The sailing takes about five weeks. The move takes about ten. Understanding where the other five go is what stops people booking flights around a date that was never realistic.
One vetted mover from our network gives you the range, and honest international movers give you a range rather than a date. Build the relocation around the range. Anyone quoting a precise delivery day for a sea shipment eight weeks out is telling you what you want to hear.
Three modes, three quite different answers. Sea is six to eleven weeks depending on destination. Rail is four to six. Air is one to two.
A ten week move by sea is not ten weeks on a ship. Here is a realistic breakdown so you can see which parts are fixed and which can be compressed.
Booking to collection: one to three weeks. Survey, quote, confirmation and a slot in the crew's diary. Busy periods stretch this more than anything else on the list.
Collection and packing: one to three days. A studio flat is a morning. A family house is two or three days.
Collection to sailing: three days to two weeks. For a whole container this is short. For shared space it is the consolidation wait, and it is the least predictable part of the whole journey.
The ocean leg: thirty to thirty five days. This is the reliable part. It varies by service and by whether the vessel calls at intermediate ports, but it rarely surprises anyone.
Arrival to clearance: three days to two weeks. A few working days with clean paperwork. Longer if there is a query, and considerably longer if there is an examination.
Clearance to delivery: one day to two weeks. A Shanghai address is same or next day. An inland city is the road leg. A compound with restricted delivery hours can add days waiting for a slot.
What compresses it. Rail removes the ocean leg and the inland drive together. Air removes almost everything. A whole container removes the consolidation wait. And starting the paperwork early removes the risk of the clearance stage stretching.
Time and money trade against each other fairly directly here. The useful exercise is to price the weeks you save against what those weeks would otherwise cost you in temporary accommodation and replacement purchases.
Baseline
Cheapest, and fine if you have somewhere to live meanwhile.
Roughly 1.5 to 2 times sea
Best value for an inland city once the road leg is counted.
Several times sea
Only sensible for a fraction of a household.
Tell us when you need to be settled and we will work backwards from that rather than forwards from a sailing.
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Two periods matter enormously and a third matters regionally.
Chinese New Year. The date moves, falling somewhere between late January and mid February. The effect is a rush of freight in the weeks before, then a near complete stop for two to three weeks as the country travels, then a backlog afterwards. Rates rise before it and capacity vanishes during it. If your move lands anywhere near it, check the exact date and plan around it deliberately.
The summer peak. June through August is when families move, driven by school terms. Capacity tightens at both ends and crews are booked further ahead. It is less disruptive than New Year but it does mean booking earlier.
Typhoon season. June to September on the eastern and southern coast. Sailings get held, ports back up and a delayed container may need storage. Xiamen, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Haikou and Shantou are the most exposed. Shanghai and the northern ports are affected less.
Winter in the north. Not a delay to shipping but a delay to delivery. Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang and to a lesser extent Beijing and Tianjin all have working conditions from December to March that lengthen the delivery day and occasionally close a road.
The quieter windows are roughly March to May and October to early December. If your dates have any flexibility at all, those two periods run more predictably than anything else in the year.
The mode you choose sets the range, so read those pages before planning around any figure.
A move usually means moving money too, whether that is a deposit on a Chinese flat or funds coming back the other way. We have helped customers with currency exchange in any currency through trusted partners for many years, and our partners can help with the money side of your move. Mention it on the form and it gets included.
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Six to eight weeks door to door by sea for a coastal city and eight to eleven for an inland one. Rail is four to six weeks and air is one to two. The ocean crossing itself is only about thirty to thirty five days of that.
Because the sailing is only about half of it. Booking to collection takes one to three weeks, consolidation can take up to two more, clearance three days to two weeks, and delivery from a day to two weeks depending on the city and the building.
The consolidation wait on shared container space, because the box sails when it is full enough. That is why nobody can give you a firm date at booking and why a whole container buys certainty as well as fewer handling stages.
Considerably. There is a freight rush in the weeks before, then a near complete stop for two to three weeks as the country travels, then a backlog. The date moves each year between late January and mid February, so check it against your plan.
Roughly March to May or October to early December. Both run more predictably than the rest of the year, avoiding Chinese New Year, the summer family peak and the worst of the typhoon season on the southern and eastern coasts.
It can, from June to September on the eastern and southern coast. Sailings are held and ports back up. Xiamen, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Haikou and Shantou are the most exposed. Shanghai and the northern ports are affected considerably less.
Not the ocean leg, which is fixed. You can remove the consolidation wait by booking a whole container, remove the clearance risk with clean paperwork, and remove the waiting entirely by sending a small air consignment ahead of the bulk.
Not around an unconfirmed one. A sea shipment date eight weeks out is a range rather than a promise. Book your travel around when you need to be in China, and let the shipment arrive when it arrives with an air consignment covering the gap.
Because a range is honest. Between the consolidation wait, customs clearance and delivery scheduling there are three stages nobody controls precisely. A firm quoting an exact delivery day two months out is telling you what you want to hear.
Send your collection address, your Chinese destination, a rough idea of the volume and your date. A vetted mover from our network checks the route, the paperwork and the access, then comes back to you with the price.
Send your move detailsWe match international moving enquiries with vetted moving companies in the AGM Group network, each holding FIDI FAIM certification and BAR Overseas membership.
We are not a removal firm ourselves. We find you the one that suits your route, and you deal with them directly from there.