As long as it´s your personal belongings it´s labeled as your "mudanças" in Brazil as technically you´re moving to Brazil permanently. Therefore, you can bring all of them if you want except gasoline fueled items or parts.
Go to Walmart, buy the biggest linear inch box by airline regulation and pack your things in there. You should not exceed 70lbs by weight per box, limit 2 boxes. Please check which airline you´re flying with, to make sure with their regulations! You should bring some plates, spoons, forks etc, together with your sewing machine and power tool to make it appear as an authentic "mudança" to Brazil... Just make sure that the box is strong enough and not dismantle as baggage carriers handle it. Make also sure to support the box with a duct tape especially where your support cord (it should have) has the biggest attrition with (along the edges of the box). Your box will be opened by airport
security for inspection of explosives so make it easy for them to open. If you make a knot on the cord, they usually return it as it is and not cut it.
Speak Portuguese that it´s your "mudança" if you find yourself at the baggage inspection for contraband. In my experience, if you bring only one large box and 2
suitcases, you can declare it as "NOTHING TO DECLARE" and follow the corresponding corridor with the rest of the passengers (in Guarulhos).
I brought at various occasions 2 or 3 big boxes aside from 2 suitcases and I always ended up at the contraband inspection area at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. Just say "minhas mudanças" in Portuguese and they should let you go as long as it doesn´t appear suspicious like many new items or car parts. Many times as my boxes were with kitchen utensils, they did not bother to open them as they saw by x-ray the spoon and forks and confirmed with me if those were mudanças which I said YES right away!
If you buy new pans you can cook once with oil burned outside just to show them it´s used and qualify as your mudança if you anticipate being inspected by them.
I´ve learned my lesson once, as they taxed my iMac, my MacBook Pro and my Bose
Sound System! They were my personal belongings but they looked new as they were a year old. Since I didn´t have a receipt, the customs guy went on-line, found the latest models on the items and based their taxes on them! I paid more than R$4,000 for the taxes! This was at Rio de Janeiro International Airport.
robal
