Nexus One: UK Price Details Confirmed
We’ve had a lot of questions from UK customers about whether they will be liable for tax and import charges if they order a Nexus One from Google’s phone website. Google doesn’t provide any clear information about this so we’ve had to wait for orders to begin arriving in the UK before we could attempt to answer this question.
Mobile phones are not subject to any import duty in the UK, so there is no import duty payable on the handset. They are however subject to VAT at the standard rate of 17.5%. The question to date has been whether VAT is included in the price of the handset, or whether VAT will be an extra charge, payable on delivery.
It now looks like Google is pre-paying the tax for UK customers as DHL who are shipping the device, are not requiring VAT to be paid before handing over the handset. Whilst likely that customers will receive a VAT invoice in the post we haven’t so far heard of anyone having had one.
Update: It looks like DHL, though speedy with delivery are notoriously slow at sending out invoices with customers receiving a VAT bill in the mail up to 3 weeks after delivery in some cases.
Price:
UK customers are billed in US dollars, and the payment debited from their account via Google checkout in sterling at the appropriate exchange rate at the time of purchase. The price breaks down as follows:
Nexus One (comes with a 110/240v charger with US plug) $529.00
Charger with UK plug (optional) $19.99
Shipping (DHL International) $29.65
Our order for the above came to a total of $578.64 which was debited from our UK account as £373.97 at an exchange rate of 1.5472. We’re expecting a VAT bill in the mail some time in the next few weeks for around £65, which would make the total price of the handset £439, give or take a few pence.
