VAT and customs
Customs, VAT and Import Tax on Wholesale Tarot Card Orders (EU, UK, US, Canada)
How tax is paid on a Dark Forest wholesale order depends on where it goes. In the EU, delivery and your country's VAT are added at checkout and paid together with the order, so nothing is due on delivery. In the UK, 20% VAT is paid to UPS on delivery. In the US and Canada, import charges are the buyer's responsibility unless the order confirms they are prepaid, and Canada sets a CAD 20 line for courier imports from Ukraine. This guide states each rule plainly, so you know before ordering what is paid at checkout and what may be due at the door.
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Who pays customs on a US wholesale order
Import charges are the buyer's responsibility unless the order confirms they are prepaid. Current terms word it carefully: duty depends on the goods, origin and rules in force at import, and a zero product-duty rate does not rule out customs-processing or carrier fees. In practice, budget for the possibility of a customs or carrier processing fee even when the product duty itself is zero.
EU orders: VAT and delivery paid at checkout
Wholesale prices are shown without VAT. At checkout you choose your country, and delivery and that country's VAT are added as their own lines and paid together with the order. Nothing is due on delivery: an EU buyer has no import VAT, duty or clearance fee to settle at the door.
UK: 20% VAT paid to UPS on delivery
UK VAT at 20% is not added at checkout. It is paid to UPS, the carrier, when the parcel is delivered. At checkout you pay for the decks and the delivery; the VAT follows at the door, and beyond it there is nothing else to arrange for a UK wholesale order.
Canada: the CAD 20 line
Courier imports from Ukraine above CAD 20 may incur duty, GST/HST and clearance fees. Because Dark Forest decks are made in Ukraine, a Canadian wholesale order of any real size — a 12-deck order at $190.80 in goods is well above that line — should assume these charges apply rather than treat them as an edge case.
Why no supplier can quote your exact duty
Outside the EU checkout, duty and tax depend on the goods classification, the origin and the destination country's rules in force at the moment of import. None of that is fixed by the supplier's price list; it is set by the importing country's customs authority at the time the parcel arrives. The country rules above are the closest a buyer in the US or Canada can get to an estimate before that point, and are stated here because no printer or distributor we checked in this market publishes a country-by-country breakdown this specific — most say nothing about customs at all.
A worked example: a 12-deck US order
| Part of the order | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| 12 decks × $15.90 | $190.80 |
| Delivery to the United States, insured | calculated at checkout |
| Import duty / carrier processing fee | buyer's cost unless prepaid — depends on goods, origin and rules in force |
The goods line is the confirmed, published price for the decks; delivery is a separate line, calculated at checkout for your address. The duty line cannot be filled in generically for every order — it is the one part of the cost that is set by customs, not by Dark Forest's price list, which is exactly why this guide names the rule for each country rather than a single number.
Where the decks ship from
Made-to-order Dark Forest decks are made in Ukraine and ship from there. Ready stock ships from the US warehouse to US orders and from the EU warehouse (Varna, Bulgaria) to EU orders, and to any other country, Canada included, by UPS Express. The Ukrainian origin of the goods is what determines the Canada CAD 20 rule above; US buyers should read their own customs guidance against a Ukraine-origin shipment specifically, not a general import estimate. For EU and UK orders the origin changes nothing at the door: EU VAT is paid at checkout, UK VAT to UPS on delivery.
Start your order
See delivery and duty rules by country and start your order on the wholesale tarot decks — trade pricing applies automatically from 12 decks.
For a US buyer the duty question depends on which route the order takes, and on one of them there is no import step at all. Wholesale tarot cards in the USA explains which is which.