Syria Travel Forum

Has anyone had any problems traveling from the us to damascus and bringing electronic gifts? My husband hasn't been back to damacus in 5 years, and want's to bring his brother and sister a laptop as gifts. He also has his own laptop, so is there limits to how many you can bring? he will be flying their via air france. I have been checking 1,000's of websites and can't seeemed to find anything about limits, however one of his friends told him that he was turned away because he had to many laptops???? any help would be great!!

There are 2 separate issues here, which are 1) taking laptops on planes and 2) bringing ANY goods, whether gifts or not, electronic or not, into a country duty-free.
A traveller can bring into Syria, in his personal baggage, goods worth up to 250 Syrian pounds without paying duty; anything above that must be declared to Customs who will charge duty on it (as in any other country). It should be possible for your husband's own laptop to be treated as a temporary import (given that he is carrying 2 more he may be asked for a deposit redeemable upon departure, and would be well-advised to take papers showing that it is not new), but it seems to me that the only way he could avoid paying duty on the other two is to risk smuggling them in.
As regards security issues, these change all the time and at one point, all laptops were banned from being carried as cabin baggage on flights to the UK and US, but at the moment I believe you can take ONE as handluggage, presenting it separately for security checks. However, as long as your husband is happy to put 2 of them in his checked (hold) luggage, there shouldn't be a security issue - but you must check this with the (departure/transit) airports concerned, or the airline. Most airports have this information on their website but I don't know which ones your husband will be using.

If you are flying with him you can claim that one Lap top is yours. If there are 2 other people flying wiht than each one of them can claim a lap top. If no one is flying with him, he will have to pay customs. He would pay this any where else in the world. I think the law is reasonable in this case.

If you are flying together I recommend that you and you husband approach customs seprately.

Good luck

One other thing, If you are going to claim a lap top than loose the box and pretend that the lap top is actually yours. Don't present customs with a raped new un-open box