAT you never paid.

Destination quirks worth knowing

• Australia / New Zealand — food, plant material and wooden items face heavy restrictions; declare them or lose them.
• United States — de minimis rules have been under active revision; the only way to guarantee a predictable total is a tax-included line.
• United Kingdom — VAT plus a carrier handling fee on non-DDP parcels; the handling fee is often the larger number.
• European Union — VAT applies to essentially all commercial consignments; CE marking matters for electronics, and non-compliant goods can be seized.
• Canada — duty and GST/PST assessed on arrival for non-DDP lines.

Before you pay, ask

If you are unsure whether something can ship, ask us in advance. We would far rather answer a question than cancel an order or eat a seizure.

Send the listing link and the destination to hello@mochibuy.com, or paste it into the homepage box and tell us in the notes field what you are worried about. We will tell you what we know before any money changes hands.

Related reading

• Prohibited & Restricted Items — the full list
• Refunds & Returns — including what happens when a parcel is seized
• Insurance & Compensation — what is covered and what never is