Permanent residence makes almost everything else about American life easier and does not, by itself, change what US customs asks about your furniture.
We connect your enquiry with a vetted international moving company from our network. Whether you are shipping at the point of moving or years afterwards, the route is the same and the paperwork is not.
Two situations behave differently. Shipping as part of the move is straightforward. Shipping later, after you have settled, brings in a limit most people have never heard of.
If you moved some years ago and are only now sending for belongings left in the UK, check the ten year limit before booking freight. Effects arriving more than ten years after your last arrival are generally not admitted free of duty.
the customs test is unchanged by permanent residence: effects used by you, or in a household where you were a resident, for a year, and not for sale or for someone else. What changes is the timing question if you ship later.
Shipping as part of the move is the simple case. Your effects travel with the change of residence, the use test is straightforward, and the declaration follows the ordinary pattern.
Shipping later is where it gets awkward. A second consignment years after the first is harder to characterise as part of a change of residence, and the ten year limit exists precisely for that situation.
In between sits everything bought while you have been in the United States and then taken abroad and back, which raises its own questions and is worth asking about specifically rather than assuming.
The ten year clock runs from that date rather than from when the goods went into storage.
Effects used where you lived qualify on the use test. Things bought and stored do not sit as comfortably.
Ten years is a general rule and your circumstances may differ. A written answer costs nothing and settles it.
Not the core test. Effects used by you, or in a household where you were a resident, for a year, and not intended for sale or for another person, enter free of duty.
It can be. As a general rule, effects arriving more than ten years after your last arrival from the country where they were used are not admitted free of duty.
From your last arrival from the country where the goods were used, not from when they went into storage or when you bought them.
Ask CBP about your own circumstances and get the answer in writing before booking freight. Ten years is a general rule and cases vary.
It needs checking. Inherited goods were not used in a household where you were resident, which is the test the relief rests on.
For the household effects test, the relief turns on use and residence rather than on which status you hold.
Anything owned for under twelve months is declared separately and is usually dutiable, whichever direction it is travelling.
One is simpler and usually cheaper. A second shipment much later brings the timing question into play.
That is exactly the sort of detail to put to CBP rather than to infer. The rule is measured from your last arrival from the country where the goods were used.
Send your collection address, your US destination, when you originally moved and a rough inventory. A moving company from our network prices it and flags the timing question if it applies.
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 not customs agents. Your own position should be confirmed with US Customs and Border Protection before shipping.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder.