Removals to France

How your move actually gets to France

Every UK to France removal comes down to a choice of crossing, and we make it per job rather than by habit. Eurotunnel from Folkestone is the fastest and the least disruptive to a loaded vehicle, which is why it is our default for Paris, Lille, Strasbourg and anything on the northern and eastern side of the country. It puts a lorry on French tarmac in thirty-five minutes with no sea state to worry about.

For the west and the south west the arithmetic changes. Sailing from Portsmouth into Caen, Cherbourg or St-Malo lands the vehicle several hundred kilometres closer to Normandy, Brittany, the Loire and the Dordogne, and the overnight crossing counts as driver rest rather than driving time. That single decision can take a day off a delivery to Bordeaux or the Dordogne, and it is why we ask where in France you are going before we quote rather than after.

Driver hours are the constraint people never see. A crew is legally limited in how long it can drive in a day, so a run to Nice or Marseille is not one long push but a planned two or three day route with mandatory rest built in. When we give you a delivery window it already accounts for that, which is why our windows are ranges rather than a single promised hour.

The paperwork that decides whether your move clears

Since Brexit a household move to France is a formal customs import, not a domestic delivery. The relief you want is Transfer of Residence, which lets you bring your belongings in without paying French import duty or VAT. It is not automatic and it is not granted on the day. You qualify if you are genuinely transferring your main residence, if you have owned and used the goods for at least six months, and if they arrive within twelve months of you establishing residence in France.

Two things catch people out. The first is the inventory. French customs expect a detailed, valued list of what is on the vehicle, in a form they will accept, and a vague list of thirty boxes is not it. We prepare that with you as part of the job, because a rejected inventory holds the load. The second is second homes. Furnishing a holiday house is not a transfer of residence and is treated differently. If you are not sure which category you fall into, tell us early, because the answer changes the documents and occasionally the cost.

You will also need proof of your French address and, in most cases, evidence you have left the UK. We tell you exactly which documents to have ready before the vehicle is loaded, and the load does not leave until the file is complete. Official guidance is published by gov.uk and by French customs.

Choosing between a dedicated lorry and a part-load

A dedicated vehicle carries your move and nothing else. You get a fixed collection date, a short and predictable transit, and the crew stays with your goods from your door to your new one. For a full three or four bedroom household it is almost always the right answer, because the volume fills the vehicle anyway and you are not paying for space you cannot use.

A part-load shares the vehicle with other customers travelling the same way. You pay for the cubic metres you occupy rather than the whole lorry, which for anything under roughly fifteen cubic metres is usually a large saving. The trade is flexibility: the load travels on a scheduled run, so the delivery window is wider. We operate weekly departures to France, so the wait is rarely long.

The break-even point sits at around a two-bedroom flat, but distance moves it. On a short route like Paris the saving from sharing is modest. On a long one like Nice or the Dordogne it is substantial, because the fixed cost of sending a vehicle that far has to be paid whether it travels full or half empty. We quote both where it is a genuine choice, rather than steering you to the bigger number.

The part of a French move that actually decides the price

Volume tells us how big the vehicle needs to be. Access tells us how long the job takes, and that is what moves the price. French property throws up the same handful of problems again and again, and all of them are cheaper to solve at survey than on the morning of the move.

In the cities the building is the obstacle. A classic Haussmann apartment has a beautiful stone stairwell that turns too tightly for a three-seater sofa, and frequently no lift, or a lift the size of a phone box. The answer is a monte-meubles, the external furniture lift that goes in through the window, and in Paris, Lyon and Marseille we plan for one as standard rather than treating it as a surprise. Alongside that you need somewhere legal for the lorry to stand, which usually means applying to the mairie for a temporary parking reservation with several days notice.

Low-emission zones now cover Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Strasbourg among others, and every vehicle entering needs a valid Crit Air certificate. Ours carry one. In the countryside the problem inverts: the building is easy and the approach is not. Dordogne and rural Occitanie properties sit at the end of single-track lanes with stone gateposts built for a cart, low branches and no turning circle, so we plan a transfer to a smaller vehicle and shuttle the load in. Send photographs of the lane, the gateway and the space outside the house and we will price it properly first time.

What a removal to France costs, and what changes the number

There is no honest flat rate for an international move, because two households of the same size in different buildings are different jobs. Five things set the price: the volume of your belongings, the access at both ends, how much packing you want us to do, whether you take a dedicated vehicle or share one, and the time of year.

Published prices with volumes and transit times for the shortest mainland route are on our removals to Paris page, and that table is the sensible baseline. Southern and south-western destinations cost more than Paris for the same volume, simply because the vehicle is on the road for longer and the driver hours have to be paid for.

Season matters more than most people expect. July and August are the busiest weeks of the French year, crews and external lifts book out, and a date in that window needs far more notice than the same move in February. If your dates are flexible, moving outside the summer peak is the single easiest way to reduce what you pay.

How long a move to France takes

Door to door, a dedicated load to Paris or the north typically takes two to four days, the Loire and Normandy three to four, Lyon and the centre three to five, and Bordeaux, Toulouse, Provence and the Riviera three to six. Part-loads sit at the wider end of those ranges because they travel on a scheduled run rather than leaving the moment you are packed.

Book earlier than feels necessary. The binding constraint is rarely the vehicle: it is the survey, the customs file, the mairie parking permit and, on upper floors, the availability of an external lift in that particular town on that particular day. Four to six weeks is comfortable for most of the year. For a July or August move, or a completion date you cannot shift, start the conversation sooner.

UK to France, step by step