Shipping costs

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Shipping worldwide! Minifree ships to USA, Canada, South America, Europe(non-EU), Australia, Asia, and everywhere else, shipping globally from Minifree’s lab in the United Kingdom.

USA trade tariffs: US customers should please read the information contained further down on this page.

Free technical support is provided for all customers, via email and IRC, even if your warranty has expired. If you have any questions at all about your machine, I (Leah Rowe) take great pride in my work and I enjoy helping people.

A generous 5-Year Warranty is provided, for all orders.

FREE shipping to the UK. This also includes Northern Ireland.

Yes, shipping to the UK is £0. UK shipping costs peanuts.

Minifree is send-in-only since October 2026, and we do not provide send-in services to the EU. Please instead read the Libreboot documentation and flash it yourself, or get someone else to do it. Sorry!

VAT paperwork for services-only businesses is extremely complicated for small businesses like Minifree, specifically when dealing with the EU. We only provide send-in service to non-EU countries.

Also Switzerland, Norway and Iceland:

£60 GBP

£80 GBP

Varies per order. We have to wait for your machine to arrive first. Depending on how complex your configuration needs to be, it might not take very long or it takes a couple of days. If Minifree is especially backlogged with orders, it might take a few weeks. You will be informed at all times.

We used to also buy and sell computers, shipping them globally to every country and that included EU countries. Since October 2026, Minifree only provides send-in service and thus we do not do any new business with the EU. This is because the EU’s VAT rules for goods are much simpler than for services - services require a lot of heavy paperwork, if doing it as a main activity. Minifree doesn’t need that hassle, and we have enough demand from non-EU countries, so Minifree just decided to cease all EU trade.

Please note: Minifree is still quite happy to do business with non-EU countries in Europe, e.g. Norway, Switzerland, Iceland. This is not a political decision. The realities that influence it would apply, even if the UK were still an EU member state.

More info available on the policy page.

Minifree charges for return shipping and handles all return shipping.

The customer is, however, expected to make their own separate arrangement when shipping a computer to Minifree. Minifree only handles shipping of the computer back to each customer, when each computer is made ready.

Shipping fees vary per country, as per: https://minifree.org/shipping.html

More about the European Union

EU VAT paperwork for services-only businesses is too complicated for a company of Minifree’s scale. Therefore, Minifree does not provide services to the EU; we used to ship hardware to the EU, because the rules are simpler for goods.

Ongoing modernisation efforts in Libreboot, along with expanded hardware compatibility in recent releases, is such that the total overall commercial demand for Libreboot services is expected to rise exponentially over the next few years. This means that Minifree does not need to serve every country in the world (anymore). Minifree has, as a result, begun a general effort to simplify its operations as much as possible.

The purpose of Minifree is thus:

• Libreboot installations
• Porting new hardware to Libreboot
• Provide funding for the above

Anything that takes unnecessary time out of development work is thus a liability. Service-only operation means that Minifree’s operation has a greatly reduced administrative burden as it no longer handles stock. Unfortunately, regulations passed in the EU during the mid 2010s make services infeasible in the EU for such a niche operation as Minifree. Note that this has nothing to do with Brexit; it would be true even if the UK once day re-joined the EU.

Thus, this policy change was enacted, and the EU became collateral damage. Sorry once again.

Anywhere else besides the EU is basically fine. E.g. UK customers (Minifree is UK-based). We sometimes get send ins from e.g. USA, Canada. Even Asian countries, from time to time. Obviously, not everyone halfway across the globe wants to send their computer for installation, so the Libreboot documentation says how you can do it yourself or you can find someone wily enough to do it for you. Of course, if you want the absolute best, Minifree’s owner Leah Rowe is also the lead developer and founder of the Libreboot project. Can’t get any better than that!

Minifree is only a tiny company, the sole purpose of which is to facilitate Libreboot development. Would-be EU customers may install Libreboot themselves, or find someone inside the EU to do it for them. The overhead of running a full logistics-based operation (buying and selling hardware) became untenable long-term, especially in the modern age of AI which drove hardware prices up considerably; the sheer time taken to find and purchase hardware at a reasonable price is a full-time job these days. Even when (when, not if) the AI bubble bursts, service-only operation is simply more efficient on time, for the same number of hours; it also means that Minifree will focus on a larger variety of hardware commercially, naturally as people send all sorts of machines which then allows Libreboot to add more hardware support (based on coreboot). Service-only operation means that Minifree can mostly focus on lab tasks, and Libreboot development itself. AI-driven price volatility mean that the risks interent to hardware sales are simply too high these days, so Minifree is now services-only and thus became unavailable for EU customers. Sorry!

NOTE: Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are non-EU states, and can still buy services from Minifree.

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