A border changes the data
Destination, customs value, classification and country of origin can become relevant even though the physical product has not changed.
Start boring
One book. One customer. Ireland.
This is deliberately simple. Use the switches in order or ignore the order and make a mess. The page will tell you what your changes introduced.
Your basket
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Educational playground: prices are real demo-store fixtures. Tax and duty are live results from the ePAL production engine for this exact basket and route, not worked examples.
Goods€20.00
Shipping€0.00
Import tax and dutyNot applicable
Amount known so far€20.00
Make it harder
What the playground is teaching
Same basket. Different questions.
The useful part is not that cross-border commerce has rules. It is seeing exactly which new fact or decision each change introduces.
Dispatch country is not product origin
Moving stock to a US warehouse does not prove that a product is of US origin. A useful system keeps those facts separate.
Shipping can inherit complexity
Once shipping enters tax or customs calculations a €10 delivery charge may need more treatment than simply adding €10.
Thresholds change available routes
For EU low-value imports the intrinsic value test can decide which schemes or duty treatments are available.
Classification needs facts
A classifier should ask for a distinguishing fact when one is missing rather than turn uncertainty into a confident-looking code.
Checkout and customs must agree
The checkout promise only survives if the same classification, value, origin and declaration decisions reach fulfilment and customs.
The toy box
Real products from ImagineF1.shop.
These are fixed playground fixtures taken from ePAL's public demo store, priced and classified as they would be in a real consignment.
Atlas of the World by ePAL Books
€20
Open in ImagineF1 →ePAL guide to Fully Landed Costs
€10
Open in ImagineF1 →Chocolate Caramel Bar 100g
€5
Open in ImagineF1 →Arnie The Terminator drove for Haas F1
€80
Open in ImagineF1 →...and There's Tax on That...?
€30
Find in ImagineF1 →Gents platinum watch case
€500
Open in ImagineF1 →Amoxicillin 500mg
€25
Open in ImagineF1 →Shortcuts
Try to break a perfectly ordinary order.
Each button resets the playground then loads a useful scenario.
Import into the EU
Turn the Irish domestic sale into a US-to-Germany import without changing the starting product.
Cross €150
Load an EU import then add enough merchandise to take the goods value above €150.
Make €9 become €3
Load the published three-book EU flat-rate duty example and compare naive separate lines with eligible grouping.
Remove one useful fact
Start with an import then make the product description less useful and see what the system should ask for.
When you want the real answer
The playground stops where a real compliance engine should start.
Use ePAL's public tools and documentation when you want an actual calculation or the detail behind one of the examples.
Calculate a basket
Run a real product or basket through ePAL's public calculator.
Open calculatorUnderstand the EU €3 duty
Read the practical ePAL guide covering thresholds, declaration lines, VAT effects and catalogue-to-customs hand-offs.
Read the guideSee what an integration actually needs
Read the public REST API documentation rather than another paragraph promising a seamless integration.
View API docsMost cross-border calculators calculate. ePAL optimises.
If the playground has done its job you should now know why the useful question is not only “what is the tax?” It is which product facts, routes and decisions produce the compliant total and whether those decisions survive all the way to customs.