There is no boat from Britain to Greece. Every UK to Greece move takes one of two shapes, and which one you pick sets your cost, your timing and where your goods clear. Most removals to Greece are decided on those two options alone.
By sea, your goods are containerised in the UK and sail to a Greek port, most often Piraeus. By road, a vehicle drives across France and Italy, boards a ro-ro ferry on the Italian Adriatic coast, and lands at Patras or Igoumenitsa. Sea suits full homes and anything heavy. Road suits smaller loads and tighter dates.
Send your move once and you are connected with a vetted moving company from our network that already runs whichever shape fits. There is no charge and nothing to commit to.
Put simply: sea freight into Piraeus tends to suit larger moves, road freight via an Italian ferry into Patras or Igoumenitsa suits smaller and faster ones, and an island destination adds a further leg on top of either.
Piraeus is Greece's main container gateway, so most sea shipments clear there whatever their final address. For a household in Attica that is close to ideal. For a household in Thrace it means several hundred kilometres of inland trucking on top.
That is why the regional ports matter. Thessaloniki clears the north. Volos serves Thessaly. Kavala covers the northeast and Thassos. Heraklion takes Crete directly. Rhodes handles the Dodecanese. A moving company that uses the right one can cut a long domestic leg out of your quote entirely.
Sizing is straightforward. A full home typically fills a forty foot container. A one or two bedroom flat often fits a twenty foot one. Anything smaller usually travels as shared space alongside other consignments, which is cheaper and slower.
A road move leaves the UK, crosses to France, runs down through Italy, and boards a ferry on the Adriatic coast. Every one of those ferries lands in western Greece. None of them goes to Piraeus or anywhere near Athens by sea, so the last stretch is always by road.
Which Italian port the driver uses changes the crossing time considerably, and that shows up in your quote as driver hours and sailing cost.
| From | To | Rough crossing | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brindisi | Igoumenitsa | About 8 hours | The shortest hop, good for tight schedules |
| Brindisi | Corfu | Around 7 to 8 hours | The quickest way to Corfu by road |
| Bari | Igoumenitsa | About 9 hours | Frequent sailings, also serves Kefalonia |
| Bari | Patras | Roughly 14 to 16 hours | Straight to the Peloponnese and Athens road |
| Ancona | Igoumenitsa | Around 16 to 21 hours | Northern Italy, fewer driving hours beforehand |
| Ancona | Patras | Around 21 to 25 hours | Long sailing, shorter Greek road leg |
| Venice | Igoumenitsa | About 25 to 27 hours | Only worth it coming from central Europe |
| Venice | Patras | Around 32 to 34 hours | The longest crossing on the route |
Crossings are run by operators including Superfast and ANEK under the Attica Group, Grimaldi Lines with Minoan, and Ventouris. Sailings are busiest from spring onward and freight space on the popular routes goes early.
Igoumenitsa suits Epirus, Ioannina, the northwest and anything continuing north. Patras puts you on the motorway to Athens and straight into the Peloponnese. Getting this wrong adds several hours of Greek road time.
The Adriatic crossings are holiday routes as well as freight ones. From late spring through August the ferries fill with cars and campers, and freight space on the popular Bari and Brindisi sailings goes early. That does two things to a summer move: it pushes the driver onto a longer crossing from Ancona or Venice, and it makes a fixed collection date harder to hold.
Moving between October and March is the opposite problem. Sailings are less busy and easier to book, but weather can delay a crossing, and any onward island leg runs on a thinner winter timetable. Neither season is wrong. They just fail differently, and a quote that ignores which one you are in has not thought about it.
Kefalonia can be reached from Bari or Brindisi, and Corfu from Brindisi. On an Ionian move that can remove a mainland leg altogether, so it is worth asking whether the route was considered.
Since the UK left the EU, goods travelling from Britain to Greece are an import into the customs territory of the European Union. That means a proper inventory, valued and grouped, and a customs entry made on arrival.
If you are genuinely moving your home rather than furnishing a holiday place, relief from import duty and VAT is likely to be available, but you have to qualify and you have to evidence it. The conditions are strict enough that we have given them their own page.
Northern Ireland is treated differently from Great Britain on some movements, so say which nation the goods are leaving from when you enquire.
Piraeus clearance and a short run inland. The complication is at the delivery end: lifts, loading restrictions and permit requirements in older blocks. Athens movers
Thessaloniki clearance changes the economics for anywhere above Larissa. Worth asking for explicitly. Thessaloniki movers and Katerini movers
Patras arrival puts road loads almost on the doorstep. Patras movers, Kalamata shipping and movers and Nafplio movers
Short answers to the questions that decide how this move gets priced.
One of eight, and the choice changes your cost. No ferry runs from a British port to a Greek one. Road moves cross to France, drive through Italy, then take an Adriatic ferry from Ancona, Bari, Brindisi or Venice into Patras or Igoumenitsa. Sea moves go by container, normally to Piraeus. If a quote mentions a direct sailing from the UK, ask exactly which crossing is meant.
It depends on volume. Below roughly the contents of a one bedroom flat, shared road groupage is usually cheapest. For a full house, a container by sea generally wins, because you are paying for space rather than driver hours. Road is normally faster door to door on smaller loads.
The honest answer is that no one can tell you until the route is fixed. The Italian ferry crossing alone ranges from about 8 hours out of Brindisi to around 34 hours out of Venice, and sea freight schedules depend on sailing frequency rather than distance. Ask for a date range in the written quote and treat anything quoted before the route is set as a guess.
Usually, if they travel by sea. Piraeus handles most container traffic for Greece. But Thessaloniki, Volos, Kavala, Heraklion and Rhodes can clear regional traffic, and using the right one can remove hundreds of kilometres of inland trucking from your quote. Road loads clear at Patras or Igoumenitsa instead.
Yes. Small consignments travel as shared space alongside other people's goods, most often on the road route. It is the cheapest way to move a modest amount, and the trade-off is flexibility on dates rather than any difference in handling.
Yes. Collection runs from anywhere in Great Britain, though a northern or Scottish collection adds a domestic leg before the international one begins. On a shared road load that leg is often absorbed into the schedule. On a dedicated vehicle it is billed, so ask how it is being treated.
On a shared load they go to a warehouse and wait for enough other consignments to fill a vehicle or container. On a dedicated job they may go straight out. Ask where they are held, whether that storage is charged, and how long the wait typically runs on this route at your time of year.
Not always, but it helps. Customs procedures for a household import usually need documents in your name and sometimes your presence or a formal authority for the mover to act. Tell the moving company your own travel dates at enquiry stage so the clearance can be planned around them.
Send the UK collection address, the Greek delivery town, your dates and a rough inventory. A vetted mover from our network works out whether road or sea suits you, and which port to use, before quoting.
Get your free quoteWe are a free enquiry service and a Working Member of AGM Group. We connect people moving from the UK to Greece with vetted international moving companies from that network. We do not run vehicles or crews ourselves, so the company that quotes you is the company doing the work.
Use this page to work out the shape of your move, then talk the detail through with the mover directly.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder, International Removals Companies.