Moving a workshop from Norway (non-EU) to France (EU)

Does anyone either have experience with or know someone I should talk to about moving my small workshop of manual machine tools into the EU without having trouble with tolls, taxes, CE marks etc? Most of these machines came from the EU in the last few years but don't have CE marks etc as they are 1960's vintage Schaublins. Norway doesn't care about CE and already charged VAT on my imports. I think these issues are more or less the same as moving machines from Switzerland into the EU.

Should I try to move them as personal goods, personally get them over the boarder to Sweden (EU) and then ship from there? perhaps I should take them apart and send them as parts. We are talking about two lathes, a mill, a small grinder and a bit of tooling, probably 5 pallets total with a Schaublin 135 being the largest machine. I only have a normal drivers license so in Europe I can't personally drive a truck and/or trailer big enough to haul these to France which would probably be the ideal option.

I have a company in Norway (AS which is basically an LLC) but have not set up one in France yet as it is rather involved and doing taxes in two countries (I am American and therefore get to file US taxes even if I don't live there) is already enough of a pain. I can do it if required but that that would be a good thing to know if I must. I plan on buying a workshop for the machines near the town where we live in France.

Not that it really matters but these machines are going all the way to the far corner of France near the Mediterranean and Spanish boarder.

I have considered selling the machines in Norway and buying new (old) machines down here. I just hate the hassle of selling things. I know the issues etc with the current machines and would probably loose a good bit if I had to sell on the Norwegian market which won't pay as much as down in Europe. I also need to be able to get the workshop up and running again in the near term which unless I want to buy new machines isn't simple to do.

thanks

Luke

Norway is in EFTA and the EEA. I think you should not have any problems just loading the machines into a truck and moving them. Obviously have to sort things out with the french factory inspectors if you're using them for business at that end.

thanks Mark,

From what I have seen so far it is not quite that simple, while trade is free in that there should no duties etc or limits outside certain controlled products (alcohol tobacco), unlike in the EU, EEA countries such as Norway are not in the common VAT scheme. This means everything goes through the customs system when it goes between the EU and Norway mostly so they can charge insane fees for collecting taxes. Moving personal goods requires considerable paperwork and documentation of every item moved. There is a limited window from when you move to the EU during which you can import personal goods without paying taxes. This makes me think moving the machines will also be an issue.

Another example is just sending a machine from Norway to the EU and back again, earlier this year I was in contact with a machine tool grinding company in Germany about having my 135 lathe worked on. They have done two 135's for people I know in Norway but after the last one said that they would never do it again as the paperwork is far too difficult.

I also remember talking to a machine tool dealer in the Netherlands when I came down to buy my Schaublin 102. He said that they were dealing with big fines for importing a machine from Switzerland without doing something correctly. (I think CE marks but don't remember)

Hopefully a good shipping company will know how to handle it but I am hoping for some more input as well.
thank you
Luke

You may want to ask that in this forum Usinages

I know the president of the site and will link this thread to him....if you want to private message me your email address I can give it to him. Rich

I have some experience over 27 years doing this type of stuff for me and professionally for others.

If you own the stuff just ship it as used machine tools- personal goods.
Insure/ship it for the real replacement value.
List it.
This is very cheap == 100-200€ or less.

"Personal goods" can be moved tax free into the EU.
(We own a law office specialising in foreign biz. with == 16 people and 1000+ cases of experience.
My comments are my own.)

The customs cares about vat tax avoidance, where people ship stuff they then sell with/without vat.
And vehicles.
98% you can just do it - no-one cares.

If you want, You can call the french customs department in advance. Free.
Someone there can/will tell you by email that personal-use vintage machine tools not meant for resale will not incur taxes or vat.

Anything you ship by container will go through 99.x%.
Listing your tools and insuring them reduces likelyhood of theft 99%.


It does not matter if your personal tools cost e.g. 2M$, or more.
As long as they are yours, and you are not a dealer selling for profit, there is no problem.

Any samples of anything in paperwork you wish to submit, are likely to be admitted as gospel.
Stuff you made /(web page printouts are fine) with the machines, clubs you belong to, whatever you want.

The customs will in 100% of cases, in my experience, 300 cases-27 years, accept any real reasonable explanation.
I have been inspected 3-4 times and all were painless - sometimes the shipped stuff was blocked for days or upto weeks.


Recap:
It is easy, free and no-hassle to bring anything personal into the EU (ex guns/vehicles).
Listing and insuring it is an excellent idea on shipping.
Pallet+box everything - otherwise it gets stolen like My BP.

I'm from EU, and as Hanermo said - stuff gets difficult when you buy/sell and deal with VAT (too many VAT chargeback schemers here...), but if you're just moving your own stuff, there should be 0 problems, especially if the VAT for them is already payed for (meaning you bought them for net price + VAT, not VAT-free as a business).

I know few guys here that brought used machines and tools from Norway, never heard any of them say anything about difficulties in customs, I bought some used stuff from auctions in Switzerland, payed their VAT, and the goods got brought in into the EU by a private courier with zero paperwork afair, they just showed the payed invoice with VAT included on the border and got through.

I'd contact some major cargo company and tell them you want your old machines moved from here to there, they should have a customs broker who will tell you what's involved exactly, and usually they can deal with all of it for you for a fee, last year I imported a machine from far east and the cargo company customs broker charged something like 40EUR for the paperwork... just not worth it dealing with all that yourself

Thanks for the replies, hanermo and jz79, I will talk to some freight carriers and say, hopefully it won't be a problem. If anyone asks I don't think it will be hard to explain this isn't for resale. It wouldn't make much sense to ship stuff from Europe to Norway, and then back to Europe just to sell it again a couple years later.

I have talked to some companies that move household goods and if I could add the workshop to the household boxes it would be very cost effective although unfortunately they typically can't work with pallets so I might have to spit it up as the household stuff would be a bit of a pain to get all on pallets.

Can anyone recommend a freight company that does the Norway to southern France/Spain route? I am about an hour off the E15 near Perpignan.

Thanks

Luke