Singapore Expats

Can anyone tell me of their experience on bringing wine over to Singapore along with their furniture etc... What happens if you do not declare it? I have heard that the taxes are placed on each bottle quite high. We have wine that we have collected over the years & I would hate to lose it!
Thanks
Donna

This link from my links page below:

http://www.customs.gov.sg/topNav/hom/

more specifically:

http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trad/ ... +Goods.htm

sierra2469alpha, one of our regulars here, I believe brought over a substantial collection of wine as well. Maybe he'll give you some pointers as he also brought it up from Oz.

http://www.singaporeexpats.com/forum/ftopic54432.html

You really DON'T want to contemplate not declaring it, especially if it's a fair amount of booze.

Byrchwood wrote:Can anyone tell me of their experience on bringing wine over to Singapore along with their furniture etc... What happens if you do not declare it? I have heard that the taxes are placed on each bottle quite high. We have wine that we have collected over the years & I would hate to lose it!
Thanks
Donna

Declare it at all costs! Tell them it's your private collection ......you could end up with it all being confiscated and a large fine, not small, but large large! Not worth the risk at all, You maybe lucky to get away with the tax, because only a random amount of containers are checked, especailly if the containers are shared.

Byrchwood wrote:Can anyone tell me of their experience on bringing wine over to Singapore along with their furniture etc... What happens if you do not declare it? I have heard that the taxes are placed on each bottle quite high. We have wine that we have collected over the years & I would hate to lose it!

Drink up before you move, then they won't be lost! Or have a going away party and serve them to all your guests.

Australian wines are easy to get here, and not that expensive. Recently wine prices have dropped a lot. I needed a bottle urgently and found a French Merlot at a 7-11 for S$17. My jaw almost hit the ground since the cheapest decent wines used to be around S$30. In the past anything less than S$30 was unpalatable, but my recent S$17 bottle tasted fine.

If you do bring in the bottles, I suggest declaring them. If you don't and get found out, you'll have to pay something like 3 times the price of the wines in the first place, and you don't even have the option of throwing the bottles away or giving them to the customs officials (who, by the way, don't have a very good sense of humour, let alone compassion) - you will HAVE to pay the huge fine.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I think I might just declare & pay the tax!!!

Actually we decided not to bring ours over fm S Africa as the container would have to be airconned and the cost is alot higher, maybe check the cost of freight with temperature control first?

We're going to be carrying the stuff or buy duty free since we will be in and out of singapore quite often.

i am moving from the uk to singapore in january and had the same problem. my relocation agent advised me to declare all alcohol shipped into singapore as "singapore is very particular about alcohol imports".

singapore generally has a decent and improving level of wine collection, especially that of australian wine and new world wine. if you can, leave most of it at home with friends/family and bring those which need drinking soon. i only shipped 180 bottles (mostly french/german/spanish) which are pretty hard to find in singapore... especially quality ones. even with the tax, it is still worth importing it.

drachen wrote:i am moving from the uk to singapore in january and had the same problem. my relocation agent advised me to declare all alcohol shipped into singapore as "singapore is very particular about alcohol imports".

singapore generally has a decent and improving level of wine collection, especially that of australian wine and new world wine. if you can, leave most of it at home with friends/family and bring those which need drinking soon. i only shipped 180 bottles (mostly french/german/spanish) which are pretty hard to find in singapore... especially quality ones. even with the tax, it is still worth importing it.

We came from the Uk and our relocation co said the same thing but thats due to them not wanting to do more paperwork. Having my time over..I would bring everything and pay the duty.

maximum for wine is 1L, above is taxable.. but wine tax should be cheap (need to verify this though). Tax is dependent on the alcohol content.

dawgbyte wrote:maximum for wine is 1L, above is taxable.. but wine tax should be cheap (need to verify this though). Tax is dependent on the alcohol content.

Tax is S$70/litre of alcohol, so for your average bottle of wine at 750ml and about 14.5% alcohol, about S$7.60/bottle if my calculations are correct.

Obviously this does not discriminate between top shelf and your basic cask swill, so make it count and bring in the good stuff!

The problem with wine collections in Singapore is that the heat turns 'em into vinegar real fast. You'll need a cooled wine cabinet, or barring that, do like we do and stick 'em in the spare fridge.

Do you think the bomb shelter condos have would be ok to store the wine in?

Byrch - g'day and welcome to the forums.

We bought a stash of vino over when we moved. PLEASE declare it - it's expensive (the rates are in SMS's link) but we've heard some horror stories of people who did not declare and got sprung. Aside from the morality of it (it's just wrong not to declare it), you'll find the cost of wine here very expensive in comparison to Aus. So if it's good stuff, you'll be better off financially I'd suggest!

In terms of transport and storage. Ours came over with the rest of our junk in a standard shipping container. Get the removalists to pack it in the centre of the container if you can. This means off the floor of the container, and away from the walls. If you have some, wrap the cases in polystyrene or in our case, some blankets. This won't keep them cool, per se, but will stop temperature fluctuations, which apprently is more of a killer of wine.

Some peeps have shipped wine over in refrigerated containers/freight services. Overkill maybe, but if you're concerned about the 1966 Penfold St Henri doing a bellyflop when you open it to celebrate your otherwise successful move, then maybe not!

We store ours in the bomb shelter/maids room. Thus far, no troubles at all. Wine fridges seem very popular here - lots of them in Harvey Norman etc. - so that may be an option, although IMHO it's a bit of overkill as those puppies draw a fair amount of electricity I'm told - and electricity, as you are about to discover, is very expensive here compared to AUS.

Hope this helps! Mr. P and Ms C.

Hi Mr P & Ms C
Thank you so much for your advise. We have since heard that the company my hubby works for pay for any import duties of our removals!! Good news I think! Now all we have to do is negotiate our condo! I am looking forward to coming over by the end of this month.
Donna

Hi Donna - yes our inbound movers paid the duty for and on our behalf then gave us an invoice. Make sure you get the official copies of the invoices from Singapore Customs. Awesome that hubby's work will pay for import duty - should have neogitated that ourselves in hindsight!!

Good luck with the move and post back if there's anything we can all help with.

Cheers, P & C