Moving your belongings between France and the UK: customs, transport and the real cost

Your sofa is now an import

Before 2021 this guide would have been one line long: put your things in a van, drive onto a ferry, unpack. Freedom of movement of goods meant a Paris to London removal was a domestic move with a boat in the middle.

That is over. Great Britain is a third country to the European Union and the European Union is a third country to Great Britain, so everything you own crosses a customs border. Your ten-year-old sofa, your saucepans and your bicycle are, in the eyes of both administrations, goods being imported, with a value, a tariff classification and a tax treatment.

Left alone, that treatment is expensive. Coming into Great Britain, the default is import VAT at 20%, charged not on what your things are worth second-hand in your head but on the customs value plus packing, transport and insurance to the first destination in the country. On a modest two-bedroom load that is a four-figure bill for furniture you already own. Going the other way, unrelieved household goods face French customs duty and VAT on the same logic.

Nobody actually pays this, because both countries wrote a relief for exactly this situation. But the relief is something you claim, in a specific way, at a specific moment. That is the whole subject of this guide.

The same four rules, written twice

Here is the part that saves you reading two sets of regulations: the British Transfer of Residence relief and the French franchise de transfert de résidence ask for almost exactly the same four things.

• You lived there. At least 12 consecutive months of residence in the country you are leaving, before the move.
• You owned it. The goods must have been in your possession, and used, for at least 6 months before the transfer.
• You bring it soon. The goods must be imported within 12 months of you settling in the new country. Both regimes allow several consignments inside that window.
• You keep it. You must not sell, lend, hire out or use as security the relieved goods for 12 months afterwards, or the duties and taxes fall due.

Both also exclude the same categories from the relief: alcohol and tobacco, goods intended for resale, and professional equipment (France excludes vehicles and equipment for professional use; Britain excludes commercial means of transport and non-portable instruments of your trade). Private cars, in both directions, stay eligible in principle, with their own separate procedure on top.

France to Great Britain: get approved before you load

The British system is an advance authorisation. You apply for Transfer of Residence relief through the ToR1 service on GOV.UK, and approval must be obtained before the goods are declared to customs. You can, and should, apply while your things are still in France.

What the application asks for is prosaic, and worth preparing in one sitting:

• a list of the items you are bringing (typed, a spreadsheet, or a photograph of a handwritten list is accepted);
• the photo page of your passport;
• proof of your UK address from the last 3 months (bank statement, utility bill, tenancy agreement);
• proof of your non-UK address from the last 6 months;
• pet paperwork if animals are travelling, and for a vehicle its VIN, registration, year of manufacture and date of purchase.

What comes back is the thing that matters: a unique reference number. That number goes to your removal company or customs agent, who quotes it on the import declaration. With it, all your personal effects can be declared under a single commodity code rather than item by item, which is why professional movers care about having it in hand before they load.

Two honest caveats, because they change how you plan. First, HMRC publishes no processing time for ToR1, and it does not appear in its published response-time tool; removal firms quote everything from two weeks to six in the summer peak, which is commercial experience, not an official service level. Treat the application as the opening task of your move. Second, the relief can be waived on evidence in exceptional cases, but two reasons are explicitly not accepted: lack of funds, and lack of storage space.

If you are moving to Northern Ireland from France, none of this applies: goods moving from the European Union into Northern Ireland do not need a ToR application at all.

Great Britain to France: the inventory is the dossier

The French system is a declaration on arrival. There is no form to file weeks ahead and no reference number to obtain. Instead, your belongings must be declared to customs at the first crossing, within twelve months of your installation, and the document that carries the whole claim is the inventory.

It has a precise shape, and this is where do-it-yourself moves fail: a detailed inventory, item by item, valued in euros, dated and signed. Not "one box of kitchen things". Alongside it you present proof that you lived outside the European Union for at least twelve months and proof of your new residence in France. Your remover will normally prepare and file this if you brief them early; if you are driving yourself, it is yours to produce, in French, at the border.

The relief excludes alcohol and tobacco, vehicles and equipment for professional use, and vehicles bought tax-free. And the non-cession undertaking has teeth: selling, renting out or lending a relieved item within twelve months of its entry into France means paying the duties and taxes you were spared.

Ship it or re-buy it: the arithmetic nobody does

Customs decides what is allowed to cross. The more interesting question is what deserves to. The honest way to settle it is to compare two numbers: the quoted price per cubic metre, and what replacing that same cubic metre would cost where you are going.

Cross-Channel removals sit broadly in the range of €100 to €300 per cubic metre depending on the formula, with part-loads at the bottom and dedicated vans at the top (market figures from published removal-company pricing, not an official tariff, and quotes for identical loads vary by a factor of two). Replacement, meanwhile, is cheaper than people assume: furnishing a one-bedroom flat from a value retailer starts around £1,000 to £1,500 in Britain, and a two-room flat in France runs €1,500 to €2,500 for furniture.

Put those side by side and a rough rule appears. Around €200 per cubic metre, shipping a full room of flat-pack furniture costs roughly what buying it again costs. Below that, take anything solid. Above it, the crossing only pays for things that are genuinely good, genuinely irreplaceable, or genuinely yours in the sentimental sense, which is a perfectly valid reason as long as you are choosing it rather than defaulting into it.

Then comes the part that actually decides the answer, and it is directional.

Going to Britain, you are usually arriving into a furnished flat. Shipping a bed and a sofa to a place that already has both means paying twice and storing the surplus.

Going to France, you are usually arriving into an empty one. Unfurnished lets are the majority of the French rental market, and "unfurnished" there is literal in a way that surprises British tenants: frequently no fridge, no oven, no hob, sometimes no light fittings. A British "unfurnished" let, by contrast, normally keeps its white goods. The same word, two different deliveries, and a gap of a thousand euros or more in appliances alone. Things you would have left behind on a move within Britain become worth loading onto the van.

What the van really costs

Published market prices on this corridor, to be treated as ranges and not quotes: a part-load of five to ten cubic metres between London and Paris commonly lands somewhere between £250 and £900, a studio of around ten cubic metres between €1,300 and €1,800, and a dedicated van from about £1,200 upwards. Larger family loads of twenty to fifty cubic metres are quoted across a wide band, commonly €2,000 to £4,000. Always get three quotes: the spread on identical inventories is the single most reliable finding in this market.

The variable people forget is not distance but access, and this is where the two capitals diverge sharply. In London, suspending a parking bay for the lorry is a borough matter: expect roughly £40 to £110 per bay per day, with notice periods from three working days in some boroughs to seventeen in Camden, and short-notice surcharges that can reach several hundred pounds in central boroughs. In Paris, the equivalent temporary occupation permit is of a different order entirely, in the region of €15 for a half-day and €30 for a full day outside paid parking zones, with about fifteen days of notice, and two separate requests if both addresses are in Paris.

A London bay for two days can therefore cost more than the entire Paris permit by a factor of ten, and the borough notice period, not the removal company's diary, is often the real constraint on your moving date. Book the bay before you book the van.

Two more lines worth budgeting properly. Insurance on an international removal is normally based on a valued inventory, so the list you write for customs does double duty; a mover's standard liability is not the same thing as cover for the value of your things. And storage, if there is a gap between handing back one set of keys and getting the next, is frequently the item that turns a cheap quote into an expensive move.

The car is a separate file

A private car can travel under either relief, but it never rides on the household paperwork alone.

Into Great Britain, the sequence is strict. You must tell HMRC within 14 days of the vehicle arriving permanently, through the NOVA service, and you can be fined for being late; as a private individual you cannot file NOVA yourself, so your shipping agent or HMRC's own team does it. Then comes approval: cars with eight seats or fewer that are over ten years old are exempt, while a younger French-registered car goes through the conversion scheme for EU-approved vehicles. An MOT is required at registration for any vehicle over three years old, and the DVLA charges a £55 first registration fee, with the V5C arriving within about six weeks. A foreign-plated car may be used in the UK for up to six months in total, but only while you are not resident; once your status changes, that clock has already run.

Into France, the pivot is the customs certificate. Because the United Kingdom is now a third country, the familiar quitus fiscal is replaced by certificate 846A, issued by French customs, covering both the customs and the VAT side. With it, the registration file also needs the European certificate of conformity from the manufacturer and the British V5C. Expect the registration itself to take two to eight weeks depending on how complete the file is, the certificate of conformity being the usual bottleneck. Start it before you need to drive.

Inheritance, weddings, Northern Ireland

Three situations sit outside the ordinary move and have their own regimes.

Inherited goods. Britain relieves duty and VAT on goods inherited by a UK resident, covering furnishings, jewellery, bicycles and private vehicles, but excluding alcohol, tobacco and anything bought from the executor. The goods must arrive within two years of the estate being finally settled, with a certified copy of the will and the relevant declaration form. France has its own equivalent procedure for inherited belongings.

Wedding presents and trousseaux. Britain relieves them without a ToR1, in a window running from two months before the ceremony to four months after, with the twelve-month non-transfer condition still applying. Be careful with the value cap per gift: the GOV.UK guidance says £900, the underlying legislation says £800 and the customs code says €1,000. Treat the lowest figure as your safe planning number and ask if you are near it.

Northern Ireland. Coming from France, no ToR application is needed. Moving your home from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, there is no duty on personal belongings and the customs requirement is met by conduct, though your remover may need a goods movement reference for the crossing.

The traps

• Starting the British application last. No official processing time exists, so a late ToR1 is a van that cannot be declared. Apply first, pack second.
• Packing without an inventory for France. The relief lives or dies on a dated, signed, item-by-item valued list. It cannot be reconstructed at Calais.
• Assuming the van you drive yourself is exempt. It is the same import, and customs can seize both the goods and the vehicle.
• Selling the relieved sofa in month three. Twelve months of non-disposal is a condition, not a formality, in both countries.
• Putting wine and spirits in the load. Alcohol and tobacco are excluded from both reliefs and fall under separate allowances; go over a category and duty is charged on the whole category, not the excess.
• Booking the removal before the parking bay. In some London boroughs the notice period is longer than the lead time of the mover.
• Forgetting the 14-day vehicle clock. It starts when the car lands, not when you get round to it.
• Shipping flat-pack furniture across the Channel. At market rates per cubic metre it usually costs more to move than to replace.

Your plan, in outline

Work backwards. Decide what crosses, using volume against replacement cost and the furnished or empty reality at the other end. Start the customs step first: the British application weeks before loading, the French inventory written as you pack. Book the parking bay against your borough's notice period, not your own. Give the car its own timeline. Veia lays that sequence onto your actual moving date, with a reminder before each deadline, so the paperwork is done at the only moment it can be done: before the van moves.