About 2 weeks after we moved into our new apartment Madrid was hit with a cold front in mid-September. That caused me to slightly panic – not quite knowing what Madrid’s Fall weather was like, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be in the cold for the long haul. If this was perhaps the case it was not good news as our boxes had not yet arrived from the USA – in these boxes were ALL our winter clothing. Then a few days later we got the call we’d been waiting for …our things had arrived in Madrid.
I won’t bore you with the rip-your-hair-out details of first figuring out who called, why they called, what they wanted, what they needed (vs what they said they needed) and how/when we could get our things…no no, I’ll spare those gory details. I’ll simply tell you what we [over a very long period of time] figured out so that you might one day receive a package and have it in your home in lightning speed to enjoy.
Customs [Aduanas]
Once your items arrive, you will be contacted and then provided a form from Aduanas (one per box) to fill out. The first order of business was to verify all the shipment information – receiver name, sender name, tracking number, contents…ah contents…we were told to list all the items in the boxes. Basically they had to determine if our items were being sent to us for resale here. While that may be seemingly clear – my advice is still to remove/have removed any new price tags on items and perhaps separate bulk items (once you see the costs of basics over here you may want items sent regularly). Once this information is gathered and filled out – fax it back to Aduanas (Fax: 91 747 10 83). Make sure you keep the form as you will also need to take it to Aduanas where they will hopefully have your goods and then hopefully hand them over. You will have to pay an import tax which for each of our [20 - 30 lb] boxes was about €4.
Much of the headache in obtaining our things was in simply reaching someone – anyone – to help find our things. Given their short office hours, inability to pick up a phone, or leave a message when phoning (with proper call back number) combined with basic disorganization meant once we discovered our items were in fact in Spain, it still took nearly 3 weeks to get them home.
In September of 2009 we dealt with Silvia (postales@speedtrans-int.com) who could speak very basic English. She was very kind and patient with us. However, she was not easy to reach. If she is still working there – try to reach her.
The most difficult thing for us with Aduanas was figuring out their open hours and then locating them. So here you go – a walking map from Metro Alameda de Osuna (end of the 5 Line). Their hours are from 9-2pm, Monday – Thursday. Note that Aduanas is in a Correos building which you will instantly see once crossing the highway. And for all your mailing needs, The Spanish Post - Correos.
Aduanas in the office of Correos de Madrid Barajas, sita en la Calle Trespaderne s/n C.P. 28042 de Madrid. Information Tel: 91 833 10 00.
To this day I can not explain why 2 of our boxes were at Aduanas for declaring and pick up (at separate times) and the third was delivered right to our door. I suppose it will just be one of life’s little mysteries that I must simply live with.
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Please be warned, people who live in the rest of Spain and aren’t fortunate enough to live in Madrid. The rules have changed. Any customs-worthy packages will no-longer be sent to your local centre. Payments are dealt with at Madrid, though all was possible by email and paying via a local bank. The amount they charged me seemed over calculated and I’ve ended up paying nearly double I expected to. And I still don’t know if they will send the package to my door. I imagine I will still have to head to the city correos to pick it up. An already complicated process has become twice as complicated and expensive! Clearly they’re trying to kill ex-EU imports.
Tell me about it? It’s been a year since i last ordered stuff from the USA and on average it took 8-9 days with USPS(quicker with Fedex but customs tend to hold and charge more) and i’m now battling to get my recent package, i ordered on the 29th Oct’, it arrived into spanish customs on the 1th Nov’(i know this much thanks to USPS postal tracker), sat there for 2 days before being officially accepted it then on the the 12th Nov’ i received a ‘adviso de llegada’ which basically to see if you’re a business which intends to sell whatever you’ve had sent, this form has to be faxed back which means unless you work from home you lose another day before getting your package, the form has the Correos logo heading on it but when i contacted Correos customer service they informed me customs have my package and can’t help, phone numbers aren’t answered when called or if answered it’s a recording and then back into a call queue where once again no one answers, i live in Barcelona so visiting the office is not an option(also impossible as i work and customs opening hours are 9am-2pm) How can this be possible? And how in this day and age can from me placing an order on the internet a package take only 4 days to be processed, packaged and sent across the atlantic and arrive in europe, but it takes 8 days for a letter regarding said package to be printed, sent and delivered? Apart from the obvious of not ordering from outside the EU or getting in contact with Silvia at speedtrans does anybody have any further suggestions? Please? ;0)
@Roger Stewart
I am in th exact same predicament. I had a package mailed to me from Maryland nearing three weeks ago and I have been dealing with Aduana since Nov. 4. I am completely lost as to what I should do becuase I have been scanning and emailing my paperwork but everything I get an email back they are requesting different information. The problem is I do not know the total value of the goods becuase they were random things from home that my family sent me. Also some toiletries that are difficult to find here (I live in Galicia by the way). This has been the worst mail service experience ever. Quite inefficient.
My spanish is not the best but even my native spanish-speaking colleague has been utterly frustrated with this system. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
What were your first steps in communicating with them? They have asked me for proof of residency there and here, and a declaration of goods and the value (which I can only guess so much of)… confused. I´ve sent and re-sent things THREE times now.
We, too, had various toiletry items sent from the states. The best we could do is estimate the cost and explain they were our personal things. Our first steps in communicating with them were via the phone. When we arrived to the Aduana office we presented the papers you mentioned, received our boxes and paid a fee of approximately €4. Good luck!
Katie Smith, i am still waiting as it seems(eg, Courtney) that unless you live in madrid where you can physically go into aduanas you’re just left waiting, i’ve called numerous times and never had my calls answered(could anyone inform me of the actual phone number they managed to speak to someone please?), i faxed the ‘adviso de llegada’ which according to aduanas and correos website took 3 days to be received and that a budget(?) was sent to me and will take 2 days(it’s now the 20th and still nothing), i was raised and lived many years in London and as bad as the UK postal service can be i’ve never seen anything like this, i’ve complained to Correos as the ‘adviso de llegada’ has their logo on it and they were fobbing me off with website updated and regulations, so i requested contact details of management of Correos and aduanas and now i don’t receive any responses, i in the past called Correos Customer service and even though you get call options it’s just a call centre so they don’t or aren’t allowed to call out so apart from what the website states(which can be munipulated, eg:-i complained to Correos by phone on the 10th that nothing had happened since my package arrived on the 1th and retained on the 3rd ,the morning of the 11th i checked the website and no changes but that afternoon the website now stated that on the 6th they had sent the ‘adviso de llegada’ which arrived on the 12th.) they have absolutely no other info’ or advise, i’ve into 2 local Correos offices and no joy just more phone numbers that don’t work or aren’t answered, i really don’t see that i’ll receive my package anytime soon unless i get on a plane to madrid, my last option is to go to a aduanas office here in barcelona but i don’t hold much hope in that. ¿Viva espanya? ¡Si,claro!
Okay boys and girls, for those of you still with packages at aduanas in madrid, if it’s just your personal belongings then you better hope aduanas don’t think your stuff is worth more than €150, if it’s stuff you’ve purchased then make sure you didn’t pay more than €140 including postage as even though the law states that PRODUCTS valued less than €150 is not subject to customs taxes and charges, aduanas take the TOTAL price(including postage) and work out the euro’ value based on their conversion rate on the day they process your package. i.e. You purchase goods valued including postage abroad and pay €149.99(based on the exchange rate from you bank), if that rate is slightly better than the rate aduanas is working from on the day they process your package making it’s value in their eyes €150.01 then you’ll be charged approx’ €75 even though you can prove from your bank statement that you only paid €149.99, it’s messed up but it’s how they do it, so keep new purchases to no more than €140 INCLUDING postage and you should be safe, for those of you still waiting, good luck. ;0)
Have I recently purchased the Rosettastone Spanish (spain) from China and also on another separate order a mobile phone both these items are now stuck in Madrid Customs, both items cost less than 100 euros and I have been waiting for them to be released. I have read the above comments and am horrified to see what is going on. I will be contacting Aduanas today to see what is happening (if I can get through) will let you all know how I get on.
“You purchase goods valued including postage abroad and pay €149.99(based on the exchange rate from you bank), if that rate is slightly better than the rate aduanas is working from on the day they process your package making it’s value in their eyes €150.01 then you’ll be charged approx’ €75 even though you can prove from your bank statement that you only paid €149.99″–Roger
That’s just criminal!
I just bought a rc nitro car from the us i live in murcia spain its bin detained in customs in madrid for over 3 weeeks now the coast of the actual car was 490$ and postage was 160$ even tho i payed that much money for the shipping with usps things still go wrong they basicly have given me 3 options go to madri from the other side of the country and pick it up witch clearly is not going to hapen and the other 2 are 2 difrent poastal services witch also are going to try and rip me of chargeing 90 euroes for poastage what the hell do i do and also im also going to be charged mad tax on it even tho it was marked gift
I am a student studying in Barcelona and before I left the United States I visited my doctors and had them fill a year supply of 2 of my medicines. My flight left the U.S. before I received my prescription in the mail from my insurance company and then my mom send them to me from the U.S. to my address in Barcelona. After waiting 2 weeks I received a letter from Madrid saying that my package was held at customs because they needed further documentation that the medicines were mine and that they were prescribed to me by my doctor. After more than 2 months sending countless paperwork to their adtpostales website and then faxing papers they said I just had to pay the importation taxes which they only gave me 2 days to pay always threatening that they would return my package if I did not meet their deadline. I made a money transfer to their account and waited another month to find out that they returned my package to the U.S. anyway!
I acquired the help of a friend, who speaks better castellano than myself, to call their office to find out what the problem was and why they returned my package after I had already given them everything they asked for and paid their taxes. They said because I did not have a medical license that would legally allow me to import medicine that I could not receive my package, even though one of the two types of medicine in my package, which was a monthly oral birth control pill, does not require a prescription from a doctor to obtain in Spain while in the U.S. a doctor’s prescription and an annual exam is needed. The types of medicines in the package was not even important to the inspection. What they did say, which really surprised me and I still do not understand their reasoning, is if you do need a medication from your doctor in the U.S. you can have them write an email with the prescription number and the patient information and take that printed document to a farmacia here and they should be able to fill it for you. I have not tried it yet, but I am still skeptical because no one here reads or speaks english.
It frustrated me sooo much that I had spent so much of my time, over a 3 month span, sending them documents of authenticity and that I also had to pay for sending paperwork by fax because their website has a capacity of 3 uploaded files per account and they even gave me false hope that the process was almost over by sending me the final bill of importation taxes for me to pay which I did only to end up with nothing in the end. They did say that they would return the money I paid for importation taxes, but I am still waiting to receive the money.
Here are the contacts that I used during my journey to get answers:
The office of Terminal de Carga Madrid-Barajas which deals with documents and the issuing of importation taxes. The email address responds usually within 24-48hours and they also do answer their phone too after a bit of waiting:
gestor4@adtpostales.com
Telephone: 91 833 10 00
Fax: 91 833 10 01
http://www.adtpostales.com
For requesting refund of importation taxes contact:
gestor3@adtpostales.com
I hope this helps others
I’ve also been dealing with a terrible customs experience as well. Does anyone know if I can send the proper documents with someone else to Madrid authorizing them to pick the package up for me? I’m an american student living in Sevilla and I have a friend going to Madrid for a couple of days. If anyone knows anything please let me know, thanks a lot.
Have a look at this link:
http://www.lifeingalicia.com/lig/archives/632
It is a clear and concise presentation of what you need to do.
Hullo! I just discovered your blog this morning and wish I had read this entry before my own fateful trip to Aduanas/Correos this previous week. However, my own experience was a bit different–there really is no way of telling how things will go on a given day!
I think mine is the worst, I left on of my handbag the last time I was in the US so I asked my sister to send it here in Spain. Since its a designer bag and my sister want to be sure I will received it in a secure manner. She declared the price of the bag although, have it ensured and send it to Spain. She sent it April 30, it reach Madrid in May 4. I waited 10 more days knowing how slow and unsystematic the postal service here. I called the ADT Postal hotline and inquire about the package. They told me to go on ADT Postal website and request for another copy of the AVISO de LLegada because the operator said that they already sent me one already. So I followed the instruction and found out that they abbreviated my address hence the AVISO never reached me. I printed it, fill it up and send back on the website. I waited 5 days before the sent be the PRESUPUESTO DE IMPORTACION and told me to pay. So I paid €189 taxed for my own used handbag and never heard from them again. I called, email and was told that my NIE number is incorrect so i sent it to them again. Just yesterday I emailed them again and inquired what happened to my package and I received an email today saying that my package had exceeded the alloted time they can keep it at ADT and waiting for custums advise if they can finally release the package or not. I make sure to ask before paying the tax if thats all I have to do and if they still havent sent my package back to the US. The operator told me they still have my package. Its been almost 2 months now and I dont know and cant find an answer if I will get my handbag back. its very stressful, costly and time consuming. Any advise???
I have just paid for a mobile phone worth 250pounds from an ebay seller and the item has being on transit for over a month now using CORREOS posting services. Tracking the item shows it has been “Delivery to the destination international office” for over 30days without being released or posted to me. I am afraid, since this is my first time of ordering something from SPAIN and which if anyone can help me with what might have happened and why the item has been delayed for such a long time.