Ship It, Sell It, or Carry It: Moving Your Belongings Abroad

There is a moment in every move where you stand in the middle of your own living room and try to work out what any of it is actually worth to you. Not what you paid. What it is worth to have this specific sofa, in a country you have not lived in yet, in six weeks’ time, for a shipping cost that would buy two sofas.

Most people ship too much. A few ship too little and spend their first month sitting on a borrowed chair. The decision is genuinely a calculation, and it is worth doing properly rather than by sentiment or panic.

The three options, honestly priced

Carry it. Whatever fits in your luggage allowance, plus perhaps an extra checked bag or two. Cheap, immediate, and severely limited. Fine for a single person moving into a furnished flat.

Air freight. Fast - days to a couple of weeks - and priced largely by weight. Good for a modest volume of things you need soon: clothes, books, kitchen essentials, work equipment. Expensive per kilo, which makes it wrong for anything bulky.

Sea freight. Priced by volume rather than weight, which is why a full household can move for a surprisingly reasonable figure and a single heavy box cannot. Slow: six to twelve weeks door to door is normal once you count collection, consolidation, sailing, customs and delivery. Within a continent, road freight fills the same role and is usually faster.

Sea freight splits into two shapes. A full container is yours alone and sails when you are ready. A shared or groupage container is much cheaper for smaller loads but waits until it is full, which adds unpredictable delay at both ends. If you are shipping less than a large household, shared is usually the sensible choice - just do not plan around its arrival date.

The arithmetic that decides it

Get quotes before you decide anything, because most people’s intuition about the cost is wrong in both directions.

Then apply a simple test to each item: what would it cost to replace here, and could I?

Things that usually justify shipping: genuinely valuable furniture, anything antique or handmade, professional tools and equipment, musical instruments, and the small pile of things that are irreplaceable regardless of price - photographs, letters, the objects with a story attached.

Things that usually do not: flat-pack furniture, mattresses and bedding, most white goods, ordinary crockery and kitchenware, cheap electronics, and books in any quantity, because books are heavy and dense and shipping a library costs real money.

Two hidden factors push the calculation further towards selling than people expect. Voltage and plugs differ, and appliances that need a transformer are a nuisance forever. Sizes differ - kitchen appliances, wardrobes and beds are built to different standard dimensions in different countries, and a beloved fridge that does not fit the gap is a very expensive piece of scrap.

The counter-argument is the one at the other end: arriving into an empty, unfurnished flat is more expensive and more exhausting than it sounds, especially in countries where “unfurnished” means no kitchen at all. That cost belongs in the comparison, and it is the subject of furnishing your first home abroad.

Choosing a mover

Get at least three quotes, and insist on a survey - a video call walkthrough is normal now and is much more accurate than a form. A quote given without seeing what you own is a guess that will be revised upwards later.

Compare on the same terms. Door to door includes collection, packing, freight, customs clearance and delivery to your new address. Port to port does not, and the difference at the other end is substantial. Ask specifically what is excluded: destination handling charges, customs brokerage, storage if your flat is not ready, a shuttle vehicle if the truck cannot reach your street, and carrying up stairs.

Check the company is a member of a recognised international moving association, and look for how they handle claims rather than how they describe their service. And be alert to the pattern where a very low quote is followed by charges appearing at the destination once your possessions are already there - it is a known problem in this industry and the leverage is entirely on their side at that point.

Ask who actually performs the work. Most international moves involve an agent at each end, and the quality of the destination agent matters as much as the one packing your boxes.

Customs, and the relief you have to claim

Most countries offer some form of duty relief for personal effects imported as part of a genuine relocation. The conditions vary, but the recurring themes are:

• You must be transferring your residence, evidenced by a visa, permit or registration
• You must have owned and used the items for some minimum period, often six or twelve months
• You must import within a window around the date you establish residence
• You must not sell the goods for some period afterwards
• You must submit a detailed inventory, usually valued, sometimes in the local language

The relief is almost never automatic. It is claimed, with paperwork, and the paperwork usually includes proof of residence - which loops back to why registering your address abroad is on the critical path for so much else.

Items that commonly fall outside relief or attract special treatment: alcohol and tobacco, vehicles, firearms, plants and seeds, food, and anything that looks new enough to be a purchase rather than a possession. Keep receipts for genuinely new items and be honest on the inventory - an inaccurate declaration can mean your entire shipment sits in a bonded warehouse accruing storage charges while it is sorted out, which is both expensive and infuriating.

Write the inventory properly. “Box 12: kitchen” is not an inventory. Numbered boxes with contents and values, prepared as you pack, is what customs wants and what your insurer will need if something is damaged.

Insurance, and how not to be underinsured

The carrier’s basic liability is generally calculated per kilo and bears no relationship to what your things are worth. Buy proper transit insurance, declare a realistic value, and read what it excludes - commonly items you packed yourself, which is a reason to let the movers pack anything valuable.

Photograph everything of value before it is boxed, keep your own copy of the inventory, and know the claim window, which is often short and starts on delivery. Inspect on arrival and note any damage on the delivery paperwork before signing, because signing a clean receipt makes a later claim considerably harder.

Timing, which is where plans break

The mistake is treating the shipment as though it will be there when you are. It will not.

Sea freight booked the week you leave arrives, realistically, two to three months later. Meanwhile you need to sleep, cook, work and dress. So split your possessions deliberately into three: what travels with you, what goes by air if the budget allows, and what follows by sea.

The things people most regret putting on the boat: work equipment, a decent set of clothes for the local climate and for job interviews, chargers and adapters, essential documents, children’s comfort items, and enough kitchen basics to cook a meal.

Documents in particular should never go in the shipment. Passports, certificates, apostilled originals - these travel with you, for obvious reasons but also because you will need several of them in your first fortnight, as getting your documents apostilled and translated explains.

Also line up delivery access at the other end. Narrow streets, no lift, parking restrictions and building rules about when moves may happen are all real constraints, and a container that cannot reach your door incurs a shuttle charge.

Selling, storing and giving away

Selling well takes longer than you think. Start six to eight weeks out, because a fire sale in the final week gets a fraction of the value.

Storage at home is worth doing only for a genuinely short, defined absence. Three years of storage fees routinely exceed the value of what is being stored, and the boxes tend to stay there for reasons that are emotional rather than practical. If you are storing, take an inventory and photographs - future you will not remember what is in there.

And accept that some of it is simply going. That is uncomfortable and it is also the point: a move is one of the few natural opportunities to stop owning things you do not use.

Pets and vehicles are separate projects

Neither goes with the household shipment and both have their own long lead times. Animals need vaccination and documentation timelines that start months ahead - see bringing your pet abroad. Vehicles involve registration, taxes, testing and sometimes modification, and are frequently cheaper to sell and rebuy.

The short version

Get three surveyed quotes before deciding anything. Ship what is valuable, irreplaceable or professionally necessary; sell the flat-pack and the appliances. Check the customs relief conditions and claim them properly with a real inventory. Insure at declared value and photograph everything. Assume the sea shipment arrives two months late, and pack your life for those two months accordingly.

Then, when it does arrive, you get the oddly emotional afternoon of unwrapping your own belongings in a country that is starting to feel like yours. Which, along with everything else in the arrival sequence in your first 90 days abroad, is more or less the moment the move stops being logistics and starts being a life.

Country-specific import rules, duty relief conditions and restricted items are in the documents and daily life sections of the country guides - and for recommendations on movers who did not add surprise charges at the destination, the general forum is where people name names.