Australia is the longest move most British families will ever make, and the most heavily regulated. We collect from anywhere in the UK, ship by sea, clear biosecurity and customs on your behalf, and unpack in your new home in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide.
Last reviewed:
A move to Australia touches UK export procedure, an ocean carrier, Australian Border Force and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Any one of them can hold your container. Our job is to make sure none of them has a reason to.
That work starts before a single box is packed. We survey your home to measure volume properly, identify anything that will attract a biosecurity inspection, and tell you plainly what is worth shipping and what is cheaper to replace once you land. Then we handle the paperwork, the sailing, the clearance and the delivery, and you deal with one consultant throughout.
Sydney Harbour · Uluru · The Twelve Apostles
The right option is decided by volume first and urgency second. We'll recommend one after your survey, and show you the difference in writing rather than steering you towards the biggest box.
Under roughly 300 cu ft · also called groupage or LCL
Your belongings travel alongside other consignments bound for the same port, and you pay only for the space you use. The most economical route for part loads and smaller flats. The trade-off is time: the container waits until it is full, and clears customs as a group, which adds a week or two at each end.
Roughly 1,000 cu ft · one to two bedrooms
The container is yours alone, so it sails as soon as it is loaded rather than waiting for other customers. Suits a flat or a partial house move, and it is the option to choose if your dates are tight or you would rather your goods were not handled alongside anyone else's.
Roughly 2,200 cu ft · three to five bedrooms
The standard choice for a full family home, with room for white goods, garden equipment and often a car loaded alongside the furniture. Clears as a single consignment, which is simpler and usually quicker than a shared load of the same size.
Priced by weight · 7–10 days
For the things you cannot be without for three months: work equipment, a child's bed, clothes for the season you are arriving into. Expensive per kilo, so it works best as a small companion shipment flying ahead while the container follows by sea.
Most movers make you fill in a form before they will discuss money. Here is the shape of it up front — and, unlike most published prices in this trade, an honest account of what these figures do and do not cover.
| Size of move | Shipping, port to port | Packing and UK collection |
|---|---|---|
| Small move, shared containerA flat, a student move, part of a house | £670–£1,640 | Quoted per move |
| 20ft containerTypically a three-bedroom house | £3,122–£4,950 | About £2,010 |
| 40ft containerFour bedrooms and upwards | £7,900–£8,450 | About £2,510 |
The middle column is the shipping, and only the shipping. It is the cost of moving the container from a UK port to the destination port. The third column adds packing to export standard and collection from your home. Still to come on top of both: customs clearance at each end, quarantine or biosecurity inspection where the destination requires it, insurance, destination charges and delivery into your new home. Those are quoted per shipment, and every one of them is explained with published figures on what your quote doesn’t include.
We split it out this way because a shipping figure presented as the price of a move is how an advertised number ends up a couple of thousand pounds below what anybody actually pays. Ranges are indicative, move with sailing rates and the season, and depend on your actual packed volume — which is why we survey before we quote. The same figures for every destination, with a worked example, are on what an international move costs.
Door to door, from collection in the UK to delivery in your Australian home. These are planning figures, not guarantees — port congestion, biosecurity inspection and vessel schedules all move them.
| Destination | Shared container | Sole-use container |
|---|---|---|
| East coastSydney, Melbourne, Brisbane | 10–14 weeks | 9–12 weeks |
| West and southPerth, Adelaide | 11–14 weeks | 10–13 weeks |
| Regional and remoteDarwin, Cairns, Alice Springs, Tasmania | 12–16 weeks | 11–15 weeks |
| Air freightAll major cities | 7–10 days | |
Sea transit itself is roughly five to seven weeks. The rest is loading, consolidation, clearance and inland delivery — which is why a shared container to a regional address takes so much longer than the sailing suggests. Plan to live out of suitcases for the first two months.
Quoted as one price, delivered as one service. If something is not on this list, it will be named in your quotation rather than appearing as a surprise later.
Australia has the strictest border controls of any country we ship to, and biosecurity is where UK moves most often come unstuck. Almost nothing on this list is banned outright — but anything carrying soil, seeds, insects or organic residue can be held, cleaned, fumigated or destroyed at your cost.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry inspects shipments of household goods on arrival. The single best thing you can do is clean everything thoroughly before we pack it. A vacuumed lawnmower and a scrubbed pair of walking boots cost you an afternoon; an inspection and treatment order costs you weeks and hundreds of dollars.
Biosecurity rules change. We confirm the current position for your shipment at survey and give you a written list for your own packing, before anything is boxed.
Consolidated sailings to every mainland capital, and inland delivery beyond them. Your goods clear at the port nearest your new address wherever possible.
Port Botany, NSW
Our busiest Australian route. Frequent sailings and consolidated groupage make Sydney the fastest and usually the cheapest port to ship to from the UK.
Port of Melbourne, VIC
Australia's largest container port, with good onward road links to regional Victoria, Geelong and across to Tasmania via Devonport.
Port of Brisbane, QLD
Serves South East Queensland including the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. Add delivery time for Cairns, Townsville and far north Queensland.
Fremantle, WA
Geographically closer to the UK by sea, though sailings are less frequent than to the east coast, which tends to even out the total transit time.
Outer Harbor, SA
Direct calls are less regular, so shipments are sometimes routed via Melbourne or Fremantle with onward road delivery. We'll tell you which at quotation.
Darwin, Hobart, regional
Darwin, Tasmania and inland addresses are all served, usually via a mainland port and road or coastal feeder. Allow additional weeks and tell us early.
Working backwards from your flight.
Book your survey and confirm your quotation. Start the Vehicle Import Approval now if you are shipping a car.
Decide what is going, what is being sold and what goes into storage. Begin cleaning outdoor and sports equipment.
Complete your valued inventory for insurance and your biosecurity declaration. Set aside air freight items and hand luggage.
We pack, inventory and load over one to three days depending on size. Nothing leaves without being on the list.
We clear customs and biosecurity, arrange any inspection, and book delivery with you once your Australian address is confirmed.
Volume is the main driver, then container type, then how far your delivery address sits from the port. A few boxes in shared space and a four-bedroom house in a sole-use 40ft container are different orders of magnitude, so any figure quoted before a survey is guesswork. We survey, then quote in writing with the inclusions and exclusions listed. Use the volume estimator on our home page for a rough sense of scale first.
Below about 300 cubic feet, shared space is almost always cheaper. Above roughly a two-bedroom house, sole use usually wins on both time and handling. In between it is a genuine trade-off between money and weeks, and we'll show you both prices rather than choosing for you.
Generally not, for used personal effects you have owned for twelve months or more before arriving. New purchases, alcohol, tobacco and commercial goods are treated differently and can attract duty and GST. Concessions depend on your visa and residency circumstances, so we confirm your position before shipping rather than after.
Yes, either inside a sole-use container alongside your furniture or separately. The critical point is timing: you need a Vehicle Import Approval before the vehicle reaches Australia, and vehicles must meet Australian Design Rules to be registered, which can mean modification. Older cars may also need asbestos testing on brake and clutch parts. Start this at least three months ahead.
Anything cheap and bulky, anything running on 240V that you would replace anyway, most garden chemicals and paints (which are prohibited), and food. Australian appliances run on the same voltage as the UK but different plugs, so kettles and lamps travel fine. We'll walk the house with you and say honestly what is not worth the freight.
Eight to ten weeks is comfortable. December and January are the busiest months on this route because of the school year, and container space tightens well before then. We can work to shorter notice, but the cheaper shared sailings go first.
Yes. Returning residents may qualify for Transfer of Residence relief on UK import, which needs applying for in advance. We handle the ToR application alongside the move and collect from any Australian address.
Tell us which city and roughly when. A consultant will come back within one working day to arrange a survey.