Six entries
Not by room, not by value and not by weight. Each page says what falls into that class, what has to happen before it travels, and on two of them why we decline the work rather than take it on.
Two of these six are things we will not do. Saying so is the useful part.
Most of what you own. An inventory and a relief claim.
Furniture, clothing, books, kitchen things — the vast majority
Almost everything in an ordinary house crosses a border on a described inventory and a relief claim, and nothing else. This is the easy rung, it covers most of what you own, and it is worth knowing where it ends.
What sits here →Legal to own, conditional to import. Lead times vary enormously.
Ivory, tortoiseshell, certain rosewoods, coral, some furs
The rung nobody expects to be standing on. A piano with ivory keys, a guitar with a rosewood fingerboard, an inlaid Victorian cabinet — protected material in ordinary household objects is far commoner than people think and the permit is not quick.
What sits here →Not part of a household shipment at all, whatever a container suggests.
Cars, motorbikes, trailers, ride-on machinery
A vehicle is not part of a household shipment. It is a separate import with its own entry, its own registration process and frequently its own tax position, and treating it as cargo in a container is how people end up with neither.
What sits here →Animals, live plants, seeds and soil
Anything alive is outside what a removals firm should be handling, and we decline it rather than subcontract it quietly. This page exists to say that plainly and to describe what the right kind of specialist actually does.
What sits here →The refused list. Better read than discovered.
The genuinely refused list, and what to do instead
A short list that no permit, declaration or payment resolves. It is much better read before you pack than discovered at a port, and everything on it has a sensible alternative that costs you less than a seizure does.
What sits here →Because "international removals" as a service description tells you nothing about the only thing that can genuinely stop your move: whether a border will admit the contents of your house.
Most of it will, on an inventory. The exceptions are specific, they are knowable in advance, and they are almost never written down anywhere a customer would look. The commonest of them — protected material inside an ordinary object — has a lead time long enough to reset a moving timetable.
No price, rate card or transit time appears anywhere on this site. Start on the quote form, or read the questions page. We are a removals company, not a customs broker or a permit agency, and nothing here is legal advice.
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and anything in the house that might sit higher up the ladder — an instrument, an antique, a wine collection, a drone, a car.