Not every move to America is a container. Students, people on short assignments and anyone arriving furnished often need to send twenty boxes rather than a house, and paying an airline for that is the expensive way to do it.
We connect your enquiry with a vetted international moving company from our network that handles small shipments as well as full removals.
It travels by sea or by air depending on urgency. By sea it is slower and cheaper; by air it arrives in days at a higher price per kilo. Either way the customs position is the same as any other shipment arriving without you.
Compare the total against airline excess baggage rather than against a removal quote. Airlines charge per bag at rates that make sending the same weight as freight look very reasonable indeed.
excess baggage moves suitcases and boxes rather than furniture, by sea or by air, and it is usually far cheaper than paying an airline for extra hold luggage.
It suits anyone moving into furnished accommodation, where clothes, books, kitchen items and personal belongings are the whole shipment and no furniture is travelling.
It suits students and people on short assignments, where a container is out of proportion to what is moving and the cost of one would exceed the value of the contents.
It also works alongside a container, for the things you need in the first fortnight while the main shipment is at sea. In that role it does the same job as air freight at a smaller scale.
Both sea and air pricing depend on it, and air uses chargeable weight, which takes bulk into account as well as weight.
If the answer is a suitcase, take it with you. If it is twenty boxes, send them and travel light.
The gap is usually large, and which one wins depends entirely on when you need the boxes.
Sending suitcases and boxes as freight rather than as airline luggage or a full household removal. It travels by sea or by air depending on how quickly you need it.
Usually by a wide margin. Airlines charge per bag at rates that make sending the same weight as freight look very reasonable.
By air, days plus clearance. By sea, weeks, in line with any other sea shipment on the route.
It varies by company. Small shipments are what the service exists for, so it is worth asking rather than assuming you are below the threshold.
Yes. Goods arriving separately from you need a declaration, and the one year use test applies as it would on a container.
Yes, and by sea you generally should, because the crossing takes weeks. By air a few days ahead is usually enough.
Furniture, anything fragile that would be better crated, and the restricted items that cannot travel in any shipment.
Yes, and many people do, sending the first fortnight's essentials separately while the main shipment is at sea.
Usually yes, in the same way as a full removal. Some services also offer drop off at a depot, which is cheaper if you can get there.
Send your collection address, your US destination, when you need the boxes and roughly how many there are. A moving company from our network prices sea and air side by side.
Send your move detailsA Working Member of AGM Group. Enquiries are connected with vetted FIDI FAIM certified and BAR Overseas accredited international moving companies from the network.
We are an enquiry service and do not carry shipments. Excess baggage is handled by the moving company you are introduced to.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder.