A move from Britain to China takes longer to arrange than people expect, and the reason is rarely the shipping. It is the sequence. Get the order of events wrong and you end up paying for storage at one end or a hotel at the other.
We match you with one vetted mover from our network that handles this route. International movers vary enormously on this corridor, and good movers ask about your permit before they ask about your furniture. What matters at the outset is not the price, it is whether your permit, your tenancy and your sailing can be made to line up.
Plan the relocation around the permit rather than the sailing. Goods leave through Felixstowe, Southampton or London Gateway on most sea services. Which one is used depends on the shipping line rather than on where you live, and it rarely changes the price.
Twelve to sixteen weeks is the honest range, and here is where it goes.
Weeks one to two: survey and quotes. Get two or three surveys done and get a cubic metre figure from each. This is also when you find out whether your volume justifies a whole container.
Weeks two to four: permit and paperwork. Your Chinese residence permit needs to be in progress. If it is not, everything else waits, because shipping ahead of it creates the problem this page warns about.
Weeks four to six: booking and preparation. Confirm the mover, book the sailing, order packing materials if you are packing yourself. Decide what is not going.
Week six or seven: packing and collection. One to three days depending on the size of the household. The inventory is written here, and writing it properly is what makes the Chinese clearance straightforward.
Weeks seven to fifteen: in transit. Roughly thirty to thirty five days at sea plus port time at both ends. Rail is shorter and lands inland. Air is a fortnight.
Weeks fifteen to sixteen: clearance and delivery. Chinese clearance takes a few working days with clean paperwork. Then the road leg and the delivery.
What compresses it. Air freight for a starter consignment, so you are living normally while the sea shipment catches up. Rail for an inland destination. And having the permit sorted before you start, which removes the single largest source of delay.
The shipping quote is the largest single number but it is not the whole cost. These are the lines that surprise people, and they are worth putting in the budget from the start rather than meeting them one at a time.
£250 to £9,500
Depending entirely on volume and mode.
£400 to £1,500
Optional, and it is what makes the first weeks bearable.
10 to 15 per cent
Not always needed. Always worth having.
Tell us when you need to be there and where your permit process has got to. That is enough to work out whether the timing is realistic.
We match you with your vetted mover, which means one team handles the whole relocation. It is free, with no obligation. Get a quote today and hold your dates.
Send your move detailsCall 07551 855 064 or +447551855064. Message us on WhatsApp.
The Chinese end gets all the attention. A few things at the British end are worth handling before you go, because they are harder to sort from eight time zones away.
Access for the collection. Tell your mover about parking restrictions, permit zones, narrow access, stairs and lift bookings well in advance. A crew that arrives and cannot park is a wasted half day that somebody pays for.
What is genuinely not going. Sell it, give it away or dispose of it before the survey rather than after, so the volume figure reflects reality. Deciding on packing day is how quotes become wrong.
Storage, if you need it. If you are leaving before the goods can be delivered in China, or your UK property sells before you fly, ask about storage at the outset rather than as an emergency.
Anything you are leaving behind with family. Make a note of what and where. People forget, and retrieving it later costs more than shipping it would have.
Documents you will need. Passport, visa, permit correspondence, the inventory, insurance papers, proof of address. Keep them with you rather than in the container. It sounds obvious and it happens more often than you would think.
Your first fortnight box. Whatever you would miss most in the two months before the sea shipment lands. That is the air consignment, and deciding it early is what stops it becoming an expensive afterthought.
Start with the mode and the cost pages, then come back to the customs detail once you know what you are shipping.
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.
Experts in currency exchange
No hidden fees
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Competitive exchange rate
Around twelve to sixteen weeks from deciding to move to having goods delivered. The shipping is six to ten weeks of that. The rest is surveying, quoting, booking, packing and paperwork, and most people underestimate how much of it sits before the container sails.
Felixstowe, Southampton or London Gateway on most sea services. The shipping line decides rather than your location, and it rarely changes the price. Your mover collects from your address regardless of which port the sailing uses.
After. Shipping ahead of the permit is the most common and most expensive mistake on this route, because relief on household goods is tied to your right to live in China. A container arriving without a permit behind it sits at a port accruing charges.
Start the permit process and book surveys, in that order of importance. The survey gives you a cubic metre figure that everything else depends on, and the permit determines whether your dates are realistic at all.
Send a small air consignment with what you need for the first fortnight and let the sea shipment follow. It costs a fraction of what rushing the whole load would, and it is the difference between settling in and living out of a suitcase.
The weeks before Chinese New Year, when the whole logistics chain in China slows and then stops for a fortnight or more. Summer is the other peak, driven by school terms. Both carry a premium and both are worth avoiding if your dates can move.
Ask about storage at the outset rather than as an emergency. Most movers offer it at either end, and arranging it in advance is considerably cheaper than arranging it the week you need it.
Your passport, visa, permit correspondence, the inventory and your insurance papers. Keep them with you. It sounds obvious and it happens more often than you would expect, usually to someone who packed in a hurry on the last day.
You can, but the quote was built on a survey figure and changing the volume changes the price. Decide what is not going before the survey rather than after, so the number you agreed is the number that holds.
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.