What about BIRK → EGNS (Isle of Man) for a fuel stop and then → ELLX. That way I will stay outside of the EU. Does landing in EGNS have other implications?
If you buy it second hand for not much money, you pay not much tax…………………….
Stick you need to understand that. It is a German thing. You have to haggle with taxman a lot and greed is good there.
In that case I would suggest taking a leaf out of this guy’s book, having a lunch with somebody at the airport and ever so casually mentioning that you went to the USA, bought a pile of old stuff which was gathering dust on some avionics shop shelf (“which everybody in the USA is chucking out because they are putting in G500s”) and in the time it will take you to walk from the restaurant back to your hangar all interested parties will know how much you paid for it ($2000).
At my local airport, gossip does indeed travel at exactly that speed, as I found out quite early 
EGNS (Isle of Man) is part of the European customs union. In some other areas they are separate but not for customs. If you want to stay outside the EU you can choose for example Norway or the Channel Islands.
Andreas,
I don’t know if you fly N-Reg or EASA, I guess N-Reg?
If EASA be sure that you get correct paperwork with your equipment, not all 8130-3 forms are acceptable to EASA. No problem off course if your N-reg.
It’s N-reg, Jesse.
Just checked the route via Bergen/Norway. Doable but approx 200 NM longer than via EGNS.
Muelli,
Do NOT fly via EGNS, the Isle of Man is NOT pert of Europe but it IS part of the UK for VAT purposes. You would have to pat 20% VAT here.
Anyway, who’s going to know what you’ve fitted?
not all 8130-3 forms are acceptable to EASA
Do you have any details?
Here in the UK, the interpretation of the EASA Part M position is that the 8130-3 is fully acceptable on items which are NEW.
This is sometimes gold plated into a version which is that the 8130-3 also had to be issued by the original manufacturer. I have not seen a reference for this – maybe it’s in there somewhere…
However many of the big US makers are EASA approved so their 8130-3 is “dual release” and should be exactly equivalent to an EASA-1.
Just a thought: does it make any difference if the avionics fit is billed as a repair ?
