Anything above that, rather than being taxed, may be confiscated. Tobacco products also have individual limits, typically 200 cigarettes and 100 cigars per person. You can bring one liter duty-free, and after which a customs duty of 3% per liter is imposed. The United States limits the amount of alcohol travelers can bring with them into the country. It’s a little easier to talk about the things you can’t bring through US customs. Alcohol and tobacco, for instance, have a customs duty depending on how much you bring with you. In other cases, there’s a threshold above which travelers must pay a fee. In most cases, goods that travelers bring back from vacation are meant for personal use and are in small enough quantities that they won’t incur any fees. This last question is often phrased as, “Do you have anything to declare?” What are customs fees?Ĭustoms fees, or customs duty, are essentially taxes on goods you bring with you across international borders. When you go through the same process on your way home, you’ll be asked a similar set of questions-such as where you were on your trip, how long you spent there, and what you’re bringing back with you. You may be asked whether your trip is for business or pleasure, how long you’ll be in the country, what you do for a living, and what cities you’ll be visiting during your stay. Upon arriving at the desk of an immigration agent in your destination airport, you’ll likely be asked a variety of questions (in some cases you may not be asked anything at all, but that’s increasingly rare). What should I know when going through customs and immigration? For example, if you’re flying from the US to Europe and have a layover in one Schengen Area country before you arrive in a second Schengen Area country, you’ll typically go through immigration when you first land, but you won’t go through customs until you reach your final destination. But when arriving to the US from most other countries, you’ll go through customs upon your first arrival in the US (even if you have a connecting flight onward).Īnd sometimes you don’t go through customs until you reach your final destination. When flying from Ireland to the United States, for instance, you’ll go through US customs in Ireland. In most cases, you’ll go through customs and immigration after your flight first arrives in a new country, but there are exceptions.įor example, some countries have mutual agreements intended to help speed travelers through the process, so you may go through customs and immigration before you board.

Do you go through customs before or after your flight? You can go through immigration without your luggage, but customs will be located after baggage claim. In many airports, immigration is a mandatory process that involves speaking with an immigration officer who stamps your passport, while customs is an optional process if you have nothing to declare, you don’t need to speak with an officer. “Customs” is about the stuff those people are carrying with them. It’s sometimes called “passport control” or “border control” depending on the airport. “Immigration” is about the people traveling from one country to another. What is the difference between customs and immigration? You’ll go through customs and immigration both ways on an international trip-when you arrive in the foreign country you’re visiting, and again when you return to your home country from abroad. Officials at customs and immigration are checking travelers for things like whether they have the right documents to be in the country, whether they’re legally allowed to be there, and whether they’re bringing anything illegal with them.

Simairport immigration