Buying Art in Spain as a Visitor: Shipping, Customs and Common Sense

You have been standing in front of it for ten minutes. You like it. You can afford it. And then the practical brain arrives with its list: how would I even get this home, will I be stopped at customs, is there some tax I do not know about...

You carry it yourself. Best for small and medium work, unframed or lightly framed. Fastest, cheapest, and you never lose sight of it.

The gallery ships it. Best for anything large, glazed, heavy or expensive. Slower, costs money, but properly packed and insured.

A canvas up to roughly 60 x 80 cm, taken off its stretcher and rolled in a tube, travels in the cabin without difficulty. Airlines treat a tube as one item of hand luggage. Work on paper travels flat in a portfolio. Ask the gallery to remove glass, always. Glass is the single most common cause of damage in transit and can be replaced anywhere for very little.

If you live outside the EU, you may be able to reclaim Spanish VAT on what you carry out. The refund is available to residents of non-EU countries, applies only to personal purchases rather than commercial consignments, and requires you to leave EU territory within three months of the purchase. The whole process in Spain is digital, through the tax agency's DIVA system, and you have to ask the seller for the electronic refund document at the moment of purchase, giving them your full name, date of birth and passport number. The minimum purchase threshold was abolished in 2018, so there is no floor.

You validate the document at a DIVA kiosk at the airport before you check in any bag containing the artwork, then collect the refund by card, transfer or cash.

When a gallery ships directly to an address outside the EU, the sale is an export and no Spanish VAT is charged in the first place. You are then dealing only with the rules of your own country, which is usually the simpler outcome for anything above a few hundred euros.

What you want to establish before you pay: who packs it, whether it goes flat or rolled, whether it is insured for the full purchase price and not just the shipping value, roughly how long, and who is liable if it arrives damaged.

United Kingdom. This is better news than most people expect. There are no tariff duties on works of art, collectors' items and antiques imported into the UK, regardless of country of origin, provided the correct commodity codes from Chapter 97 are used on the documentation. Imports of works of art are taxed on a reduced value, producing an effective import VAT rate of 5 per cent. On a €2,000 painting that is roughly €100, not the €400 you were bracing for. The correct commodity code on the paperwork is what secures it, so make sure the gallery knows what it is doing.

United States. Original art enters duty free. This has held even through the recent tariff turbulence: artworks remain duty free when correctly classified under Chapter 97, headings 9701 to 9705, and the 10 per cent tariff introduced in February 2026 explicitly exempts informational materials, which US Customs has confirmed includes artworks under those headings. State use tax may still apply depending on where you live.

European Union. Nothing happens at the border. If you are in France, Germany, Ireland or the Netherlands, the work simply arrives.

Switzerland. Import VAT applies at the standard rate. Small, but budget for it.

Every favourable rate above depends on the piece being classified as an original work of art. Original paintings, drawings and pastels are duty free under Chapter 97 in the US, and original engravings, prints and lithographs are duty free under heading 9702, but these works must be executed entirely by hand, and the heading does not extend to hand-painted or hand-decorated manufactured articles or holiday souvenirs.

Not much, at the moment of purchase. It is a piece of paper the gallery prints. Its value is later: it establishes provenance if you ever sell, it satisfies an insurer, and it supports the customs classification above. A certificate should name the artist, the title, the year, the medium, the exact dimensions, the edition number where relevant, and carry a signature. If it does not include dimensions and medium, it is decoration.

The people who regret buying art abroad are almost always the ones who bought quickly, near a beach, from a shop that also sold ceramics and postcards. The people who do not regret it bought something they had thought about for an hour, from someone who could tell them who made it and why.

Whatever you do about the shipping, do that part properly.

We are on Plaça dels Lledoners, 1, next to the Museu d'Art in Girona's old town. Everything we show is by living artists from the Catalan Countries, most of whom we can put you in contact with directly.

We remove glass and roll work for hand carriage at no charge. We ship worldwide, insured for the full purchase price, and we handle the documentation ourselves so it arrives correctly classified. Every work leaves with a certificate that includes medium, dimensions, and edition details.

If you are still deciding, write to hola@espaibarrivell.com, and we will send you full images, the exact dimensions, and a shipping quote to your address. No obligation, and no follow-up unless you ask for one.