Can I bring a new laptop in its package into the plane as carry-on?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 19 Jul, 2023
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I’ve cleared security with a new, boxed laptop–although they were free to open it if they wanted to. They didn’t look. (This was a timing issue. While synching files in preparation for the trip my laptop utterly died. I burned what I could to CDs, stopped by the computer store on the way to the airport and grabbed the most suitable thing they had. I hadn’t had time to unbox it.)
I would not expect this to be possible these days, however, as it’s normally laptops out at security.
Bringing the laptop into the plane as carry-on:
Personal experience here – myself and my wife picked up two Macbook Airs in Schiphol during transit from the UK to Uganda.
No one batted an eyelid at security at the gate – they were just x-rayed in their boxes, with shrink wrap undamaged, along with everything else.
No one batted an eyelid at Customs in Uganda.
However, your mileage may vary – there is no single golden answer to this question, it entirely depends on the individuals handling the security gate you go through on that particular day, and the Customs officials watching arriving passengers.
Checking in your laptop is a terrible idea, as mentioned: the risks are just too great, both in terms of loss and breakage.
Moreover, option 2 isn’t going to work in most places: you have to put laptops (and often tablets and phones) in trays. So you’d have to open the package anyway. Just take the laptop with you, and, if you really must, the empty packaging in your checked luggage.
Note also that arriving with a brand new laptop in its original packaging is going to get noticed by the Customs officers, who might very well ask you to pay taxes on that.
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