Customs Brazilian customs

Hi there! I'm Brazilian too (from Rio de Janeiro) and I'll try to help with your questions

.......yes, I have been fined countless times all this years in this hobby In fact, it's better for you to be fined than rather your box getting declined entrance into the country and get sent back. From since two years ago, the situation of imports has become very complicated here in Brazil and the whole procedure is now much worse and much more draconian. Now there are quite many new laws and new taxes that scrutinize absolutely anything that is an import. They will often turn down and send boxes back to the sender if they think you are lying about the value/contents. So make sure to instruct the shop to declare contents in an appropriate way and preferably don't downmark the value (even if that means a terrible tax).

So, yes. It's pretty tough and trying to participate in this hobby as brazilian means you'll be basically paying another doll to the government just in taxes alone Be strong
In case you have the means to do so, I would recommend for you to buy your doll, but have them sent abroad to a family member/friend/someone of your trust and ask this person to bring said items in person for you, in Brazil. The importing laws in said cases are much more lax (apparently it is a '$1000 import without taxes' limit, or something like that)

I never had a DHL shipping box that wasn't taxed. Normally the tax is exorbitant too, because they assume it is highly priced goods due to the shipment method alone. EMS used to be a hit-and-miss many years ago, but I would say it's probably guarantee tax nowadays. Lately I use airmail (even for big things as dolls) and it takes longer to arrive, but usually the taxes aren't so cruel

Lastly, try to make sure you are not importing organic products, or liquids (some bjd shops might sell painting supplies or add candies as gift to your order), otherwise your box might get slated for agriculture department inspections (it shows in our tracking as 'VIGIAGRO') and now that one kind of inspection is pure hell: almost certain to result in taxes, on top of taking ridiculously long to complete (2 months usually) and their warehouses can be pretty shabby, so they might leave your box exposed to elements such as sunlight and rain. I say this because all imports I had that were inspected by brazilian 'vigiagro' arrived in pretty poor state to my hands. The cardboard of said boxes were almost decaying, basically.

This is a downer talk, but I figured you should know nonetheless. Feel free to ask me anything else you'd like to know

 

For the best, yes. Whenever I am going to buy anything related to Bjds, I also need to save up for the "tax money"