Kent → France
Removals from Kent to France
No county in Britain has a shorter or more familiar route into France. That familiarity is also where the trouble starts: a great many Kent households treat a French move as a long day trip, and the customs file does not agree.
The familiarity problem
People here have been crossing to France for the day for decades. The result is a particular Kent assumption — that moving furniture over is much the same thing with a bigger vehicle.
It is not, and it stopped being so in 2021. A household leaving Britain is a customs export with an inventory, a value and a declaration attached to your name. The drive is still short; the file is not optional.
The route
M20 or M2 to the terminal, and through. On the other side the choice is made by where you are going: the A26 south-east for Reims, Burgundy and onward; the A16 along the coast for Normandy; the A28 and A10 through Le Mans, Tours and Poitiers for the Loire, Bordeaux and the south-west; and the long run to Lyon and Provence beyond that.
From Kent, none of that first leg is guesswork — this is the county's home route and the vehicles run it constantly.
Second home, or moving?
We ask this on the first call for a reason. Kent sends more second-home furnishing runs to France than anywhere else in the country, and the two cases are handled completely differently.
- Transferring residence. France becomes your primary home. Used household effects you owned and used before the move enter without duty, provided the file demonstrates it.
- Furnishing a second home. You stay UK-resident. The goods are a conventional import assessed on declared value, and describing that as a relocation is a problem that lands on you rather than on us.
If you genuinely do not know yet, say so. It just has to be settled before the inventory is valued.
What the file contains
An itemised, valued inventory in French, signed by you. Proof of the French address — a deed, or a lease in your name. Evidence of residency: a work contract, a residency application, or a certificate of change of residence from the consulate. Identity documents matching the names on all of it.
We prepare and lodge the export side from this end and tell you which pieces only you can obtain — those have the longest lead times and are worth starting first.
Delivering in France
Rural deliveries are about the approach, not the house. Send photographs of the lane and the gateway and we will tell you whether the vehicle reaches the door or whether the last stretch needs a shuttle.
City apartments are the opposite: a courtyard, a lift with room for two people and nothing else, and a staircase that decides what comes apart. In Paris a hoist through a window is ordinary. It gets planned at survey, because it cannot be arranged on the morning.
Spain uses the first half of this drive before turning south at Bordeaux; the overview covers dedicated versus shared loads.
Worth knowing
Kent to France, the practical questions
Is Kent genuinely closer for a French move?
Yes, and measurably. The Eurotunnel terminal is at Folkestone and the port is at Dover, so a load from Maidstone or Ashford reaches the crossing in a fraction of the time a firm from the Midlands needs. It shortens the first leg and nothing else — clearance takes what it takes.
Which crossing do you use?
The tunnel for most household moves: quicker, less weather-dependent, and a simple booking for a removals vehicle. The ferry from Dover is the alternative and runs from the same county. For Brittany and lower Normandy the western sailings sometimes make sense, though from Kent the drive west usually cancels the saving.
We already have a house in France. Does that change anything?
It changes everything about the paperwork. Furnishing a second home is a conventional import assessed on declared value — transfer-of-residence relief only applies where France becomes your primary residence. Kent households are more likely than most to be in this position, so we ask early.
What does French customs want?
An itemised, valued inventory in French and signed by you; proof of the French address through a deed or a signed lease; and evidence you are transferring residence — a work contract, a residency application, or a consulate certificate of change of residence.
Do you deliver to rural France?
Constantly. The question there is the lane rather than the house: a farmhouse down a track a full-size vehicle cannot turn in means a shuttle with a smaller vehicle, which we plan rather than discover.
And Paris?
A different job. Courtyard access, a lift built for two people and no furniture, a staircase with a turn, and in some arrondissements a permit to stand outside at all. An external hoist through a window is a standard Paris solution, not an exotic one, and it gets costed at survey.
Can you take part of a household now and the rest later?
Yes, and on this route it is genuinely practical because the crossing is short. Plenty of Kent households furnish a French property in stages. Each trip is its own customs movement, though, so the paperwork has to be right each time rather than once.
Tell us whether France becomes home.
That single answer decides the paperwork, the duty position and half the planning. Everything else follows from it.