Shipping Your Life to London

Your shipping options

• Sea freight (full or part container) — the standard option for a full household move. Cheapest per volume, but transit takes weeks, not days, and needs to be booked well ahead.
• Air freight — days rather than weeks, significantly more expensive per kilo. Usually reserved for a smaller, urgent subset of your belongings rather than the whole move.
• Excess baggage & parcel couriers — the cheapest route if you're travelling light — a few boxes shipped as excess baggage or via a courier, rather than a full freight booking.

Timelines

Book sea freight at least 6–8 weeks ahead if you're moving from further afield — North America or Australia, for instance — and somewhat less for closer origins like mainland Europe. Customs clearance adds time on top of the shipping transit itself, so build in a buffer rather than planning around the ship date alone.

The tax relief most people don't know about

Transfer of Residence relief (ToR1) is a real HMRC scheme that lets you import personal belongings into the UK free of customs duty and import VAT, provided you're genuinely relocating your home here — not just shipping goods. It only covers items you've owned and used for at least six months before the move (an exception applies for wedding-related items), and it doesn't cover anything bought new specifically for the move.

What's actually worth bringing

Furniture is often not worth the shipping cost once you compare it to buying secondhand or new once you're here — unless a piece is genuinely irreplaceable or sentimental, it's usually cheaper to sell and rebuy. Electronics are worth a second look too: the UK runs on 230V with a three-pin plug, so check compatibility before you ship anything that isn't cheap or easy to replace with a UK-market version.

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Covers what to book before you leave, in the right order.