You moved to America, left a few rooms of furniture in a relative's loft, and now you want them. That is the situation this rule exists for, and almost nobody knows about it until they ask.
We connect your enquiry with a vetted international moving company from our network. This page is here because the question comes up long after the original move, usually when nobody expects it to matter.
The rule appears in the regulations rather than on most movers' websites, which is why it tends to surface at the port. It sits alongside the one year use test rather than replacing it.
as a general rule, household effects arriving more than ten years after your last arrival from the country where they were used are not admitted free of duty, whatever their age or condition.
The clock runs from your last arrival from the country where the goods were used, not from the date you bought them. Belongings can be forty years old and still fall outside the relief on this test.
Most often, people who emigrated with what they needed and left the rest behind, intending to send for it later. Later becomes a decade quickly, particularly where a family home in the UK held the furniture.
It also catches people who moved out in stages, where a second shipment follows years after the first, and people who inherited or reclaimed belongings that had been in storage all along.
The relief is for personal effects accompanying a change of residence. The further a shipment sits from that event in time, the harder it is to characterise as part of it, and ten years is where the line is generally drawn.
It runs from your last arrival from the country where the goods were used, which is not always the date you think of as your move.
Ten years is a general rule and your circumstances may differ. Get your own position in writing before booking freight.
Where duty plus freight approaches replacement cost, shipping stored furniture across an ocean stops making sense.
As a general rule, household 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. It is not measured from when you bought them or from when they went into storage.
Not on this test. Age satisfies the one year use requirement but the ten year limit is about how long ago you arrived, not how old the goods are.
The relief is for personal effects accompanying a change of residence. A shipment arriving a decade later is hard to characterise as part of that move.
People who emigrated with the essentials and left the rest in storage or with family, intending to send for it once they were settled.
Yes. The question is duty rather than permission, so it becomes a commercial decision about whether shipping is worth it.
It depends on the goods and their declared value. Your mover's customs broker can give an indication once there is a list.
Yes. Ten years is a general rule, circumstances differ, and confirming with CBP before booking is far cheaper than finding out at the port.
No. The moving company quotes you directly and there is no fee for the introduction.
It is a general rule rather than an absolute one, which is precisely why your own circumstances are worth putting to CBP before booking freight.
Send your collection address, your US destination, when you originally moved and a rough inventory. A moving company from our network prices the shipment and flags the duty question.
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 a customs agent. The ten year rule is applied by US Customs and Border Protection, and your own position should be confirmed with them.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder.