Freight Fowarders, International Shippers

Im wondering the same thing. Servi entrega was mentioned but then when I went to their office in Poblado they wanted to charge me as much as Fex X or DHL (almost) to send one envelope to Panama........and a friend of mine whose lived here for years brought in a bunch of boxes with Servi Entrega and told me that everyone of em had been opened and rifled thru.......So I dont know......In Panama its easy.....at least for small stuff.......the freight and taxes are so nominal as to not be significant........Aduana Pana hardly pays attention. But I get the impression that here they pay a lot of attention.......and Ecuador too........

We use the Caribbean shippers. https://www.caribbeanshipper.com/

Great service. Door to door.

Do you have to have your own Miami P.O. box? Or can you use theirs?  Can you give me an example of how it would work for example to bring a laptop which costs $400 on Amazon or ebay or a smart phone which costs $160 online. Are you charged impuestos on everything you bring in no matter the amount?

I cannot vouch for these services, but they came up in my research:

Forwarding: usgobuy.com/

Giro Express Tel 954 796 4646 Talk with Francia Beltran Super service. Talk to them before you do anything so as to do things right. They are Colombians who speak English.

facebook.com/Giro-Express-of-South-Florida-104248769642113/

that is
u s g o b u y . c o m

Ok, Kool.......I appreciate that and will look into it.......thanks for the tip....

Dumluk,   Let me warn you that you cannot send a smartphone to Colombia.   Other electronics are OK but not cell phones.   I made this mistake and sent a $800 cell phone from the US to Colombia via DHL, insured.   Customs would not release it and DHL would not pay off on the insurance, so I lost $800+ all the other items that were in that package.

In 2015, Colombia put in place a restriction for importing cell phones via mail services under Decree 2025.  You can't buy a cell phones on Amazon and send it to Colombia.   You can bring up to 3 new cell phones with you when travelling thru the airport, you just can't send any via mail services.

They set you up with a PO box at their Miami location. No Charge. They consolidate all your packages into one box. You have to declare the value and list what is in each package. If you contact them they are quick to answer all your specific questions.

Very easy and reliable service to use. Going door to door is huge!

Wow! Now that sounds more like the draconian DIAN of which I have long heard horror stories......YOu mean that they wouldnt even let you pay the duties on it? Or ship it back? They outright stole it from you? Do you think there might be anything else on that list? Maybe some crook working in DIAN decided he wanted and deserved your iphone........Do you think that its virtually impossible to discern what they are likely to do? Have you brought other items in successfully? If so what kine impuestos did you pay above and beyond the freight charges?

My research shows that in fact this is a law, so their argument was that they would not give it back to DHL to return since it was not a legal import.   DHL's argument is that they gave it to customs, so its out of their hands.   In addition to the $800 cell phone, there were other personal items in the package.   I asked them to return those items either to the sender or onward to me, but they refused that as well saying they would not break up a package.   So the lesson I learned was not to ship things into Colombia and anytime I see someone talking about sending a cell phone, I relate my experience.

Other electronics appear to be fine to import.   You will pay a 30% duty on any item that is valued over $200.   I believe that they charge 12% duty on items valued at less than $200.   My easy solution is to ship high priced electronics to Panama - then buy a round trip ticket, which can be had relatively cheap, and bring the items thru the airport in carry on.  I have brought thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment in thru the airport - been scanned and checked by customs - and never been charged anything.  Of course I am sure they could charge me duty on items I bring in that way but it has not happened to me yet.

The total ban on cellphone imports has been in force for years and is well known. Even bringing them in as hand baggage does not ensure that they will be accepted by a network.

Colombia actually encourages the import of computer components which can be generally be imported with no duties and no delays up to a certain value.

Twin Wolf is correct. 12% on values under $200.
We have not shipped anything over that value. For high priced items and electronics we have friends bring it when they come for a visit, taking the items out of the boxes and carrying it with their personal stuff. We also go back to the states a few times a year and bring stuff back with us. Since we have been out of the states for over 4 years the amount of stuff that we would want or need from there is minuscule at best.
Do you need it or want it, as the saying goes!

Any examples on how much more a decent cell phone sells for here in Colombia?  Does it make sense to bring in 3 new phones every trip?

Probably not.  Foreign phones are difficult or impossible to register in Colombia.

See Tubes's post, above.

cccmedia

Do you have to register them? Im here in Medellin using my Pana phone.....with the same Colom number I got last year........and works fine.......what are you talkin about? Having to register a phone? I use the same phone in every country I visit, and just change the chip........

You simply swap out the sim card with the service provider. We zero problems with the US bought iPhone.

Not really sure where this comes from cccmedia?

Foreign phones are difficult or impossible to register in Colombia.

"Foreign" phones (a phone that was not bought in Colombia, all phones are "foreign" to Colombia, they don't make any phones there) are no longer allowed to be sent into Colombia by mail, unless they are "homologados", or authorized.  You can bring in a phone on your person but if it's not on the list of authorized phones you run the risk of it getting blocked and inoperable.

You can find out if your "foreign" phone is already on the list of authorized phones for Colombia here:

http://www.siust.gov.co/siic/publico/te … homologada

But even if your phone is not on the list of authorized phones, you can request on-line, free, at no charge, that the phone be added to the list.  You may have to wait up to 15 days before approval is granted.  It's reported that sometimes it takes longer, but even though the CRC (Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones) may not respond as they are supposed to, the phone appears on the list some days later.  The step-by-step procedure is given here:

https://www.xataka.com.co/legislacion-y … tuitamente

Zai Cargo is one.

BoxExpress is another.

Both reliable. Never had problems with either.