Importing a rifle

[Psyxologos]

I am after some advice please. My father in law who lives in Germany has a .22 rifle he inherited from his father, and now he decided to gift it to me. It is an old Voere of little monetary value but high emotional significance to him. . He was told by his police force that he needs to obtain an export licence and I need an import licence from the UK. As I do not have the time to invest in going through this process myself, I was wondering if there are 'agents' or specialized RFDs who deal with this, preferably around North Lancashire, south Cumbria. Many thanks!

 

[Loki]

Hi

From recollection your FAC, with an appropriate slot for the calibre, is your Export document. Having said this you will need to provide the associated commentary from the CBI? or some UK Government document (I suspect it is in the HOG somewhere), that confirms this - a search should pull it out on SD.
The difficulty from others posts seems to have been persuading the German Authorities that an FAC is 'the Export document' due to the above.......................
In fairness has been done and commented on by other SD members.
Bavarianbrit (on SD) over there may be able to help?

L

 

[Jim xyz]

I imported a shotgun from France a coule of years back.

Holts quoted circa 800 quid to import it for me, in the end the chap I was buying it off had to fill in the relevant form and get it stamped and the courier was about 30 euros. It did take a fair while to get the forms stamped though as they had to go through French bureaucracy over the summer but it was better than paying 800 pounds.

 

[stalker.308]

Have done this, your Fac acts as import licence, your dad needs to get an export permit and present a copy if your Fac. You could inform the police here you’ve bought it and get them to add it to your Facebook and European firearms pass.

sadly everywhere in the eu issue specific import permits so it will take a little convincing the German guys we don’t do that hence if it’s added to your Fac it’ll make things easier.

 

[Ronin]

Have exported and imported several weapons to Europe (eastern)

To import

Export permit required at source (in your case Germany)

Import permit is not required at our end but RFD or space on your FAC for the weapon in question is

Once CV19 over you could simply travel to Germany and bring back - assuming the weapon is in proof to UK standard - though I suggest you should check with this as my last import was two years ago

Or

Arrange specialist courier to collect weapon in appropriate transit case

Ship to uk RFD and collect from RFD with FaC signed by them

The paperwork for export is more complex (from UK) to elsewhere and required end user agreement and proof of import authority so there may be some hoops to jump German side regarding export authority and paperwork

 

[enfieldspares]

For a personal import unless the weapon is to be sold or displayed for sale there is no need to submit the weapon to proof. This applies to firearms from ALL countries including USA in fact. The OP's rifle being a Voere will in any case bear Austrian proof and Austria is a CIP member.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

I had no problems when I bought a new savage .270 from my pal who has a gun shop in Bavaria he organised the export permission for me, I added the serial number to my UK FAC and brought it back, forgot to tell the ferry company but pre 9/11 they never checked vehicles contents then informed Dover customs showed FAC & all was fine. Now you might need to get a UK EU firearms pass with the rifles number added to it as well, as if you drive over to collect it you will come back through 3 countries that are still eu members, the UK is quasi still a member till 31 Dec 2020 so hurry up and do it.