Send parcel to Spain - Canary Islands

Why does a parcel to Tenerife go through customs if the Canaries are part of Spain?

Because the Canary Islands have their own tax regime. Instead of VAT they apply a local tax, so every parcel arriving from mainland Spain or from Italy is checked by customs on entry to the archipelago. This also applies to gifts between private individuals. In practice you need the commercial invoice or, for a gift, a declaration of contents with the value of each item, plus the free export declaration and a copy of the sender's ID. On arrival the recipient pays the local import taxes, which are calculated on the declared value. That is why it pays to declare the real value and describe the contents precisely: "men's leather shoes, 1 pair" rather than "gift". Anyone who receives parcels from Italy regularly, such as the Italian restaurants in the south of Tenerife, already has their Spanish tax number ready and adds it to the address to speed up clearance.

Las Palmas or Santa Cruz? How to write a Canary Islands address

The archipelago has two capitals and two provinces, and the postcode tells you straight away which one the recipient is in. The eastern islands, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, belong to the province of Las Palmas and their postcodes start with 35. The western islands, Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, are in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and start with 38. The address follows the Spanish pattern: street, house number, floor and door, then postcode and town. Adding the island name at the end helps more than you might think, because towns with the same name exist on different islands. An example: "Juan Pérez García, Calle Los Cristianos 12, 2º B, 38650 Arona, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, Spain, tel. +34 ...". One detail that causes confusion: many resorts in the south of Tenerife, such as Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas or Costa Adeje, are not municipalities but districts. The label should carry the municipality, Arona or Adeje, or both. In residential complexes the name of the complex and the apartment number matter as much as the street.

How long does a parcel take to reach the Canary Islands?

Between 9 and 12 working days from collection in Italy, which makes it the slowest destination in Spain. The reason is geography: the archipelago sits in the Atlantic off the coast of Morocco, more than a thousand kilometres from the mainland. The parcel crosses Italy and France by road, reaches the south of Spain and continues from there by ship or plane to Gran Canaria or Tenerife, where customs clearance is added on top. The two largest islands account for most deliveries and sit at the lower end of the range. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura follow with one extra day, while La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro depend on a further inter-island sea link and sit at the upper end. The Europacco parcel service covers all seven islands, and a single order can include several parcels to the same address. If you are in a hurry, bear in mind that time spent in customs depends more on complete paperwork than on the courier.

Who sends parcels from Italy to the Canary Islands, and what do they send?

First of all, the Italians who live there. Tenerife is home to one of the largest Italian communities in Spain, concentrated between Adeje, Arona and Puerto de la Cruz, with hundreds of Italian-run restaurants, pizzerias and ice cream parlours, and Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura follow some way behind. This generates recurring orders of pasta, coffee, flour, cured meats and cheeses that cost far more on the islands, but also spare parts for coffee machines and kitchen equipment. The second group is hotels and resorts, because the Canaries are the European destination that works all year round, and furniture, linen, pool supplies and lighting arrive from Italy constantly, often on pallets. The third is retail: fashion and optical shops in the shopping centres of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz, wine merchants importing Italian wine for restaurants, and the yachting sector in the marinas of the south, from Puerto Colón to Pasito Blanco.

The Santa Cruz carnival and Día de Canarias: when the islands slow down

The carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is one of the largest in the world after Rio, and in the weeks between February and March, on dates that follow the Easter calendar, the city lives by night and works little by day: deliveries in the centre can slip by a day or two. Las Palmas holds its own carnival in the same period. 30 May, Día de Canarias, is a public holiday across the archipelago, and on top of these dates come the Spanish national holidays and the patron saint festivals of each island, such as the Bajada de la Virgen on La Palma. The climate poses no temperature problems, a Canary winter is like spring, but the calima, the wind laden with Saharan sand, can ground flights and inter-island connections for a few hours. One last thing that surprises callers from Italy: the Canaries have their own time zone, one hour behind Madrid and Rome, and delivery slots and office hours follow local time.