In my experience they will make you pay the tax. To get around the taxes you need to ship your things with-in 30 days of your arrival (doesn't need be your original arrival) to VN. And, make sure that the sender name is exactly the same as the receiver name. Even if the family name is the same but the first name is different they will tax you. It seems that everything is taxed at different rates so the process can take sometime. One way to avoid paying so much is to put some medicine in the package and claim that it is expensive. Medicine is non-taxable so if you do an itemization you can fudge things a little.
answered about 3 months ago by MaXo
Recently I brought in over 6 cubic meters of personal effects (3 items of furniture, 20 boxes of books, a bicycle, other household stuff). I used an international housemoving company, Crown Relocators, to do the job. While the stuff stayed in quarantine for a few weeks in Hai Phong, no tax was sought. Perhaps this is the secret - you get a reputable company to do the whole thing door-to-door, including customs clearance. That way you avoid all of the problems but you probably have to pay much more for it.
I am one of most experienced specialist at personal effects' shipments in Hanoi (from 1995 to now). We import & export around 400 shipments (all are personal effects) every year. I can confirm that since early 2007 there were no "cultural inspection" fees anymore! Anyone who charges you that fee is just telling a lie!
It's true that customs imposes import tax/duties on some items (mostly for electric goods/alcohol/bikes...) but the actual amount can be considerably reduced (up to 50%) with experienced moving firm (well, it's about the way of "declaring" goods on papers + a good relationship with customs dept). In fact, many of my clients imported belongings in full container without having to pay a penny!
And, of course, diplomats/UN/EU or NGO's shipments are tax-free.
Feel free to ask me if you need any professional advice on shipping of person effects.
