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A household move from Bath to France, Spain or Germany goes by road in a vehicle, not in a shipping container, and the road time is rarely more than a few days. What determines whether it arrives when promised is not the mileage. It is the paperwork lodged before the vehicle reaches the Channel, and what happens to it on the other side.
This service covers international moves only. A move from Bath to another United Kingdom address is domestic work and needs a local firm. Everything below concerns household goods leaving the country for continental Europe.
An export entry is lodged in the United Kingdom before the goods travel. It is prepared by the moving company or its agent from the inventory produced at your address, which is why a vague inventory causes problems that surface hundreds of miles away.
Household goods moving with their owner are declared differently from commercial cargo, and the relief you are claiming at the far end is named at this stage. Get the sequence wrong and the shipment travels as a commercial import, which is expensive to unpick once it has left.
Vehicles collecting in central Bath face one extra consideration. The city operates a Class C Clean Air Zone and a non-compliant heavy goods vehicle pays one hundred pounds for the day. Ask whether the vehicle is compliant before you book, because that charge is avoidable and somebody pays it.
Passport details, the destination address, evidence you are changing where you live, and a valued inventory. Send them with the booking rather than in the week of collection. Every day of delay is a day the export entry cannot be prepared.
From Bath the usual route is the M4 east and down to the Kent ports, then a short sea crossing or the tunnel. It suits France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and anything reached by driving on from there.
Some Spain and Portugal loads use a longer sea crossing from the south coast into northern France or Spain instead, cutting driving hours. Which is used depends on the operator and the week rather than on your preference.
A shared vehicle waits to fill, then routes between several deliveries in an order that suits the whole load. Your position in that order is not fixed when you book, which is why a window is quoted rather than a day.
Give us the city, roughly what is going and when. Your enquiry reaches a single accredited firm that drives your particular corridor every week and keeps a delivery agent there, so nobody is learning the route on your load. International movers and packers are available for the wrapping too. Free, with nothing owed if you walk away.
All of them grant some form of relief on used household effects belonging to somebody transferring residence. What varies is the evidence. France wants proof of the new address. Spain requires a formal application, generally before the goods arrive, and the inventory in Spanish. Portugal routes it through the consulate or local authority depending on your status.
Germany and Austria tie it to registering your address with the local authority, which means the order you do things in matters. Register after delivery and you can find the relief refused on goods already unloaded.
You must have owned and used the goods, commonly for at least six months. You must be genuinely moving your normal home rather than furnishing a second property. And the goods should follow you within a set period, often twelve months.
Second home owners are the group most often caught out, because moving contents to a holiday house is not a transfer of residence and is treated as an ordinary import. Be accurate about which you are at the enquiry stage.
A vague inventory. Entries reading household goods rather than kitchen china are the single most common cause of a query, and a query on a shared vehicle delays every household on it.
Undeclared wine or spirits. These are excise goods almost everywhere rather than personal effects, they attract separate paperwork and often duty, and finding an undeclared case is the fastest way to have a vehicle unloaded and inspected.
Dangerous goods, which cannot travel at all: paint, fuel, gas cylinders, aerosols and garden chemicals. And missing evidence of residence, which is the item people assume the moving company holds when it does not.
Fewer than the number that will quote for one. A search for international removal companies near me surfaces plenty who simply purchase room on another operator's vehicle. An international removal company running its own regular consolidations to your country gives you a shorter wait and a firmer window, so ask which yours is.
More easily than anywhere else. Road freight can often be booked inside a month because there is no container to fill and no sailing to catch. It is the one route where a late decision is not a serious handicap. An international removals company with weekly departures will confirm a date quickly, though international moving companies differ on how much notice they want.
No, and you cannot. Make your own arrangements and plan to arrive around the delivery window rather than the day it opens. Booking accommodation to the first day of a window is how people end up paying for a week they did not need.
All of them. Collections run from Bath itself and from Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Paulton, Peasedown St John, Saltford and the villages between them. Only central Bath addresses involve the Clean Air Zone question.
Bath Clean Air Zone class and charge levels from Bath and North East Somerset Council and the GOV.UK clean air zone service. Destination relief conditions are set by each country's own customs and residence registration rules and differ between them. Road timings here describe how the trade normally plans a run and should not be read as promises; no fares, duty rates or ferry times appear anywhere on this page. Last verified August 2026 and due for another look in August 2027, since border procedure moves. Your matched firm restates what your country wants at the point of quoting. Read our Google reviews.
Destination city, rough volume and target month. One accredited international moving company that runs the route comes back with a scoped figure and a realistic window.
Send your move detailsInternational Removals Companies matches your enquiry with one accredited moving company from the AGM Group network that runs road freight to your country and holds an agent there. Free to use, and we drive nothing ourselves.
Nearby: Bath, Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Saltford.
Services: European removals, container shipping, part load removals.