You went for two years and stayed for eleven. The furniture is British now, the children are British, and the question is what happens to all of it at the border.
We connect your enquiry with a vetted international moving company from our network that runs the UK to USA route in this direction as routinely as the other.
The relief works the same way regardless of nationality. Effects used by you, or in a household where you were a resident, for one year, and not intended for sale or for another person, enter free of duty on a Form 3299 declaration.
goods you used in your UK household for a year normally enter free of duty on the same test as anyone else's. Things bought recently, and shipments following long after you return, are the two exceptions.
Furniture bought in the last twelve months of a long stay abroad is the classic catch. It is used, it is yours, and it still does not meet the one year test, so it goes on the separate declaration.
Most of what you own after a decade in Britain satisfies the use test comfortably, which makes a returning move simpler than people expect. The complications sit at the edges rather than in the middle.
The first edge is recency. Anything bought in the final months, including replacements made because you knew the move was coming, sits in the under twelve months category and is declared separately.
The second is sequence. Shipping everything at once is straightforward. Sending a second consignment years later brings the ten year limit into play, measured from your last arrival.
Not normally. Effects used by you, or in a household where you were a resident, for a year, and not intended for sale or another person, enter free of duty.
Anything owned under twelve months is declared separately and is usually dutiable, even after a long stay abroad.
The relief turns on use and residence rather than on citizenship. The same one year test applies.
Only the timing. A later shipment brings the ten year limit into play, measured from your last arrival from the country where the goods were used.
Vehicles are shipped and cleared separately from household goods, under their own rules. Raise it at enquiry stage.
Usually yes. Two shipments means two sets of costs, two declarations and two arrival dates.
Storage is arranged at either end. Booked in advance it is reasonable, and arranged at the port in a hurry it is not.
The direction changes what is being declared. Coming into the United States, it is a US import declaration on Form 3299.
No. The moving company quotes you directly.
Not necessarily, but someone authorised has to receive them. Arrange that before the shipment sails.
Send your UK collection address, your US destination, the move date and a rough inventory, noting anything bought in the last year. A moving company from our network takes it from there.
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 position should be confirmed with US Customs and Border Protection before shipping.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder.