Common reasons for applying for reimbursement (refund)

When you are entitled to apply to Customs for refund, you shall use the form in Altinn. Below, you will find the most common reasons to apply with examples. You shall not apply to Customs if your shipment has been cleared on a collective customs clearance or VAT has been charged double on a VOEC-shipment.

Collective customs clearance and VOEC-shipments

The customs do not process applications for refunds or corrections of declarations where the customs clearance has been done through a collective customs clearance. A collective customs clearance is a simplified customs clearance and applies to shipments to private persons where the value including shipping is between NOK 350 and 3000.

You shall not apply to Customs for refunds on wrongly charged import taxes on shipments from online stores registered with the VOEC-scheme, for example eBay, Alibaba, AliExpress or Amazon.

If your shipment was not part of a collective customs clearance and is not a VOEC-shipment you paid VAT double for, you can find information below on the most common reasons for applying for a refund, and about what the Customs can refund. 

Customs duties, excise duties and VAT

When you import goods from abroad, you may have to pay customs duties, excise duties and VAT in addition to the transport company's customs clearance fee. The import duties and taxes are determined by the kind of goods you are importing. Below we explain the different kinds of duties and taxes with examples. 

Customs duties

Customs duties or tariff is a tax imposed on imports (or exports) of goods. The rates are determined in the Customs Tariff. In short, there is only customs duty on clothing and other already made textiles like bed linen, curtains, towels etc., and on food and drinks. All other goods are free of Customs duty. 

Excise duties

This is a duty on imports of certain goods such as alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic beverages and beverage packaging. You will find a full overview of the various excise duties on the Tax Administrations website.

VAT

This is a general tax in imports of goods. The general rate is 25 % while it is 15 % on food and drinks (non-alcoholic).

Customs clearance fee

This is a fee charged by the carrier (for instance Posten, UPS, DHL, FedEx, TNT) for the Customs clearance of your shipment. The different transport companies have different names for this fee. Examples are "pris fortolling", "utleggsgebyr", "fortollingsgebyr" and "spedisjonsgebyr".

We would also like to inform you that the Customs cannot refund amounts below NOK 100. 