How to Send and Receive a Package to/from Montenegro?

I couldn’t find any information about sending and receiving packages in Montenegro, so I acted as a guinea pig. I hope this article will be useful to you.

Montenegro is not part of the European Union, so anything entering or leaving is subject to customs fees.

For packages received in Montenegro, it’s systematic, customs won’t let you off. So before sending or receiving a package, think carefully about the customs fees extra fees to pay.

How to receive a package in Montenegro?

Well, receiving packages isn’t easy:

1. mail carriers don’t deliver packages. At best, they leave a notice of attempted delivery. At worst, your package disappears.
2. many houses and apartments don’t have an address. You have to regularly check the local post office to see if you have mail. Yes, really! You use the nearest post office’s address. And you receive all your mail and packages as General Delivery.

There’s a way to bypass this system: We dared to receive two packages when we had a clearly identifiable address (in Budva) and we received them via DHL.

The first package came from a Hungarian e-commerce site. They’re used to sending things to Montenegro and know to choose DHL. At the time of delivery, the driver called me 20 minutes before (I bought a Montenegrin SIM card), in impeccable English. He told me I owed him €5 in customs fees (for €45 worth of goods). 20 minutes later, I was waiting for him in front of my apartment building and paid him in cash. I got a receipt anyway.

The second package was kindly sent to us by JB’s mom from France. It contained ski gear for JB. The rates are exorbitant, whether via DHL or UPS, because for Montenegro, the minimum rate charged is for a 5kg package. Colissimo Monde has more affordable rates, but as I explained earlier, the mail carrier doesn’t deliver it to your door. After comparing the various rates, we went with the Boxtalservice, which gave us wholesale rates, while sending via DHL. Result: we paid €65 via Boxtal vs. €110 on the DHL site.

So we generate a shipping label online on Boxtal, which JB’s mom prints and sticks on the package, along with the proforma invoices (in case of non-EU shipment). Boxtal gives us a delivery window (half-day) for the driver. This might not be the case for all options, but with DHL, the package is indeed picked up directly from home (in France). Very convenient!

The driver came within the allotted time and we could track my package with the DHL tracking number. The package traveled: Tours –> Paris –> Leipzig –> Budapest –> Belgrade –> Podgorica –> Budva. You could say the package traveled more than we did this year!

For honesty and insurance purposes, JB declared €150 as the value of the goods even though they were second-hand clothes. As a result: not only was his package held for 4 days at customs for inspection (they opened our package and checked the contents, luckily nothing was lost), but also the same DHL driver called me later to announce: “€62 in customs fees to pay, in 5 minutes, have the exact change.” Good thing we always had a lot of cash on us in Montenegro.

JB asked the driver for an explanation. He said:

• For a package valued under €75, there’s nothing to pay <= yet I paid something for the new products. Maybe for second-hand items, it’s free?
• From €75 to €150, you have to pay taxes.
• From €150 upwards, you have to pay taxes and customs fees.

Since insurance reimburses based on the declared value in case of loss, JB estimated… exactly €150! Oops.

Things to remember if you want to receive a package

• Have a precise address. If you’re staying at a hotel, that’s better because the address is easier to find than an Airbnb, which doesn’t have its own address, only Google Maps coordinates.
• Allow time to receive your package. Between sending, customs issues, and receiving the package, it took about ten days for us
• You must use services like DHL, FedEx, or UPS. Boxtal has the best rates for Montenegro (they didn’t pay us to say that)
• If the site where you want to buy your products doesn’t deliver via DHL, FedEx, or UPS, you can send the products to a relative in France to have them reship them to you via Boxtal.
• If you don’t have any relatives left in France, services like Courrier du Voyageur or Shipito can do it for you. Courrier du Voyageur receives packages in France, while Shipito receives them in Austria. Both can dispatch or consolidate your many packages and send them anywhere in the world for you.
• Note that customs fees can be significant, so think carefully before receiving a package in Montenegro. If possible, declare goods < 75€

How to send a package from Montenegro to France?

After our ski vacation, we shipped the package in the other direction: sending our ski gear back to France. Because we’re not going to travel indefinitely with stuff we don’t use. This time, we’re sending the package from Podgorica, since last time the package was stuck at customs in Podgorica, so we might as well go straight to the source.

Since the shipment isn’t urgent, we simply use the Montenegrin Post service to save money.

We struggled to find tape. We went to several supermarkets without luck, but the Tobacco right next to our place had some. I’m giving you the address of this Tobacco, just in case 🙂 I’ll have a good laugh if I find out one of you also goes there to buy tape.

We’re told to go to Posta 2, 96 Slobodana Škerovića, Podgorica, Montenegro, near the Bus Terminal.

From Delta City Mall where we are, we pay about 3€ for a taxi to get there. In the Balkans, taxi drivers are honest and always use the meter, which is nice.

We see a long line and take our place in it. These are people who seem to be there to receive benefits, as we see them coming out with cash in hand. Finally, we’re told we should rather go to the left door, which is closed, where there’s no line. All that for nothing.

If you see a huge scale, you’re in the right place.

We make it clear (via Google Translate) that we want to send a package to France. After filling out 3 different forms (2 in French, 1 in Montenegrin), the employee looks at our “goods” declaration: 6 x used clothing, 2€ each = 12€, 2 x used glasses, 5€ each… so that JB’s mom doesn’t have to pay customs fees. The total declared value of the package is 45€ haha. The employee doesn’t even check the contents and tells us to seal the package.

It went as smooth as a letter in the mail.

The package arrives slowly but surely. Sent March 17, received March 29. Sending the 6kg of clothes cost us 38€.

Of course, the box & the tape are ours. They don’t sell boxes at the post office, at least I didn’t see any.

We even have a tracking number. We can track it until it leaves Montenegro, and a few days later, we can track it with the same number on Colissimo tracking. Customs was no problem this time. JB’s mom didn’t have to pay customs fees for our used clothes.

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