Since last July 1, 2021 , all purchases we make outside the European Union have to pay their corresponding VAT, either at origin or upon arrival in Spain. This mainly affects the purchases we make from China , which is one of the non-EU countries in which the most is bought from Spain. However, not everything is being so easy.
AliExpress announced that it would comply with the law, like the other Chinese stores. Thus, when looking for a product in the store, we saw a price that was later increased by 21% in the last step of the purchase. To avoid this, the store is trying to send as many orders as possible from within the European Union , either from Poland or even from Spain. The reason for choosing Poland is that it is one of the cheapest countries in the EU, and it is also one of the closest geographically to China.
AliExpress shows the final prices
However, in most cases we do not have the option to choose shipping from the EU , and we have to resort to China. A few weeks ago, AliExpress changed the way it displays the price , and now what we see in the search results is the final price including VAT . Even for products over 150 euros from China, when we go to pay, VAT is deducted because the import process is different and they have to pay VAT and the corresponding customs duty. In these cases it is usually better to choose shipping from the EU, since we will avoid any surprise payment, and the price we see is the final price.
However, even if you do everything correctly, there are many users who are complaining on social networks that they are charging VAT when receiving the product in Spain despite the fact that they already paid for it at origin, or at least that is what the store says. In the event that Correos does not know if the company is charging VAT correctly or not (for example, if there is no IOSS code), it may decide to charge it twice to make sure, and then it is the user who has to take care of claim.
Be careful who sends you the order
Some users point out that the problem comes when choosing the type of delivery. If we choose AliExpress Standard Shipping or AliExpress Saver Shipping, there is generally no problem. However, it may be that if the shipment is by Sunyou Post , then there are problems. In these situations, it is even possible to charge twice the VAT on the same order. At the same time, it is advisable to avoid shipping with private courier , since import management costs with companies such as DHL can give us a very serious scare, with figures of more than 50 euros per order.
In the event that you have been charged for double, you have to claim AliExpress to return the corresponding money if the seller has not correctly declared the VAT collected. In turn, we recommend that you pay VAT through ADTPostales yourself so that they do not charge you management fees. On that website you can easily pay by card, and then we can send the receipt to AliExpress so that they can return it to us in case of having paid it twice.