Most moves ship one home to another. A spouse or family move often ships half a home into an existing one, and that raises questions about ownership and use that a straightforward relocation never does.
We connect your enquiry with a vetted international moving company from our network. They will handle the shipment; this page is about the questions worth settling before it is booked.
The relief covers effects that were for your personal use, or used in a household where you were a resident, for one year, and are not intended for another person or for sale. That last phrase is the one that needs thought on a family move.
Goods being shipped for someone already living in the United States are not your household effects, whatever the family relationship. That is a different customs question and it needs answering separately.
the customs test still asks whether goods were used by you in a household where you were a resident for a year. On a spouse or family move that question gets more complicated, because two households are becoming one.
A single household move is simple to characterise: your things, used by you, moving with you. A family move often is not, because some of what travels was bought jointly, some belongs to the person already there, and some was given to you both recently.
The relief covers effects used by you in a household where you were a resident. Goods you are transporting on behalf of someone else fall outside that, however close the relationship, and are assessed differently.
None of this makes the move difficult. It makes the inventory a conversation rather than a list, and the time to have it is before packing rather than at the port.
Anything you are carrying over for a partner or relative already in the States sits outside your household effects and should be treated separately.
They are frequently new and frequently unused, which is exactly what the twelve month rule catches.
Published guidance across the moving trade is inconsistent on how status is applied. Get your own answer in writing.
The published test is the same: effects used by you, or in a household where you were a resident, for a year, and not intended for another person or for sale.
Not as part of your household effects. Goods for someone else fall outside the relief and are assessed separately, whatever the relationship.
They are commonly caught, being both recent and often unused in a household. List them separately rather than including them with everything else.
For customs purposes what matters is use and residence rather than who paid. If it was used in the household where you lived, that is the relevant fact.
It does, and published guidance across the moving industry is inconsistent about how. Confirm your own position with CBP and keep the answer in writing.
One is usually cheaper. Two means two declarations and two arrival dates, each assessed on its own paperwork.
They travel as part of the household. Anything newly bought for the move sits in the under twelve months category like everything else.
The moving company and its broker. You confirm the inventory and sign the declaration, so read both.
Together is usually cheaper and simpler, and it avoids two declarations. Separately makes sense only where the timing genuinely requires it.
Send your collection address, your US destination, the move date and a rough inventory, noting anything travelling for someone already in the States. A moving company from our network takes it from there.
A 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 immigration or customs advisers. Your own position should be confirmed with the relevant US authorities before shipping.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder.