Earier I wrote about the ball season, and I tried to get my old long dress shipped to Vienna for the ball from my old home. That is when all the issues began. Supposedly, when you ship something to Austria from abroad outside Europe, it will roughly take about 10 business days. However, my dress was not here even after three whole weeks, which made me very nervous. One morning, the mail man came and delivered my dress about 4 weeks after it had been shipped, asking for me to pay 94 euros!! So what had happened?

The mail man told me that the money is customs fee, so instead of paying right away, I decided to pick up my package at at the post office. I researched how it works, and I thought it would be a cool thing to share.

1. You only pay customs fee if the product is brand new. So for example, if you ordered something abroad, you probably have to pay the customs fee.
2. You have to pay customs fee if the product is of high value and is expected to stay in Austria permanently.

However, neither of the clauses applied to my case. So the Customs assumed that the product will be in Austria permenantly and is of high value (number 2), even though my dress was not at all of high value. Also my cousin in the US made a crucial mistake of using his old Amazon.com box, causing the customs to assume that my dress is brand new (ordered abroad).

Eventually, I talked to the customs and mailed them a copy of my visa (working holiday) to prove my temporary stay in the country, and a picture of me wearing the dress in 2012 and recently at a ball (thankfully I had different hair). So hopefully this tip will prevent you from going through the same trouble!