Coming home sounds like the easy direction, and in most ways it is: same language, familiar roads, no new rules about where you can live. The part that catches people out is customs. Your own furniture is treated as an import unless HMRC has agreed otherwise in advance, so we start with the paperwork and build the move around it — collecting from your home abroad and delivering to any address in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
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Your passport gets you through the airport. It does nothing for the container. Household goods arriving from outside the UK are imports like any other, and without relief they can attract import duty and VAT on their value — including the furniture you bought here and took with you in the first place.
The relief that prevents this is called Transfer of Residence. It is generous, but it has to be applied for and granted before your goods land, and the conditions are specific. So it is the first thing we do: we check you qualify, prepare the application with you, and only then book the sailing. Get the order right and coming home is one of the simplest moves we run.
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The relief lets you bring your household goods and personal belongings into the UK free of import duty and VAT. HMRC sets four conditions, and you need to meet all of them.
Normally lived outside the UK
You must have lived outside the UK for at least twelve consecutive months. Long holidays home don’t usually break this, but a period of living here does. If your time away has been broken up, tell us at the start and we will check it before anything is booked.
Owned and used before you move
Each item must have been in your possession and use for at least six months before you move. The new sofa bought the month before you leave is not covered. Neither, generally, are goods bought for a business.
From when you take up residence
Goods must come in within twelve months of you moving back to live here. That gives room to ship some things now and some later — useful if you are leaving a property abroad for a while — but every shipment needs to be covered.
After the relief is granted
Goods brought in under relief cannot be lent, hired out, used as security or transferred to anyone else for twelve months. Selling the car the week it arrives can mean paying the duty after all.
Apply early. HMRC does not publish a processing time for Transfer of Residence applications, so any figure you see quoted — including on removals websites — is somebody’s guess. Goods that arrive before relief is granted sit at the port, and the port charges by the day. We prepare the application with you as soon as the survey is done. Alcohol, tobacco and goods for business use are not covered by the relief. There is more on this, and on every other charge that can follow a quote, on what your quote doesn’t include.
Door to door, from collection at your home abroad to delivery at your UK address. Planning figures, not guarantees — and they assume your Transfer of Residence relief is in place when the goods arrive.
| Coming from | Typical door to door | Usually travels by |
|---|---|---|
| EuropeFrance, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy and beyond | 2–18 days | Road freight |
| North AmericaUnited States and Canada | 4–12 weeks | Sea freight |
| The GulfDubai, Abu Dhabi and the northern emirates | 4–8 weeks | Sea freight |
| South AfricaCape Town, Johannesburg, Durban | 6–11 weeks | Sea freight |
| AsiaSingapore, Hong Kong and the region | 7–12 weeks | Sea freight |
| Australia and New ZealandSydney, Melbourne, Perth, Auckland, Christchurch | 8–15 weeks | Sea freight |
| Air freightFrom all major cities | 5–10 days | |
Ranges mirror our outbound routes, because the sailings are the same ships going the other way. Shared container space can take longer to fill at the origin end than a sole-use container, which sails as soon as it is loaded. For anywhere not listed, see our guide to everywhere else.
Quoted as one price, delivered as one service. Anything not on this list is named in your quotation rather than discovered later.
Almost none of them are about the shipping. They are about assuming that because Britain is home, nothing needs declaring.
Most of these are easy to avoid if you know about them before packing day, which is why we go through them at survey.
UK import rules change. We confirm the current position for your belongings at survey and give it to you in writing.
Working backwards from your flight home.
Book a video survey and confirm your quotation. We check your dates against the Transfer of Residence conditions.
Submit your ToR1 application with our help. The earlier it goes in, the less chance of goods waiting at the port.
Decide what comes home and what is sold or left. Check any vehicle, pets and electricals against UK rules.
Our partner crew packs, inventories and loads at your home abroad. Air freight is separated for the first few weeks.
We clear UK customs using your relief, then deliver and unpack — or hold everything in storage until you are ready.
Yes, if your belongings are coming from outside the UK. Nationality doesn’t affect customs: household goods arriving from abroad are imports, and without relief they can be charged import duty and VAT on their value. Transfer of Residence is how you avoid that, and it has to be granted before the goods arrive.
Volume first, then distance and the route. A part load from France by road costs a fraction of a full container from Sydney. Any figure before a survey is guesswork — use the estimator on our home page for scale, see what an international move costs for the published ranges, then let us quote properly.
HMRC doesn’t publish a processing time, so we won’t pretend to know one. Apply as soon as your survey is done and your dates are settled. If the goods are ready to sail before approval comes through, holding them at origin is usually cheaper than letting them wait at a UK port.
Of course — but your belongings won’t qualify for Transfer of Residence, so duty and VAT may be due on them. Things that left the UK with you and are coming back unchanged may qualify for a separate relief for returned goods. Tell us your dates and we will look at the options before you book.
Usually, yes. If you have owned and used it abroad for at least six months it can normally come in under Transfer of Residence. It then needs registering with the DVLA, and some vehicles need an approval test first. Shipping a car is not always worth it from a long way away, so we will give you an honest view.
Yes, and many people coming home do exactly that. Your goods clear customs, go into our containerised storage, and are delivered when you have a UK address. Storage is quoted by the week or month, with no minimum term.
Yes. We collect from over 190 countries through our network of destination agents. If you are coming home from somewhere not mentioned here, our guide to everywhere else covers regional transit times and what to expect.
Tell us where you are now, where you are heading in the UK and roughly when. A consultant will come back within one working day to arrange a video survey.