Bring It on Home

U.S. Customs regulations and its big no-no's—what you can and cannot bring home with you from your travels

The U.S. Customs form, which for some reason the flight attendants always hand out right after you take off, rather than waiting until, say, half an hour before you land.

Technically, there are no limits on how much loot you can bring back into the United States from a trip abroad, but the customs authority does put limits on

how much you can bring back for free

. This restriction is mainly for taxation purposes: to separate tourists with souvenirs from importers with profit motives.

What and how much you can bring into the United States is controlled by the

U.S. Customs office

(www.cbp.gov), which basically views you as a small-time importer/exporter. Importers have to pay a governmental duty (tax) on any foreign-made item they bring into the country.

However, the customs office realizes that the majority of travelers are merely bringing home items as souvenirs or gifts or for their personal use, and magnanimously allow you to bring in up to $800 worth of souvenirs and a few drops of that Italian wine for free.

Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the

Duty Free Shop

at the airport—though people constantly confuse the two. The "duty," or tax, you are avoiding by shopping at these stores is the local tax on the item (like state sales tax in the United States), not any import duty that may be assessed by the U.S. customs office. All of this is explained on the Duty Free page. It also has nothing to do with

VAT tax refunds

Tax-Free Shopping

. For the scoop on VAT and tax refunds, click here.

Well, I Do Declare! Getting Through Customs

In a development so shocking I checked it twice to be sure there wasn't an error, the federal government has actually made it easier to bring your stuff home.

As of summer 2003, they doubled the cash value on goods US citizens allowed to take home without paying tax from $400 to $800 per person—so long as you've been out of the country for at least 48 hours and haven't used the exemption in the's past 30 days (rules designed to foil any small import/export sideline an airline crew member might try to get going).

The bad news is that they haven't changed the draconian limits on, shall we say, comestibles of vice. I've got no problem with the rules limiting you to 200 cigarettes and 100 cigars, but I find it patently ridiculous that

you are only allowed to bring home a single liter of alcoholic beverage

.

Do they honestly think that, should you bring home one bottle of Chianti from Tuscany as a present for your folks, and a bottle of Burgundy from France for yourself, plus a pint of that great Czech beer you know you'll never find at home, you're attempting to hide an import business? Really, it's quite silly. And I believe that most customs officials quietly agree. I've brazenly written down all two (or three, or four) bottles of wine that I'm taking home right there on the form, and have yet to have a customs officer take issue with it.

Of course, you're allowed to take hoem home. They just reserve the right to tax you on it (see below).

Getting Around the $800 Limit

Antiques over 100 years old and works of art are

exempt from the $800 limit

. So is anything you mail home from abroad. This is the Great Loophole. You can

mail yourself up to $200 worth of good per day

, so long as the package is marked "For Personal Use."

You can also

mail up to $100 worth of stuff per day to friends and family

(or technically, I guess, even strangers) so long as the packages are marked "Unsolicited Gift." Actually including a gift for your buddies (rather than just sending them your own booty to hold onto for you) would be a nice touch.

Either way, you must list the contents of any package on the outside wrapping, and you cannot mail alcohol, perfume (because it has alcohol in it), or tobacco products worth more than $5.

Going over the $800 Limit

Sure, it can happen. And when it does, the government wants to take a bite out of the value of whatever you're bringing home. That bite starts at 3% of the total value of your goods for the first $1,000 above and beyond the $800 limit. After that, you're looking at an item-by-item duty.

You Can't Take It With You

What do Dutch elm disease, hoof-in-mouth, and the Mediterranean fruit fly epidemic all have in common? They are all plagues that were brought into the United States by unscreened travelers. That's why

there are some things you absolutely cannot bring into the U.S.

The U.S. Customs service (www.cbp.gov) lists all the details; here's the breif version:

This list of no-nos includes

plants, fruits, vegetables, meat, and, indeed, most food items.

Yes, this means the salami that the shopkeeper in Europe swears up and down is fine for you to bring home will nto be let in if they discover it. There are, however, some exceptions to the general food/plant rules.

You may bring home:

baked goods, cheese (so long as it's not the soft, spreadable kind; if it's runnier than a Brie, no dice), tinned pâtés, candy, roasted coffee beans and dried teas, seeds for vegetables or flowers but not trees (though you're supposed to declare and register them), mushrooms, and packaged fish (so smoked salmon from Norway is A-OK).