We received the following message from the company that handles our international shipping, duties and tax:

To align with evolving international tax requirements, we’re updating how tax is handled for cross-border shipments into Australia and New Zealand.

Effective April 12 2025, we began collecting AU and NZ tax on all orders. This update ensures your shipments remain fully compliant with the laws in Australia and New Zealand.

Australia requires online retailers to collect GST on sales of low-value goods (sales price of 1,000 AUD or less) to consumers in Australia and remit the collected GST to the Australian Taxation Office. The requirement only applies to foreign-based online retailers with actual or projected annual sales to consumers in Australia of 75,000 AUD.

West Coast Classic Cougar does not currently ship over 75,000 AUD to Australia annually, but since the service we use to handle our duties and taxes does, this rule now applies to us.

We are using a new shipping service where international shipments now include the Duties/Tax/Fees, so currently we can not offer USPS/Mail Innovations if the order is over 135GBP, since USPS can not pay duties/taxes. If the order is less than 135GBP, we can pay the taxes directly to the UK and we can ship USPS/Mail Innovations.   All orders over 135GBP have to ship UPS/DHL so we can use DDP to cover the Duties/Tax/Fees. This has allowed us to resume shipments of any value to the UK.

TIP: You will likely be able to ship your order for less cost if you ship any items over 135GBP on one order via UPS/DHL, then break the rest of the order up into orders of less than 135GBP.  

By breaking your orders up into less than 135GBP:

• you will avoid the import duties on those orders
• less expensive shipping methods are available
• you will avoid some UPS/DHL fees

Recent regulations—specifically the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) requirements—mandate that all international sellers register with local packaging registries within each individual country in the EU that we ship to and fulfill complex compliance tracking, regardless of package size or order frequency. Due to these strict regulatory costs, legal administrative requirements and potential fines, we cannot process direct shipments to EU addresses at this time. These regulations apply to all carriers, including USPS, UPS and DHL.

Shipping to the European Union

We can still fulfill EU orders using U.S.-based freight forwarding services.

Here’s how it works:

1. Set up an account with a U.S. freight forwarder of your choice.
2. Enter your forwarder’s U.S. address as the shipping address at checkout.
3. We ship your order to their facility, and they handle export, customs, and final delivery to Europe.

US-based shipping broker other customers have used.

Effective July 1, 2026, the European Union (EU) removed the €150 de minimis threshold. As a result, all shipments from outside of the EU destined to EU 27 countries with a value less than or equal to €150 EUR per shipment require full customs clearance.

Because of this change we currently we can not offer USPS on shipments to the EU, since USPS can not pay duties/taxes.

If the order is less than 150EUR, we can pay the carrier fees and VAT (taxes) directly to the EU, therefore we can ship Mail Innovations.  However, the packages shipped Mail Innovations will not include the duties prepaid (even though the shipping quotes currently indicates that it does), and these packages will arrive with a COD for the duties due. To prepay all duties, tax and carrier fees on orders under 150EUR, please choose UPS/DHL so we can use DDP to cover the Duties/Tax/Fees.

All orders over 150EUR have to ship UPS/DHL so we can use DDP to cover the Duties/Tax/Fees.

TIP: Even though with the above change you can no longer avoid duties by breaking you orders into order less than 150EUR, you will likely be able to ship your order for less cost if you ship any items over 150EUR on one order via UPS/DHL, then break the rest of the order up into orders of less than 150EUR.  

By breaking your orders up into less than 150EUR:

• less expensive shipping methods are available
• you will avoid some UPS/DHL fees