Guests and salesmen be on one?s feet on the sales space of Swiss luxurious watchmaker and jeweler Piaget, all through the “Watches and Wonders Geneva” luxurious guard honest, on April 1, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Photographs
Jamie and her husband are touring to Switzerland in December for a ski diversion. However hitting the slopes isn’t the one motivator: The couple say they’re additionally seeking to sidestep steep U.S. price lists on Swiss items.
They intend to shop for a luxurious guard — a Patek Philippe Nautilus — from the watchmaker in Geneva, Jamie mentioned, as a gift for her husband’s birthday.
Their price range for the guard: $50,000 to $75,000.
If a success, purchasing in another country would possibly save them many hundreds of greenbacks relative to buying an imported Swiss timepiece. The Trump management on Aug. 7 imposed a 39% tariff on Switzerland, a number of the very best charges on the planet.
The couple say that they had been pondering of a ski fleeing within the Swiss mountains for at some time. However the opportunity of scoring a Patek guard at a hefty tax bargain “was a motivator and added bonus,” mentioned Jamie, a 42-year-old Fresh Yorker. (She requested to usefulness simplest her first title for privateness causes.)
Hobby a number of the prosperous to progress for tariff-busting searching sprees has spiked in fresh weeks, mentioned Erica Jackowitz, a progress guide to rich clientele.
Switzerland — which is house to alternative high-end watchmakers like Rolex, Piaget and Audemars Piguet — is the supremacy vacation spot, she mentioned.
Alternative Ecu countries like France and Italy, the place famend model manufacturers like Hermès and Prada are based totally, have additionally emerged as sizzling spots, Jackowitz mentioned.
The Ecu Union faces a fifteen% U.S. tariff on maximum items. That levy additionally took impact in August. (Switzerland isn’t a part of the EU.)
The threat of Ecu price lists has persevered since April, when President Donald Trump first of all introduced “reciprocal” price lists at the EU and Switzerland (amongst greater than 100 alternative international locations) ahead of delaying them.
‘Each buck counts’
A Christian Dior luxurious pack in Paris on July 22, 2025.
Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs
Price lists upload a pristine fold to a well-worn thought: touring in another country with an perceptible to reductions.
Many folk progress to profit from favorable trade charges, as an example. And lots of American citizens booked journeys to Europe for Taylor Fast concert events in 2024, discovering it more cost effective to pay for airfare, lodge rooms and live performance tickets in another country than to peer the artist at house.
“That really set off people’s mindsets that you can get things at better prices in different places,” mentioned Jack Ezon, a luxurious progress guide based totally in Fresh York.
He’s visible the proportion of shopping-centric journeys amongst his clientele soar 48% this summer time relative to 2024.
Italy, Milan, Paris and Madrid were the supremacy locations, mentioned Ezon, founder and managing spouse of Embark Past. Model and watches are the supremacy attracts, he mentioned.
“Every dollar counts when you’re getting these kinds of tariffs,” Ezon mentioned.
Jerk the instance of an imported Rolex as case in point of possible price financial savings, in line with an research by means of FlavorCloud, a cross-border logistics company.
A Rolex Girl-Datejust guard in Oystersteel and Everose gold retails for $11,300, ahead of taxes. Upcoming price lists, the similar guard is estimated to price about $15,700 — or $4,400 extra, in line with the FlavorCloud research.
The research assumes the tariff price is handed to the top shopper. Many economists imagine firms will move on no less than one of the most price.
Rolex spokesperson Virginie de Meuron declined to remark.
The cost tag for luxurious Swiss watches can from time to time swell to $500,000 or extra — through which case the prospective tariff financial savings may also be abundance, Jackowitz mentioned.
Any closing financial savings would possibly rely on elements like an merchandise’s nation of foundation and tasks that can have already carried out ahead of reciprocal price lists took impact, business professionals mentioned.
‘There’s no manner round that’
Celal Gunes/Anadolu by way of Getty Photographs)
In fact, the gambit may just backfire.
Vacationers will have to claim any pieces they gain in another country and produce again to the U.S., according to U.S. Customs and Border Coverage.
In alternative phrases, vacationers aren’t meant to store their purchases a undisclosed — at which level that Swiss guard or French purse may well be accident with price lists. Overall tasks would rely on factors like the place a specific just right used to be bought and manufactured, and what it’s fabricated from.
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Past there are exemptions from customs tasks in positive instances, particularly for lower-value pieces, high-priced luxurious items would most probably be handled precisely the similar as though shipped: matter to all standard import prices together with responsibility, tax, price lists and charges, in line with business professionals.
“A $4,000 handbag, a $10,000 watch, you will have taxes you need to pay and they will be assessed at the border based on the declaration,” mentioned Rathna Sharad, co-founder and prominent government officer of FlavorCloud.
“There is no way around that,” she mentioned.
Individual strolling generation the Patek Philippe boutique on Rue du Rhône on Aug. 2, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Robert Hradil | Getty Photographs Information | Getty Photographs
Ezon and Jackowitz, the progress advisors, are conscious about this possible snafu, and say they inform vacationers they will have to claim their purchases. Failure to take action may just chance consequences like fines, forfeiture of the thing and shedding club within the International Access program from U.S. Customs and Border Coverage.
However customs brokers do have some discretion to levy price lists or no longer, business professionals mentioned. From a realistic perspective, it’d even be brittle for brokers to establish if clothes or jewellery old by means of a traveler used to be certainly a pristine acquire in a foreign country, they mentioned.
Every traveler will get a non-public exemption that permits them in order again $800 utility of things duty-free, in line with a U.S. Customs and Border Coverage spokesperson. The exemption is $1,600 from the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam.
Households touring in combination can mix those exemptions, the CBP spokesperson mentioned. Tasks on watches and alternative pieces are calculated in accordance with the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, taking into consideration elements just like the motion, case and strap, they mentioned.
The worth of shopping for in a foreign country
Progress brokers and customs professionals say there are nonetheless deserves to shopping for Ecu luxurious items in a foreign country, even supposing they’re slapped with price lists upon reentry to the U.S.
In large part, that’s on account of refunds that American vacationers can get at the section’s value-added tax.
The upshot for vacationers: That VAT refund may also be hefty, ceaselessly more than 15%.
Getting a VAT refund yieldings a double get advantages, Sharad mentioned: American citizens get a bargain courtesy of that refund, and likewise release any customs-related tax expenses (for the reason that tax can be owed on a disgrace declared price).
Moreover, the bottom fee for products is ceaselessly less expensive in a foreign country, Ezon mentioned.
An artisan works within the Montex workshop on the Chanel SA 19M campus in Aubervilliers, France, on Jan. 20, 2022.
Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs
Vacationers will have to bear in mind that there are certain steps to whip to say a VAT refund, professionals mentioned.
For instance, the store will want to serve a reimbursement mode on the level of sale to vacationers, who typically want to have their passports to hand. Vacationers will after want to procedure the refund; those designated processing products and services are typically to be had at airports upon leaving, professionals mentioned.
From a monetary perspective, possible financial savings — whether or not at the VAT or price lists — would want to outweigh the total price of a shuttle to justify it.
However progress advisors also are making plans stories across the searching.
Jackowitz, as an example, is hanging in combination a shopping-focused shuttle to Paris for a consumer and bundling a talk over with to La Galerie Dior into the itinerary.
For the Fresh York couple touring to Geneva, getting an appointment at Patek Philippe to struggle on other watches — in conjunction with the ski diversion — used to be a part of the attract.
“The ability to be able to get the watch that we want at a significant discount to what it’d cost us in the U.S., and have the experience of the trip and the day of getting the watch — the combination of those things is what pushed us over the edge,” mentioned Jamie.
“I imagine it’ll be a lot of fun.”
