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Home » Reader question » Reader question: Is it illegal to bring fruit and vegetables in your travel luggage from Thailand?
Reader question: Is it illegal to bring fruit and vegetables in your travel luggage from Thailand?
Dear readers,
I recently learned that there are stricter rules regarding European legislation for fruit and vegetables in luggage (arrival in BRU or AMS from a non-European country). It would mean that there is a ban on bringing fruit and vegetables (exceptions would be: bananas, pineapple and durian).
This is disappointing news for many returning from Thailand. However, the question is to what extent is this monitored? For example, do you have to sign a statement before passing through customs? Has anyone recently passed through customs in BRU or AMS and has any experience with this?
Regards,
Willem
https://bit.ly/37ktBvl
more info
Install the customs app on your phone. It gives all the answers.
I take at least 20 kilos of fruit and vegetables with me a few times a year. Checked a few times but never had a problem.
Dear TAK,
What does that cost you.
20 kilos per flight is a lot, or do you have no other luggage?
And that freezes during the flight, can all those things withstand that, those enormous temperature differences?
Regards,
Arkom.
It's not freezing in the luggage compartment of an airplane, that's a persistent misunderstanding. https://www.startpagina.nl/v/vervoer/vliegtuigen/vraag/456212/45-graden-bagageruim-vliegtuig/
For a measure that only took effect on December 14, 2019, I think your past experiences are of little importance.
Dear Willem,
That ban is not recent but has been there for years.
Where do you get those regulations, what is your source?
That a durian should be allowed? In some hotels you are not even allowed to bring those fruits in. Let alone the airport or an airplane.
Why would you bring bananas or pineapples to Europe anyway? It can freeze in your hold luggage, then bananas will be black on arrival.
(Almost) all Thai products are available in most European cities.
It is surprising that many find your quoted ban disappointing news.
There are a few who want to take fruit/vegetables/meat with them. Usually people from rural areas who take their own food with them on a trip, for fear of not having it in the areas to which they travel (Europe in your question).
But also half a bottle of fruit juice, whether or not pressed from our own harvest fruit, or 7/11. Can not.
Furthermore, parasites, insects, viruses or bacteria in/on that fruit threaten ecosystems wherever you land. That's just disappointing.
But what do you want to take with you, dear Willem, home-grown vegetables or fruit. What is your point?
Regards,
Arkom
It's not freezing in the luggage compartment of an airplane, that's a persistent misunderstanding. https://www.startpagina.nl/v/vervoer/vliegtuigen/vraag/456212/45-graden-bagageruim-vliegtuig/
“On December 14, 2019, the new European Plant Health Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 will come into force.”
https://news.belgium.be/nl/reizen-naar-het-buitenland-breng-geen-fruit-groenten-planten-mee-uw-bagage-en-help-het-ontstaan-van?fbclid=IwAR0e8sPCS8XQ98JhXw427iqkDcDQZBfiI0hdg5k_A4myr4vTV4FRV2d6Zx0
Well….
A year and a half ago… Could I do the koensiang
(Khon khen sausages with lots of garlic) when I happened to be checked again.
I also lost the vegetables that were in the hand luggage.
Because I renounced I was not fined. A warning though.
Since then nothing has been taken away…. waste of money.
Greetings Carlos
Not allowed much longer than a year and a half ago. Dried fruit, fish and meat (pork and beef) are offered on a large scale at Suvarnabhumi airport, neatly vacuum packed. And of course orchids and fresh fruit, such as mangoes. During my last check at Schiphol, now 4 years ago, the dried meat was seized. I was allowed to keep the dried fruit, the dried squid, the fresh mangoes and lamb yai. For Arkom, of course you can buy mangoes anywhere in the Netherlands, but Thailand has very tasty varieties, which I hardly see in the Netherlands. Incidentally, I do not buy it for the high prices on Suvarnabhumi, but in department stores and on the local market.
This is about fruits and vegetables. Meat/meat products fall under a different regime.
Certainly true Cornelis, but I was actually responding to Carlos, who had to hand in the sausages with a huge amount of garlic, which makes your whole house smell.
Sorry Leo, but my comment was also directed at Carlos, and not at your comment.
Dear Cornelis, oversight on my part. The box of your comment was not slightly indented from mine, so I should have seen that you were responding to Carlos. So the one who has to say sorry is me and not you.
The relevant legislation was indeed amended on December 14 of this year. The site of the NL tax service / customs still states that you can take 5 kg of fruit with you, but that is no longer correct.
See also the NL Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority: https://www.nvwa.nl/particulieren/documenten/plant/fytosanitair/fytosanitair/publicaties/poster-houd-plantenziekten-en–plagen-buiten-de-europese-unie
Just search Google for EU 2016/2031... and you'll have a lonely evening ahead. e.g: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/NL/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R2031&from=NL
By the way: in the 80s you did not enter Chile with any fruit or product in your luggage. So.. a problem as a buyer of nuts and dried fruits. day samples. “NO, you can always, 24 h / day, return to the airport with your potential suppliers…”
So.. just kidding mister Sonnenberg.. at 02:00 with two Chileans.. and.. YES.. we got to see everything. perfect service, and on departure I was allowed to take everything back to Schiphol.
Does this also apply to pre-packaged fresh herbs and vegetables (e.g. aubergines) purchased from a supermarket?
My wife always takes at least 10-15 kilos of everything with her. Money mangoes, green mangoes, chilies.
She is checked regularly, never a problem. And it really hasn't been frozen either.
The new ban only took effect 12 days ago, past results are no guarantee for the future or the present….,,,,
August 2019 checked at Schiphol from Bangkok
November 2019 Schiphol airport check from Bangkok
Take the same one to the Netherlands almost every time
Think about 10 kg of mangoes from your own garden, no problem
dried fish vacuum packed from the market no problem
They only look strictly at meat products, such as pork.
My idea as long as there are no meat products, you can take (everything) (anything that concerns fruit)
as long as it is limited for your own use
At that time, the new regulation did not yet apply, so those experiences are not very relevant.
Yes, I also read it in a Belgian newspaper.
Do have a question, in the event of a violation it says that the goods will be confiscated, up to that .... you have lost the game. However, I saw on TV a little less than a year ago that counterfeit goods from outside the eu are fined upon import with an amount of .250 euros to be paid by the recipient and this for the costs of destruction. If the same rule is applied to some vegetables that cost twice nothing abroad, then they will be expensive vegetables and you don't have any yet
Lionel..
What I want to find out with my original question is how actions are currently being taken (from a customs point of view) in response to the change on December 14, 2019. So experiences before this date are not relevant for this question. It is important to know whether a declaration must be signed from 14 December (when passing through customs) or not (declaration of fruit and/or vegetables).
https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20191217_04772004
https://www.health.belgium.be/nl/news/breng-geen-fruit-groenten-planten-mee-uw-bagage
In that case you could also ask customs directly via https://www.facebook.com/douane/
Hello.
On December 15, 2019 we returned from Bangkok via Helsinki.
In our hand luggage we had quite a lot of Thai items, but all cans and bottles.
During the check with an extremely clumsy and rude customs officer, everything was removed from the suitcases and confiscated. Everything.
In the large suitcases, however, untouched. Dried peppers. Dried squid. Fresh vegetables. Sausages like nėm.
No checks at Schiphol, but in Helsinki.
Very relieved. So we were partly lucky.
In other words, it has become very strict.
Especially in Bangkok with an increasingly strong anti-farang attitude that I thought I could detect.
Advice that I often did for decades: buy your non-perishable items on arrival, put them in a box and send them by soap box. Very affordable.
I don't have a suitable answer for fruits and vegetables. Maybe send it as air freight, but I don't know the control or price.
Another piece of advice: put your purchased items in your large suitcases if necessary. Only hand luggage has such tight control. But it's still a gamble.
Greetings Cees
A plane directly from Bangkok with Thai people (mostly ladies) is checked very often. Also the suitcases, because the customs know that the ladies like to take a lot of food with them.
Yep, that's my experience too. The last time my girlfriend came to the Netherlands, all Asian people had to have their luggage passed through the scanner. Anyone with a European appearance could walk through like this. Ethnic profiling?