Excess Baggage?????? What to do at the airport?

If you are moving to Mauritius the NRA (customs department) may take a considerable time with you and your personal belongings.  This is because you are not coming to Mauritius as a "tourist" and yes nowadays all bags will be liable to be searched for drugs and other banned items which include some foodstuffs and plants etc.  If any person in the family has a regular supply of medicine then you may have to get customs declaration on that as well.  Other personal items may be subject to import duty if they are considered by the NRA as being "NEW" I.e. you bought them new to bring here to use rather than buying local. Even when you are here and say use EBAY or AMAZON the NRA will often slap an import duty onto the item once it arrives here.  You may find it helpful to make a baggage manifest in a document form stating the contents of each bag and the approximate value of each item in readiness if the NRA start counting everything in the bags etc.  BY making your own list and values you may be able to negotiate or even save money on import duty with them. Otherwise they do not count the price of goods where you bought them , they will work on what the Mauritius price is and this can be more expensive than other countries. However having to write a list of 25 bags and then try to assess any values for import duty would take a lot of their time and it could be favorable for you to do this prior to arrival. I shipped my whole house contents here by container from the UK and paid far less import duty because every box was numbered and manifested with contents and approx value.  My import broker and i did not have to negotiate any values with them.