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Full pack, breakables only, or materials supplied and you do the rest.
A professional crew boxes a three bedroom house in a day. You would take three weekends and end up with forty cartons marked miscellaneous. On a move to Switzerland that box list is not a reminder to yourself, it is a customs document.
The list the crew writes as they pack is not just a way of finding the kettle. It is the document that supports your customs declaration, and it needs to describe what is actually in the boxes rather than what was roughly in that room. A professional crew will box a three bedroom house in a day. It will take you three weekends, and at the end of it you will have forty cartons labelled miscellaneous. On a domestic move that is annoying. On a move to Switzerland it is a problem, because the box list is also a customs document.
That is the real argument for packers on this route, and it is not the one people expect. It is not mainly about breakages. It is that an export move needs an inventory precise enough to be presented at the Swiss frontier, and a crew produces one as they go without being asked.
You do not have to buy the whole service. Most people take a middle option: the crew does the kitchen, the china and the pictures, and you do the clothes and the books. That splits the work along the line where skill actually matters.
Crews work a room at a time and finish it before moving on. That sounds obvious and it is the thing amateurs never do, which is why a self packed house ends up with the contents of four rooms distributed across sixty boxes.
Every carton is numbered, its room is written on it, and its contents go onto the list against that number. At the Swiss end the same numbers come off the vehicle and get ticked back. Nothing depends on anybody's memory.
Export wrapping is a step beyond domestic packing. More paper, more layers, tighter cartons with less void, because a box that is only three quarters full will settle and crush over a long road journey in a way it never does going across town.
If you take one practical thing away: the kitchen takes longer than any other room in the house, usually by a factor of two or three. Glass, china, small appliances, a hundred odd shaped things and nothing that stacks.
So if you are splitting the work, give the crew the kitchen and keep the wardrobes for yourself. Clothes into a carton is not a skill. A dinner service that survives a thousand miles of motorway is.
The other rooms in rough order of difficulty after that: the study, because of paperwork and electronics, then the sitting room for pictures and lamps, then bedrooms, then storage spaces which are mostly bulk rather than fragility.
Nothing that can catch fire, leak or explode. A crew will refuse these and they are right to.
Declare, do not pack: alcohol, tobacco, plants and seeds, firearms, medicines and cash. These are not ordinary household goods and they have their own Swiss rules. Ask before you assume, and never let any of it go on quietly.
Your goods will be out of reach for the whole transit. Assume longer than the quoted window.
Put this pile in one room and tell the crew it does not get packed. Better still, put it in the car before they arrive.
On a move within Britain, a box marked kitchen stuff is fine. Nobody will ever ask. On a move into Switzerland it is a weak point, because Switzerland sits outside the EU customs union and household consignments are presented at the frontier whatever country they left from.
What gets presented is your inventory, alongside form 18.44, the declaration for clearance of household effects issued by the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security. Goods must have been used by you for at least six months, so keep receipts for anything recent. Checked 5 August 2026.
A list of specific, described contents against numbered cartons goes through. A list of forty boxes described as household items invites questions, and questions at a frontier turn into waiting, and waiting costs money at both ends of the job.
This is the part a crew does almost for free alongside the packing, and it is the part that is genuinely hard to replicate yourself once you are tired and it is nine in the evening and there are still two rooms left.
If you pack your own boxes they are recorded as owner packed, and cover for their contents is usually treated differently from crew packed cartons. That is not a trick, it is that nobody can vouch for how something was wrapped if they did not wrap it.
It is a reasonable trade for the saving. Just read the clause before you decide, and put anything you would be upset to break into the crew packed pile even if you are doing the rest yourself.
See also how furniture is protected and dismantled, which is the other half of preparation day.
Standard delivery puts your cartons in the right rooms and rebuilds the furniture. That is not the same as unpacking. A full unpack means the crew empties the boxes onto surfaces, takes the paper and cartons away with them, and leaves you with a flat rather than a warehouse.
It is worth more in Switzerland than it sounds. Swiss buildings and communes take recycling and waste separation seriously, and disposing of a house worth of used cartons and packing paper from a flat in Zurich or Geneva is a genuine chore rather than a bin bag on the pavement. Your canton and your commune set those rules, not the country, and the commune deals with you in its own language: German in Zurich, Basel and Bern, French in Geneva and Lausanne, Italian in Lugano. Having the crew take it with them solves a problem you may not have anticipated.
Where the goods are going changes the packing brief as well. A delivery deep inland at Chur or Sion spends far longer on the road than one just over the frontier at Basel, so cartons need packing tight enough to survive the extra handling. Car free alpine villages such as Zermatt add a transfer to a smaller vehicle at the end, which means one more load and unload.
A middle option exists too: the kitchen and the beds unpacked so the first night works, and everything else left boxed for you to do at your own pace. That is often the sensible buy.
A full pack means the crew boxes everything, including your wardrobes, books and kitchen cupboards, and you do nothing. A fragile pack means they handle only the breakables, china, glass, pictures, lamps and electronics, and you box the rest. Fragile only is the common middle choice, because breakables are where the skill matters and clothes are where it does not.
A full pack is usually a separate day or more before the loading day, with a crew working room by room. A fragile only pack is often done on the same morning the vehicle loads. The kitchen is always the slowest room in the house by a wide margin, so if you are doing part of it yourself, start there.
You can, and it does save. Two things to weigh against it. Owner packed cartons are marked as such and insurance usually treats their contents differently from crew packed ones, so read that clause. And an export move needs a properly itemised inventory, so a box labelled kitchen stuff is a problem at the Swiss frontier in a way it never is on a domestic move.
Anything that can catch fire, leak or explode. That covers petrol, gas cylinders, paint, aerosols, lighter fuel, fireworks and most cleaning chemicals. Open food and anything perishable stays behind too. Alcohol, tobacco, plants, firearms, medicines and cash sit in their own category, are not ordinary household goods, and must be declared rather than quietly packed. Ask before you assume.
Passports, permits, birth and marriage certificates, employment contracts, medical records, prescriptions, jewellery, laptops, chargers, keys and enough clothes for longer than you expect the gap to be. Your goods will be in transit for a while and out of reach for all of it, so anything you would struggle without travels with you.
If you ask for it. Basic delivery puts boxes in the right rooms and rebuilds the furniture. A full unpack means the crew empties the cartons onto surfaces and takes the packing material away, which matters more than it sounds because a full house of used cartons is a real disposal problem in a Swiss flat with tight recycling rules.
Because it is a customs document, not just a checklist. Switzerland sits outside the EU customs union, so household goods are presented at the frontier whatever country they set off from, and the list is what is presented. Vague box descriptions cause questions, questions cause delay, and delay costs money at both ends.
It is normally bought as part of the move rather than on its own, because the mover who packs is usually the one who loads, and the inventory has to follow the goods. If you have a specific reason for wanting it separately, say so on the enquiry and it can be looked at.
Full pack, breakables only, or materials supplied and you do the rest. One vetted moving company from our network prices each option so you can see what the difference actually is before deciding. Planning the other direction? See the journey home to the UK.
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Operated by DATACONTEXT (UK) LTD, company number 07425576, ICO registration ZB022743, registered at Norman House, Saint Saviours Estate, Abbey Street, London SE1 3DH. Running since 2010. We work with vetted moving companies in the AGM Group network.
Page reviewed and Swiss information checked on 5 August 2026 against the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security. General information, not advice on your own position.
Written by Darren Benjamin, founder of International Removals Companies, who has run the business since 2010. Last checked 5 August 2026.