export to kenya - any advice?

stuckinthemud · 13 Feb 2023

The school I work at is pen-pal to a school in Nairobi. Our pupils are putting together a gift box of goodies for the school in Nairobi - educational resources - anyone any experience of sending goods to Kenya? I imagine a gift of education equipment is zero-rated but I have never sent anything to Africa so customs declarations is not something I am familiar with and we really do not want to saddle our Kenyan friends with any sort of import duty. Anyone able to advise?

sneggysteve · 13 Feb 2023

Not much help but you can only get detais tax/vat charges from the Kenyan authorities. Saying that, you would expect your type of goods to be tax free. The school in Kenya would be best placed to find this information and what might be required from you as sender.

Richard_C · 13 Feb 2023

There are lots of schools and charities that 'twin' with Kenya, a google search will bring up a selection. Maybe a phone call to a UK school that has done it will get you the answers you need. Or maybe try the British Council - they still exist depite funding cuts and the demise of DFID.

Jameshow · 13 Feb 2023

Perhaps look at freight forwarders they will have expertise in this area. They might even lend thier knowledge for free.

Dibs-h · 13 Feb 2023

Or look it up on the websites of the likes of UPS\Fedex. The upside of using them is if there are\were any duties, you'd know upfront and could elect to pay them

ChaiLatte · 14 Feb 2023

Google for 'Kenya door to door shipping'.

Every person of African origin I know regularly sends stuff back home.

The shippers come to your house, pick up the box, you pay the money and they deliver it to Kenya.

The shippers go around and collect boxes from individuals. When they have enough to fill their 20' container, they send it off to the UK port and load it on a boat.

It will be sea freight, so more economical than air. UK to Ghana, for example, takes 5 weeks. Very rough cost is a box 0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m is £100 to Ghana.

The shippers know the correct people in the port to arrange the signature on the piece of paper that allows the container to leave the port.

stuckinthemud · 18 Feb 2023

Really struggling with this. Our kids got a bit carried away and the package ended up north of 20kg, though we managed to squeeze everything into a box 30cm x 50cm x 60cm. Haven’t managed to find the shipper ChaiLatte mentioned. Don’t mind send it overland anyone able to supply a company name?