ColisExpat

ColisExpat is based in France and offers French, Sapnish, German, Italian (EU), UK and US shopping PO boxes. Standard package service costs 0.9 Euro per package plus shipping costs. Premium costs 29.90 EUR for 1 year plus shipping costs. The Premium Service offers a 12% discount on shipping fees and free consolidation.

ColisExpat — fees and services

ColisExpat gives you personal forwarding addresses in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK and the USA, allowing you to shop from retailers in those markets and forward purchases internationally. You can manage multiple parcels through your account and choose from a range of shipping carriers and express services.

They offer two membership tiers: standard is really designed for someone who expects to make one forwarding shipment. You pay just €0.90 to subscribe, but consolidation costs €3.90 and you're limited to one forwarding.

Premium costs €29.90 for a year but gives you unlimited forwardings and free consolidation. Both plans currently receive a 12% discount on forwarding fees, so Premium's main financial advantage comes from the unlimited shipments and included consolidation rather than a better shipping-rate discount

You can consolidate up to 10 packages into one shipment. ColisExpat also offers free repacking when eligible, allowing your items to be removed from their original boxes and placed into a smaller package. This can reduce volumetric weight and therefore shipping costs.

The service operates on a pay-as-you-ship model, with shipping costs calculated according to the destination, carrier, weight and dimensions. ColisExpat also offers different delivery speeds, including express options. Repacking is free when the shipment meets its eligibility requirements, and if it successfully reduces the shipping cost, ColisExpat gives you a credit worth 50% of the saving for a future shipment.

One useful feature is the ability to choose when you forward your packages, rather than having them automatically dispatched. Once you confirm a shipment before 8:30am Central European Time on a working day, ColisExpat says it can normally dispatch it the same day.

ColisExpat’s Off Tax service lets residents of French Overseas Territories buy from eligible French online retailers without French VAT, potentially reducing the purchase cost. The service is free to join, but ColisExpat deducts the VAT refund minus a commission when you forward your purchase. Eligible invoices must generally total €50–€1,000 excluding VAT, and purchases must be made through participating French retailers.

ColisExpat now also offers an Amazon.fr extension and private store that automate much of the VAT-exemption process, showing eligible savings at checkout and handling the invoice and customs declaration. The extension currently supports Amazon.fr and fr.Shein.com, with purchases up to €1,000 including VAT.

For the manual Off Tax process, you need to follow specific invoicing requirements and upload your invoice for verification before forwarding.

In brief: ColisExpat is a multi-country European and US forwarding service with a strong emphasis on consolidation and repacking. Its ability to access six different shopping markets and optimise packages for volumetric shipping makes it particularly useful if you regularly buy from European retailers.