Topic: Should BTC amounts greater than 10.000E be declared when leaving the country? - page 2. (Read 432 times)

I fly a lot within the EU and I've never been searched. I always have my phone and often carry a laptop. The only thing they do is they make you take it out and turn it on to see if it works and isn't a shell full of explosives or something. Same with the phone, I've never been asked about apps that I have in there, they don't care about that. I could have the hardware wallet along with my keys and they wouldn't ask about it. It looks like a flash drive and those are of course allowed.

I'd never declare my bitcoins simply because I don't want anyone to know that I'm a bitcoiner. I also don't walk around with any bitcoin logos for safety reasons.

Let's think of a situation where they ask me what have in my hardware wallet and I have a million euro on me. I'd simply say that I have no access to the wallet, that it's just a key that unlocks a wallet on my home computer or something like that and I'm carrying with me because it's a part of my key chain or whatever. I don't believe they'd hold it, but if that happened, I'd still have access to it because I have the seed and they wouldn't be able to check the contents without knowing my password. Also they wouldn't have the right to seize it. All they can possibly do is treat it like a suspicious item and not allow me to take it onboard, but I'd be able to get it back and the contents wouldn't be revealed.

From my experience they aren't suspicious of electronic devices, especially ones that are as small and simple as hardware wallets or memory cards. You can store bitcoin on a memory card of your phone or a gopro without having any apps installed there so even if someone powers on the device they won't find anything.

I cross the border with an old phone, and if the inspector asks to see him, I will smile and give him the phone. A laptop is much easier to prepare for moving across the border. If the control is random and the person will not succumb to provocation, then the control will be formal.
You laugh in vain at the expense of pornography, in some countries it is prohibited.
You probably have not come across this, but even after crossing the border at the airport, people in civilian clothes came up to me, showed me a badge, like a policeman, and asked me to show my documents. Some people were detained.
If you have passed customs control, you should not lose your vigilance and get crypto wallets from hiding places.

That's easy to answer: I consider my phone to be an untrusted device (same as the tablet), and doesn't have anything that I can't handle losing at any moment. No banking, a separate email account, no passwords, no crypto other than small amounts for the rare IRL payment.

Lol In that case: act suspiciously, refuse all drinks, look around you a lot, and use your most nervous voice and drop your stuff a few times when checked. Enjoy!

When you said above that you prefer to have your phone searched I believed that you mean that, in case you are stopped at the border for a device check, then from all digital devices you carry you'd prefer to have the phone searched -- and this intrigued me Why the phone and not the tablet, for example.

However, what you just said now put things in a totally different perspective Yet even when having to choose between a cavity search or a phone check, based on the skills earned during last years inside the foxhole, a cavity search should not be a problem -- but the opposite: a pleasure

You get to choose between a full cavity search and having your phone checked, and you're in doubt? What kind of secrets do you have on your phone?

Perhaps I did not understand well what you meant above. I thought you are saying that there is no limit for the money which someone can carry with him when crossing the border, not about a cash limit for a transaction.


I understand what you are trying to say. You examples are sound and coherent. But I believe they are true only if you talk about fiat money. Since crypto raises suspicion in the eyes of authorities only by hearing this term, I am afraid (like really afraid) that declaring it may raise even more suspicion, out of no where. What if you don't have (even at home) proofs like KYC for your funds? Maybe you simply received 1000 BTC in the age when it was 1$ or less.Will you declare you are carrying 23M$ in BTC and, if you'll be asked for its provenience you'll say that it was a gift? Do you really think this would work?

La revedere

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Looooool! I am sure that no country shows that kind of statistics


Now you made me curious. Why is that? 


I also thought about that: how many employees they need in order to search everybody's phone digital device. I assumed they certainly don't have many enough for this, nor they have time enough for properly checking even the devices they are checking. I guess the action can be seen as a tryout: they may have a predetermined number to check each day -- let's say 10 devices. If they find anything suspicious then hooray to entire department; if not, that's fine too.

"Border Control" on TV shows only the extremes. There's no fun watching a TV show that shows endless rows of families passing through customs without problems.
Talking about invasive: they can also do full cavity searches. It happens. And yet, it's not my concern while crossing a border.

This got me curious, but I couldn't find what percentage of travellers gets to bend over. I know which one I'd prefer though: please just look at my phone!

It has to be: they don't have time to fully check a lot of devices.

France:


Information from the Netherlands government website.

Of course I am sure. The public authorities cannot seize your assets arbitrarily. If you have declared your funds and they are of legal origin, they cannot seize them, whether they are €11k or €1M. In cash or bitcoin.

Example, you are a businessman with a lot of money that buys €1M in Coinbase fully KYC verified with the profits of your companies. You live in Portugal but want to move to Cluj Napoca in Romania and you tell the authorities that you are going to take that €1M in a HW (or in cash, it doesn't matter). They can't seize it.

Another thing is that you are a worker who has not declared anything, who earns €800 per month and carries €1M in Bitcoin (which maybe you bought without KYC in 2010 for little money and you have HODLed, passing it through mixers for privacy and never declared). There you are going to have a problem.

La revedere.

I certainly hope that such cases are very few and only in just a few countries. This feel so... invasive!

I made some research on what you said and on https://www.canada.ca/en.html I found a page describing what you just said. And it's true, they may actually inspect your phone. And not just that! All your digital devices. According to Canadian government (highlight is mine),


Are you sure there is no limit for individuals?


Again, are you 100% sure they confiscate undeclared BTC (or what's over 10.000E) although there is no reference inside the law specifying the term cryptocurrency?

I've only seen that in the Border Control program (or something like that is called) at the Canadian border if I remember correctly, but I doubt very much that they do that in European countries.


Not at all.

Just because you have to declare them does not mean that you cannot pass with a higher amount. Here the problem is that you have Bitcoins with privacy and you do not want them to know but you can have €20k in cash or Bitcoin of legal and declared origin, that if you want to cross the border the only thing you have to declare it, saying previously that you are going to pass with that money. There are countries where the limit on cash payments is only when one party is a company, but with individuals there are no limits on cash payments.

Let's suppose you live in France, where there is a cash payment limit and you want to go to Germany where there is no limit to buy a car worth €20k in cash, something very common there because it is a country that uses a lot of cash. Or Bitcoin. You can declare it calmly and nobody will confiscate anything. Another thing is that in a routine control at the "border" (nonexistent for practical purposes today) they do a search and they catch you those €20k in cash or Bitcoin without declaring. Then they will confiscate everything or the excess of €10k, but not if you have declared it before.

Seriously? In this case situation is worst than I thought... I did not imagine that they actually check people's phones... I mean I wrote above about this possibility, but I did not actually think it is happening. May I ask in what countries your friend encountered such zealous custom officers?


This is ridiculous! Why don't they check the porn sites history then?


Considering what you just said I think it's a good advice.

Just curious though: do you know if your friends have crypto wallets on their phones? I'm asking as I'm thinking that, maybe, this is what they were looking for. And, in case your friends did not have any wallet they started to check their YouTube history, to not have their superiors saying they did not make random check at least... And, maybe, if they had crypto wallets then maybe they would be looked with more suspicion...? I can't believe we are living such days.

I myself have not encountered this, but my friends warned me about customs checks.
They were asked to unlock their phone and checked which offers were installed. The customs officers checked which YouTube channels they subscribed to. I think that this is not related to cryptocurrencies, but when crossing the border it is better to remove cryptocurrency wallets from your phone and laptop.

I was not thinking about a hardware wallet but about a mobile wallet. Anyway, most important is to know what the law says. And even if the law would say "yes, declare crypto amounts greater than 10.000E" it's still a gray situation. Look at it in this way:

• you have an online wallet with more than 10.000E worth of BTC; as it is an online wallet, you don't have it with you. But you can still spend this amount in the country where you travel, right?
• you have a mobile wallet with more than 10.000E worth of BTC; (1) you don't declare it as you believe no custom officer would ever check your phone: if this happens (meaning your phone will not be checked) then you are free to spend the money; (2) you delete it and reinstall it once you are inside the destination country: again, nobody can stop you from spending; (3) you save wallet.dat and upload it on your email then delete the wallet: once you reach your destination you are free to spend as much as you want; (4) you delete and restore the wallet using a pass phrase etc.

In all above cases you are able to cross any border with more than 10.000E in BTC even if the law would say you must declare if you have such amount.

Now think about this: again, let's suppose the law coerces you to declare big amounts. And you declare you have 15.000E in BTC. What will happen? Or what happens if you actually have 15.000E fiat? Or 20.000E? Do they confiscate what's over 10.000E? Would they confiscate your BTC too (what's over 10.000E)?

Then about this: you have BTC worth of 9000E and the law says to declare if you have over 10.000E. In this case you don't declare anything, as you have only 9000E. But while you are in the new country BTC doubles and suddenly you have 18.000E. So you spend 18.000E maybe on some valuable physical goods and you are questioned upon returning: "how did you buy these since you had under 10.000E? Did you have more than 10.000E in BTC and you didn't declare?" -- and so on. Can you justify the provenience of the goods simply by saying that "BTC price doubled so I suddenly had more than 10.000 although on departure I had less"?

Finally, what if someone sends you BTC worth of 50.000E and you buy goods and, again, you are stopped when returning and questioned how you were able to buy the goods. What happens if you say you received this amount through a Bitcoin transaction? Will you be considered a criminal for being able to receive (and spend) such a big amount?

So you see, even if a law would say you should declare crypto amounts greater than 10.000E (and, so far, we did not find any such law), things are still in a gray area. You may easily avoid the law but even in cases where you would not avoid it you may look shady (take the case where you have 9000E in BTC and BTC price soars; you buy goods which value more than 10.000E then you are questioned how you were able to buy them since you did not declare anything upon departure, as you had less than 10.000E in BTC back then).

I see this as a bit exaggerated, because according to the literal meaning, I should declare if I carry a debit card associated to an account where I have $1M. But all the payments made with the card are registered, so I don't see much sense. Besides there is a trick to get around this. I carry a debit card associated with an account where I only have $0.30. But when I arrive in the country I make an instant transfer from a savings account at the same bank for $20k.


I think this is the crux of the matter, but at the time of a trial. At the border an agent can get you in trouble. If I have €1M in Bitcoin I don't really carry it, in the same way that if I have €1M in P&G shares I don't either, even though I can arrive in another country, click to sell them in an instant and have the money in my account available to spend or withdraw in ATMs (little by little obviously because there are withdrawal limits).

The thing is that unless the police suspect you for some reason, the seeds are very easy to hide and they will not find them. Instead of writing them down on a piece of paper, which is the typical thing they would look for if they suspected you, you could take a couple of books in your suitcase and have the seeds written on different pages.

There is no doubt that the officer will decide your situation, he will have all power to create problems for you if he wants.

My suggestion is that  you should not carry more than 0.4 BTC (aprox 10k euros) in your mobile phone.

If you are walking with your live savings in your hardware wallet, you need to hide the main seed using a passphrase.
https://www.ledger.com/academy/passphrase-an-advanced-security-feature

Just avoid problems for yourself.


Debit and cards are not supposed to be declared, not because there is no "will" to spend, but because the law only obligate you to declare your cash.
Only cash is supposed to be declared.

https://www.owlaw.com/german-customs-law/42609-fine-10000-euros-cash-when-travelling-to-germany/#:~:text=Any%20person%20travelling%20with%20cash%2C%20gold%2C%20cheques%20or,this%20must%20be%20done%20in%20writing%20in%20advance.

It is not related to your will to spend it, you should declare if you are carrying.

This law we can see in most countries in the world.

its about "intention to spend"

EG you dont declare your debit bank card because no one intends to spend their entire life savings in 2 weeks. but if you were going to do a YOLO in las vegas with life savings then yes THEN you should also declare your bank account as YOLO vacation money

when taking physical share certificates, gold bars, if you dont intend to spend them theres no reason to take them. and as such finding them on you is then questioning why you needed to take such an amount

so unless you intend to spend E10k  worth of crypto then there is nothing to declare.. but dont then use that as an excuse not to declare it and maybe get caught on the way back where they may find evidence you did spend more then e10k but not declare it

most of the time just declaring it is meaningless. its just paperwork (unless your on some watchlist).. you simply carry on with your journey
however caught not declaring but then spending raises a red flag

i went from UK, through europe, to asia a few times(and back)
they only cared about my physical value. not any digital(bank/crypto) however they did ask how much i spent a few odd times on the return

if it were a problem then dang elon must never be able to go abroad as his bank account has way more then e10k in bank account share portfolio apps, etc (same as all middle/upperclass people)

Now you see how ironic the law is? If you want to act honestly and declare a big amount you'd look suspicious. If you don't declare it and you get caught they'll rob your money and start a criminal investigation against you. So what to do?


Loooool, according tu EU law, yes. He would have been fine also if he tried to smuggle fake gold bars or ones with only 50-60% gold, even if he was smuggling them only to scam. But they were not 99.5% so he were safe =)))

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Looool I am sure that no custom officer would ever stop to ask you at the border if you are carrying a few gold bullions. It's perfectly normal to have (at least) one in each pocket =)))

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Fast food arbitrage? =))) Now that's an appealing idea I may try once!.

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Yup, that's right. It's possible they did not update the website after last update made by European Union. Besides, the French website mentioned digital currency, not cryptocurrency... anyway this could be a debate about semantics. In any case, it seems there is no specification for declaring crypto at the border...

@LeGaulois: I think it's like Heretik wrote: the local/national regulations can differ in details from the EU regulations, but must at least implement the restrictions of these. In this case, the local French law could be more severe than the EU regulation. However, it's possible that you're right (which would be a good thing) because just the customs regulations are one of the pillars of the EU as a customs union, and thus it's possible that they have to be completely harmonized (and thus, perhaps, a local court punishing you for not declaring your BTC could be overruled by an European one which considers this rule to be not compliant with the European one).

I saw, however, that also the Spanish customs site has a wider definition of the mediums of exchange which must be declared (Source):

That's true, yes. Note that the EU has a quite strict definition of the term "e-money", but not "digital money/currency". E-money is always tied to fiat. One would have to look into the small print of the French law (what I cited was only an English summary for tourists).

Note that digital currency may not necessarily mean cryptocurrency.

Either way this probably won't get properly defined until there is precedent. After all there's a huge spectrum of "physical transfer". Physical coins? Paper wallets? Hardware wallets? Software wallets? Your brain storing memorized passphrases? In practice the ability to effectively execute regulations stops at physical coins and paper wallets. No way for them to know how much a hardware or software wallet really contains. Or your brain. Or the book that you're carrying with you that has seemingly random words highlighted with marker.

Still a pity that they thought of vouchers. There goes my plan trafficking McDonalds coupons for fast food arbitrage.



Depends. The EU delegates the practical implementations of these rules to the local governments. What you then would have to do is prove in court that the state laws are breaking EU law which may not always be that easy but could be a fun exercise. Though I doubt that any of the local customs law are in conflict with EU law, as otherwise someone would have already sued. Someone always does.

Weird because it wasn't the case before. I see now a change has taken place in 2018 or 2019, so maybe...
I checked the french gov. website and it's not mentionned. https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F794?lang=en

I checked the belgium gov. website and nothing too about it. Then I went to Germany's website and still nothing.

And yeah I knew about the gold at >90%

@d5000
Doesn't matter a lot because the countries don't decide. They have to obey to the european rules. Countries are just the puppets of EU

And eu says
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/carry/carrying-cash/index_fr.htm

In a justice court, you will win by saying you respected the EU rules instead the local ones.