Can anyone tell me if I bought a fly rod in the U.S.A. would I have to pay import tax on it when I bring it home if I have "used" it over there?

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If there is such a thing as re-incarnation knowing my luck I,ll come back as me!

Yes you would.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

If you can fit it in your case then ........... No...........
I've never paid for gear I've brought home.

I once came home and in one of my cases was nothing but fishing gear.(think I may have just been lucky with that one)

Lucky ... depends how many hours you're prepared to tolerate being interviewed by Customs and Excise who will investigate your travel history and then request sight of receipts for every other item of tackle you're carrying - they may even visit your home to establish if you have any more undeclared goodies. How lucky would that be?

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

And while they are investigating a couple of rods & reels, the duty on which is about £50, 4 tons of cocaine enters the country un-detected. I really doubt that they would go to such extremes as Lighthouse indicates.

Bringing in a rod from the US technically requires it to be declared and the appropriate duties paid. However, if it is one item of tackle among others in your bag how are they going to know? Are they going to clobber anyone for having Cortland fly lines which are American? They are freely available here so how are they going to know the difference? Declare it if your conscience dictates, but otherwise pack it in your bag and bring it home.

A bag full of tackle might excite a trainee officer or a very bored one but lets face it - you would want to be bringing over 1000 quids worth, i.e about 200 quid of VAT, to make it worth their while, i.e. a cost-covering exercise, to go through the process of doing a dump on you.

I bought a Cabelas fly rod and reel-a 6 piece that easily fits in most cases, but I had lots of tackle I brought back-flies,lures, hooks and I had no questions asked. After all it all shows up quite clearly when x-rayed so they must know what fishing tackle looks like. Some stuff I couldn,t carry back and yes I was charged import duty on those items, but there again I Had to ship them back as the airline misled me to think they were happy for me to take back as much as I went over with to which I found this was wrong-Expensively so. But as one member pointed out if it,ll fit in your baggage then it should be okay.

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The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

Just chuck it in the suitcase and walk through the nothing to declare,i have brought tons of stuff through and never cost me a bean,just remember to take the price tags OFF.

I believe the answer would be: Maybe, it depends on the price of the rod and what else you are bringing home.

The last time I was in the UK--in 2009--the duty free limit for personal goods was something like 350 GBP. 350 pounds when converted from metric money to USD would be about $600, so one could buy a fly rod of reasonable commercial quality.

This duty free limit includes the value of everything you import, so you would have to keep an eye on the total.

Now I admit I could be out-of-date here as I only go the the UK every couple of years, but Mrs. Grouse always looks it up because we are always loaded down with presents for the UK relatives.

Has the UK Government eliminated or drastically cut the duty free limit?

Grouse

Especially if they pull out the special rubber gloves....