Shipping Furniture and Household Goods by Sea

Read this first: we handle the ocean leg, and only the ocean leg.

We book the container and the vessel and move your goods across the water. We do not pack, we do not send a crew, we do not carry boxes down your stairs, we do not deliver to your new front door and we do not unpack at the other end. You — or a local firm you hire — pack the goods, load them and get them to the terminal. At the destination, you or your agent collect them, clear them and move them on.

If what you need is a full door-to-door move with packers, you need a moving company, and we would rather tell you that now than after you have booked.

Two ways to ship

A container to yourself

A 20 ft or 40 ft container that carries nothing but your consignment. You load it, it is sealed, and the seal stays intact until customs or you break it. No one else’s cargo is handled alongside yours and there is no consolidation warehouse in the middle.

A shared container

Your consignment is consolidated with other people’s cargo into one container and separated out again at destination. It suits smaller volumes, but it means your goods are handled at a warehouse at each end by people who have no idea what is inside the box. Pack accordingly.

Packing is your job, so pack for the worst case

• Assume the load will shift. A container is a steel box on a ship; it rolls, pitches and gets set down hard. Fill voids, brace against the walls, and do not leave a half-empty stack free to topple.
• Disassemble what disassembles. Legs off tables, mirrors off dressers. Blanket-wrap the pieces, protect corners, and edge-protect glass rather than face-protect it.
• Expect condensation. Warm damp air inside a steel box on an ocean crossing condenses on the roof and rains back down on the load — it is common enough to have a name, container rain. Never pack anything even slightly damp, and use covers and desiccant on anything that would be ruined by water.
• Number every carton and match the numbers to your inventory. This is what makes a customs inspection short instead of long.

The valued inventory is not optional

Customs at the destination will want an itemised inventory with a realistic second-hand value against each line — not the original purchase price, and not a token figure meant to reduce duty. A vague list (“household goods, 40 boxes”) is the quickest route to a full physical inspection, and inspections cost time and money at your expense. Write the inventory as you pack, not from memory a week later.

What cannot go into the container

• Flammables and anything pressurised: paint, solvents, aerosols, gas cylinders, lighter fuel, fuel left in the tank of a tool or generator. These are dangerous goods. We do ship IMO/IMDG-classified cargo — but as a declared dangerous goods shipment, never buried inside a household consignment.
• Anything quarantine cares about: food, seeds, plants, untreated wood, soil on garden tools or bicycle tyres, and items made from protected species. Inspectors look for exactly these, and one dirty spade can hold up an entire container.
• Cash, jewellery, passports and irreplaceable documents. Carry those yourself.
• Whatever the destination country restricts separately — alcohol, medicines, drones, firearms and their component parts are common examples. The rules differ everywhere; check the destination before you pack, not after.

Duty relief on used personal effects

Many countries let returning residents and new immigrants import used household effects free of duty, subject to conditions: how long you have owned the goods, how long you lived abroad, how soon after your own arrival the shipment lands, and often a once-only limit. The conditions differ by country and they change. Find out what your destination requires before you ship, because some of those tests, once failed, cannot be fixed afterwards.

Shipping a car alongside your goods

Common with household moves and worth planning separately — see shipping cars overseas. Where both countries permit it, a vehicle and household goods can share a container, but you are declaring two consignments’ worth of paperwork, not one.

What to send us for a quote

• origin city and destination city and country;
• approximate volume — cubic metres if you know it, otherwise a room-by-room list;
• whether you want a container to yourself or a shared one;
• the date the goods will be packed and ready;
• whether you already have trucking to the terminal arranged at each end.

Related services

• Shipping cars overseas — container or RO-RO, and the documents each needs.
• Out of gauge and project cargo — for single items too large for any container, such as a boat or a large machine.