Your French chapter starts on the other side of the world

Two sets of rules apply to your shipment. France decides what you owe when your belongings arrive, and for a genuine move the answer is usually nothing: the relief for a transfer of normal residence lets used household goods in free of customs duty and the 20% TVA, claimed on form Cerfa 10070 with a detailed inventory.

Australia decides what can leave, and although the list is short, it catches people. Some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects can never be exported, and others, along with certain fossils, meteorites, older artworks and historic sporting memorabilia, need an export permit that can take many months. Firearms packed in a container need a Defence export permit, because the permit travellers use only covers guns that fly with them. And cash or bearer instruments worth A$10,000 or more must be reported before they leave the country, whether in your pocket or in a box.

The direct shipping service between Australia and Europe calls at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle, then Singapore, India and Sri Lanka, before rounding the Cape of Good Hope to northern Europe and the Mediterranean. The shipping line's published times to Le Havre are about 61 days from Fremantle, 67 from Adelaide, 70 from Melbourne and 75 from Sydney. They're estimates rather than guarantees, and a missed connection or a congested port can add a week. Brisbane isn't a port of call on that service, so Queensland shipments usually connect through another port first.

Here's the part that surprises people: on the direct service the ship reaches Le Havre well before it reaches Fos-sur-Mer near Marseille, roughly 11 days earlier. If you're moving to Provence, the Riviera or Occitanie, landing in Normandy and trucking south is often quicker than staying on board, though it costs more on the road. Shared loads can travel on other routings through transhipment hubs, so we quote the timing for your actual sailing rather than a brochure figure.

The real question isn't whether it fits in the container. It's whether it fits in France. Australian homes are generous, French apartments are not, and a period building in Paris or Lyon may have a staircase that turns twice before the first landing and no lift at all. Measure doorways and stairwells before you decide the corner lounge is coming.

If your belongings don't qualify for relief, France treats them as an ordinary import: customs duty where it applies, plus TVA at 20%, worked out on the value of the goods including the cost of getting them there. For a household that has crossed half the world, freight is a big part of that base, so the bill can be painful. The relief exists precisely so that people genuinely moving house don't pay it, and it comes with clear conditions rather than an official's discretion.

The wine gets its own paragraph because on this corridor it deserves one. Plenty of Australians moving to France have spent years building a cellar, and it's the exclusion that stings. Alcohol isn't covered by the relief at all, so every bottle is assessed for duty, excise and TVA. A handful of bottles won't change much. A serious collection of Barossa shiraz or Margaret River cabernet is worth costing before it's packed. Your options are to ship it and pay, to drink it or sell it before you go, or to leave it in storage in Australia. Wrapping it in towels and labelling the box 'linen' isn't one of them.

The other item worth raising early is the car, covered further down. It can travel under the same relief if you've genuinely owned and used it for at least six months and the other conditions are met, and it needs certificate 846 A from French customs before it can be registered. Without relief it's 10% duty and 20% TVA, which is usually the moment an ordinary family car gets sold in Australia instead.

Very few household moves travel further than this one. Your things are packed in Australia, loaded at an Australian port, carried most of the way around the planet, unloaded in France and trucked to your door, and each of those handovers is a moment where something can knock or crack. Most shipments arrive exactly as they left. Insurance is there for the ones that don't.

Read the exclusions and the declared values carefully with your insurer or broker before you sign. Boxes you pack yourself are often excluded or covered only against total loss, so ask directly if you're planning to pack any of your own.

An Australian passport gets you into France for a holiday without a visa, but not into a life there. To live in France you need a long-stay visa, applied for at the French consulate before you leave, and you can't arrive as a tourist and switch once you've landed. The good news for younger Australians is a door most other passports on this site don't have: a working holiday agreement between Australia and France, open until your 36th birthday.

Your shipment leaves from one of Australia's main container ports and arrives at one of France's two big gateways. Le Havre, the country's busiest container port, has river and rail links up the Seine to Paris and serves the north and west. Fos-sur-Mer, the container port of Marseille, runs river services up the Rhône towards Lyon and serves the south. On this corridor, which Australian port you leave from sets how long your belongings spend at sea.

Our service runs from your Australian front door to your French one: packing, export, the long sea crossing, the French customs declaration and delivery. A single Move Manager holds the whole file, so nothing slips through the crack between an Australian packing crew and a French broker.

Arrival in France
Our customs broker lodges the Cerfa 10070 declaration, your inventory and your residence evidence at Le Havre or Fos-sur-Mer, and deals with any question or inspection directly.

Delivery to your new home
Once cleared, your shipment is trucked to your address. The crew carries everything in, puts it where you want it, rebuilds what they took apart and takes the packing materials away.

When the dates don't match
They often don't on a move this long. Storage at either end is arranged as part of the same job, not added as a surprise later.

And from start to finish, the same person picks up the phone. No call centre, no ticket number.

On this corridor you work with one Move Manager from the first survey in Australia to the last box in France. They own the packing, the crossing, the French clearance and the delivery, so you never have to explain your move again to someone new halfway through.

That matters more than usual here, for two reasons. First, the order of things: the long-stay visa, the French address and your proof of residence all need to exist before French customs will apply the relief, and a container that arrives before the paperwork does simply waits. Second, the time zones. France sits eight to ten hours behind the east coast of Australia, and having one person who already knows your file makes the difference between a quick message and a lost day.

From collection in Australia, across the ocean, through French customs and on to your doorstep, your Move Manager keeps you updated at every stage.

Talk to a real person now

Chat on WhatsApp
Send an email

Australia drives on the left and France on the right, so an Australian car arrives with the steering wheel on what will become the wrong side. That doesn't stop it being imported, and the money side can be kind if it travels under the relief. What it changes is daily life: overtaking on a country road, taking a ticket at an autoroute toll booth, and the price you'll get if you ever sell it in France.

The question worth asking isn't only what it costs, but how you'll feel driving it. For a classic, a much-loved four-wheel drive or something hard to find in Europe, bringing it can make sense. For an everyday hatchback, most people on this corridor sell it before they leave and buy a French car on arrival: no approval process, the wheel on the correct side, and a car that's easy to sell later.

Here's some good news after the tax talk. Australia is on the EU's list of countries whose pets don't need a rabies blood test, and there's no quarantine on arrival in France. One thing surprises people, though: your pet still needs a rabies vaccination, even though Australia has no rabies. The exemption removes the blood test, not the jab.

The work sits mostly on the Australian side, where the Department of Agriculture signs off the export and endorses the EU health certificate. And think about the trip back before you leave. Bringing a pet into Australia is a far longer process than taking one out, and some of the preparation has to happen before your pet departs. If there's any chance you'll come home one day, talk to the department first, and read our guide to leaving Australia with your pet.

Distance is the part that takes getting used to. France is eight to ten hours behind the east coast, so calls home happen early in the morning or late at night, and a trip back for a wedding is a serious undertaking rather than a long weekend. Christmas arrives in winter, the summer holidays land in August, and your first French winter will teach you why everyone owns a proper coat.

The day-to-day adjustment is mostly administrative. Australians used to handling most of government online find France runs on documents: the visa validation, the social security number, the bank account, the health card, each one asking for a piece of paper that comes from another. It's slow for a few months, and then it isn't. The people who struggle are usually the ones who expected the first month to feel like the twelfth.

Coming from Sydney or Melbourne, Paris rents are unlikely to shock you, though you'll get less space for the money and very few apartments come with a car park. Leave the capital and the difference is real: in regional cities and country towns, the rent on a small city flat in Australia can cover a house with a garden.

Everyday spending shifts in ways Australians notice quickly. Bread, cheese, wine and a set lunch at a local restaurant are cheaper than you're used to, and the quality is hard to argue with. Petrol, motorway tolls, anything imported from outside the EU and most tradespeople cost more. Buying property carries higher upfront costs than you might expect, mostly transfer taxes collected by the notaire, so budget for them from the start.

For your move, the costs that matter most are timing costs. If your container arrives before you have a French address, storage fees start, and if you sell in Australia before you can buy in France, you'll be renting in between. Lining those dates up is worth more than haggling over the freight.

France's minimum wage, the SMIC, is 1,867.02 euros gross a month for full-time work as of 1 January 2026, or about 1,478 euros once employee contributions come out. Salaries in Paris and in sectors like tech, finance and aerospace run well above that, but most Australians find French pay lower than they're used to for similar work, and the cost of living is what makes the sums add up.

The gap between gross and net is wider than in Australia. Employee social contributions come out before income tax, and in exchange you get health cover, a state pension, unemployment insurance and family benefits. There's no superannuation guarantee on top of your salary; the French pension comes from those contributions instead.

When you compare offers, look past the headline figure. French salaries are quoted as an annual gross amount, some employers pay a thirteenth month, and being hired as a cadre changes your contributions, your notice period and sometimes your working hours. Ask which one you're being offered.

Start with leaving Australia, because it happens first. When you stop being an Australian tax resident, the ATO treats you as having sold assets like shares at their market value on that day, unless you choose to defer the gain. Australian real estate isn't caught by that rule, but it has its own trap: if you sell your home while you're a foreign resident for tax purposes, you generally can't claim the main residence exemption, even as an Australian citizen and even if you lived in it for years. Temporary visa holders are treated differently on the first point, and the ATO decides residency on your circumstances rather than your passport.

On the French side, income tax on 2025 income, declared in 2026, runs at 0% up to 11,600 euros, 11% to 29,579 euros, 30% to 84,577 euros, 41% to 181,917 euros and 45% above that. Those bands apply to each share of the household under the family quotient system, so a couple with children pays very differently from a single person on the same income. France and Australia have a tax treaty, in force since 2009, which decides where each kind of income is taxed so you aren't taxed twice on the same money.

Two more things worth knowing. How France taxes Australian super, whether it's a lump sum, an income stream or growth inside the fund, isn't spelled out clearly in official guidance, so get specialist cross-border advice before you draw on it as a French resident. And France's wealth tax on property, the IFI, applies above 1.3 million euros of net real estate, but someone who wasn't French tax resident in the previous five years pays it only on French property until the end of the fifth year after arriving, a useful window if you're keeping a house in Australia.

First, the permission. Unless you're on a working holiday or have a French or EU family route, you need a visa that allows work before a French employer can take you on. A salaried position means the employer applying for a work authorisation, which smaller French firms often find daunting. The talent permit is easier for them to say yes to, because far less of the paperwork lands on their side.

Native English is a genuine advantage in international companies, tourism and teaching, and in Paris and Lyon's tech and business scenes. In a regional French company it counts for much less, because working French is part of the job. Most people find interviews start to go well at around an upper-intermediate level of French.

If you're self-employed, look at the structures before you arrive. France has a simple micro-entrepreneur regime with turnover ceilings, and the obligations grow quickly above them. Regulated professions, from nursing and medicine to law, accounting and trades, need your Australian qualifications recognised in France, which is rarely automatic and worth starting early.

French healthcare is excellent, and it works differently from Medicare. You usually pay the doctor and are reimbursed a share, with a top-up insurance called a mutuelle covering most of the rest. If you work in France you're covered through your job. If you don't, you can join the public system, PUMa, after three months of stable residence. Australia and France have no reciprocal health care agreement, and Medicare doesn't pay for treatment overseas, so arrange private international cover for the gap. France has also legislated a contribution for some residents who don't work and pay no French social contributions, with the details set by decree, so ask your local health insurance office whether it applies to you.

State schools are free, secular and academically demanding, and younger children usually pick up French faster than their parents expect. Teenagers arriving mid-way through secondary school find it harder, so talk to the school about language support before you settle on a start date. International and bilingual schools exist in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and on the Côte d'Azur, at private-school fees.

Getting around is a pleasant surprise. High-speed trains put Lyon or Bordeaux about two hours from Paris, city public transport is cheap, and motorways are excellent but tolled. Rural France, like regional Australia, assumes you have a car, though the next town is usually minutes away rather than an hour.

Your super stays in Australia. Citizens and permanent residents can't withdraw it because they're leaving the country; it stays locked until you meet a condition of release, such as retiring after reaching your preservation age, which is 60 for anyone born from 1 July 1964. The departing-Australia payment you may have heard of is only for former temporary visa holders.

The Age Pension is where this corridor needs care. There's no social security agreement between Australia and France, so years in France don't count towards it. If you draw it while living in France, it's paid at your normal rate for the first 26 weeks, after which it depends on how long you lived in Australia between age 16 and pension age: 35 years or more usually keeps the full rate, fewer means a proportional amount. From 20 September 2026, the Pension Supplement stops as soon as you leave Australia to live overseas.

For banking, open a French account early, because rent, salary and bills all expect one. If a bank turns you down, the Banque de France can designate one that must open a basic account for you, usually within a working day of your request. Keep your Australian account open too: super, any Australian income and your final tax refund are all easier with one, and moving larger sums through a specialist currency service rather than a bank wire usually saves real money.