We all know when shopping from foreign countries, it’s a pain paying the custom fees. There are some ways to avoid the fees, at least in Norway it is. And now you get to know how to.

There is a “toll-free” limit in Norway and thats 200 nok, over 200 nok you need to pay extra. So there is one good way to solve this problem, at least the method I use the most. It also depends if the seller/shop will cooperate with you. As far as I’ve seen all HK-shops will do so, bending the law is better than getting a unhappy customer.

If you’re shopping on eBay or some other shop, there is always a note-field or some place to write a message to the seller when finishing you’re payment. And in that field I use to write the following:

“IMPORTANT: Please mark package as Gift, and lower the value to under 30$. And remove this message from the reciept”

What that does is, they mark the package as a Gift. There is a Gift limit, and it’s around 1000 nok as far as I know. So if the customs receive a package marked as a Gift, and it’s under 1000 nok it will in most cases pass right trough. This is not a Guarantee, the customs will in some cases open you’re shipment for inspection. Then they will find a receipt, who sends a Gift to someone with a receipt?

So therefore I get them to lower the value on the package to under 30$, in most cases they just look at the package value and since it’s lower than 200 nok they’ll just let it pass. But then again if they now check the contents of the package? Yes now we come to the last point, remove the message from the receipt. So they can’t find a message telling them to lower the value.

And that’s it. All of my packages with this message to the seller has been a success. Notice this, I wrote this guide with experience from the Norwegian customs.

P.S some shipping insurance is calculated from the value of the shipment, so if you’re package is lost…. but then again who often does that happen?

Happy shopping!