What can actually leave the country souvenir customs rules before I overpack regrets
Departure is Friday and the souvenir pile has grown ambitious tea in kilos a wooden mask spices a small antique looking brass lamp from a junk shop seashells the kids collected and a friend wants me to carry her gemstone purchase Which of these survive customs which need paperwork and which get confiscated with a lecture The forum threads on masks mentioned antique permits but I want the full exit checklist
5 Answers from travellers
Retired from exactly this counter so the full exit checklist as requested Freely exportable no questions Tea for personal use your kilos are fine commercial quantities meaning tens of kilos invite questions but the tourist tea haul passes daily in mountains Spices packaged any personal quantity Handicrafts masks batik new brass and woodwork all fine Clothing gems and jewellery PURCHASED WITH RECEIPTS keep the receipts accessible the export of properly invoiced gems is welcome trade Needs paperwork or thought Anything genuinely antique the legal line sits at items over fifty years old which require a Department of Archaeology export permit your junk shop brass lamp is the classic grey case if it is a modern reproduction (most are) carry the shop receipt describing it as new reproduction and you pass if it is plausibly old without papers it can be detained better to photograph beautiful old things and buy new ones Your friends gemstone carrying another persons valuables through customs makes YOU the declarant if anything is irregular politely decline or insist on the original purchase receipt in your name territory Confiscated with a lecture and rightly Coral shells and turtle products all of it the kids shell collection from the beach falls under protected marine species rules in spirit and a bag of collected shells can be seized leave the beach on the beach Sand stones and plant material live or seed all restricted Ivory obviously The lecture is free the fine is not One closing professional tip pack the receipt bearing items in carry on reachable not buried the thirty second document answer is what keeps Friday boring and boring at customs is the goal
On the lamp the Pettah junk dealers will write you a dated reproduction receipt happily if you return and ask the paper costs nothing and answers everything
Checklist printed shells returning to a beach this afternoon lamp receipt mission tomorrow and the friend can courier her own stone the audit is complete
The shells point deserves repetition to every family the rule feels harsh until you see the confiscation bin of conch and coral by the scanner
The receipts in carry on rule saved me twenty minutes at the gem question last trip thirty seconds exactly as described
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