From Thai sunshine to a French front door, we'll carry the rest

France decides what you pay when your things arrive, and for a real move the answer is normally nothing. The relief for a transfer of normal residence lets used household belongings in without customs duty or the 20% TVA. You claim it on form Cerfa 10070, together with a detailed, signed inventory and proof that your home has moved.

Thailand decides what can leave, and its short list is worth reading before you pack. Buddha images, religious objects, antiques and some artworks need an export licence from the Fine Arts Department, and some pieces won't get one at all. Cash leaving Thailand for France is capped at 50,000 baht per person. Products from protected species, such as ivory, crocodile leather or some rare woods, can need CITES permits at both ends of the journey.

Almost every household container for France leaves Thailand through Laem Chabang, south-east of Bangkok. Since 2024 most Asia to Europe ships have been avoiding the Red Sea and sailing around southern Africa instead, which adds a week or two compared with the old Suez route. One direct service's June 2026 schedule shows Laem Chabang to Rotterdam in 38 days, Hamburg in 43 and Le Havre in 49. In 2026 a few carriers began sending some ships back through Suez, but not across whole networks, so we confirm the routing of your actual sailing rather than promising the short one.

If you're heading for the south of France, Fos-sur-Mer near Marseille is the natural port, but containers from Thailand often change ships in Singapore to reach it, and the connection can add days. For Lyon and further north, Le Havre with a truck or train onwards is often just as quick. We look at both for your address and quote the one that makes sense.

The bigger question is whether it fits in France. Thai houses and condos tend to be open and airy; French apartments, especially in older buildings, often have narrow stairs, small lifts and no room for a king-size teak bed. Measure your new place before you decide what makes the trip.

Without the relief, France treats your belongings like any other import from Thailand: customs duty where it applies, plus TVA at 20%, calculated on the value of the goods including the cost of shipping them. After a sailing this long, freight makes up a real share of that value, so the bill can add up quickly. The relief exists so that people genuinely moving home don't pay it, and its conditions are written down clearly.

A word about gifts and souvenirs, because this route has a lot of them. Silk, celadon, lacquerware and hand-carved wood make lovely presents for family in France, and a few pieces mixed in with your own things are no problem. Several suitcases' worth of new items looks like trade. If you're planning to sell Thai crafts or open a shop in France, ship that stock separately as a commercial import and keep your household move clean.

The car, covered further down, can use the same relief if you've owned and used it for at least six months and the other conditions are met. It needs certificate 846 A from French customs before it can be registered. Without the relief, a car pays 10% duty and 20% TVA, which is usually enough to make people sell it in Thailand instead.

Your belongings spend weeks at sea, change ships, and go from tropical humidity to a French winter. Most shipments arrive just as they left. Insurance is for the ones that don't, and on a journey with this many handovers it's worth having.

Read the exclusions and declared values carefully before you sign. Damage from humidity or slow deterioration is often excluded, and boxes you pack yourself may be covered only against total loss, so ask about both.

This part depends on your passport, not on where you've been living. French citizens coming home need no visa, and neither do citizens of other EU countries. If you hold a Thai passport, you need a Schengen visa even for a short visit, and to live in France you need a long-stay visa, applied for in Thailand before you travel. In Bangkok, applications go through the France-Visas website and the TLScontact visa centre, and the decision is made by the French Embassy. You can't arrive as a visitor and change your status once you're there.

Your shipment leaves Thailand from Laem Chabang, the country's main deep-sea port, whether you're packing up in Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai or on Phuket. It arrives at one of France's two big container gateways. Le Havre, in Normandy, has road, rail and river links to Paris and serves the north and west. Fos-sur-Mer, the container port of Marseille, serves the south and connects up the Rhône valley towards Lyon.

We take care of everything between your front door in Thailand and your new one in France: packing, Thai export, the sailing, the French customs declaration and delivery. One Move Manager holds the whole file, so nothing gets lost between a packing crew in Bangkok and a customs broker in France.

Arrival in France
Our customs broker lodges the Cerfa 10070 declaration, your inventory and your proof of residence at Le Havre or Fos-sur-Mer, and handles any questions 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, reassembles what they took apart and takes the packing away.

When the dates don't match
On a move this long they often don't. Storage at either end is part of the same service, not an extra you discover later.

And from the first call to the last box, the same person answers your messages. No call centre, no ticket number.

On this route you work with one Move Manager from the first survey in Thailand to the last box in France. They look after the packing, the export, the sailing, French customs and delivery, so you never have to explain your move to someone new halfway through.

That matters here for two reasons. First, the order of things: the Thai export licences need to be sorted before packing, and the visa, the French address and your proof of residence need to exist before French customs will apply the relief. Second, the time difference. France is five or six hours behind Thailand depending on the season, so having one person who already knows your file saves a lot of waiting.

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

Talk to a real person now

Chat on WhatsApp
Send an email

Thailand drives on the left and France on the right, so a Thai car arrives with its steering wheel on what becomes the awkward side. It can still be imported, and if it qualifies for the relief the tax side can be kind. What's harder is getting a car built for the Thai market approved for French roads, and living with it afterwards: overtaking on country roads, reaching the ticket machine at a motorway toll, and selling it one day.

For a much-loved classic, bringing it may be worth the effort. For an everyday pickup or city car, most people on this route sell it in Thailand and buy in France: no approval process, the steering wheel on the right side, and a car that's easy to sell later.

Your pet can come, with no quarantine in France if everything is in order. The thing to know early is that Thailand isn't on the EU's list of countries exempt from the rabies blood test. That means an extra test and then a wait of at least three months before your pet can travel, so the pet paperwork often sets the timeline for the whole move.

On the Thai side, the export goes through the Department of Livestock Development, with an application and a visit to its animal quarantine office at your departure airport. If you might return to Thailand one day, keep copies of everything, because bringing a pet back needs a Thai import permit. For help with the flight itself, see our pet transport service.

The first things you'll notice are the seasons and the pace. Evenings in June stay light until nearly ten, winter afternoons are dark by five, and the markets change with every month. Shops often close on Sundays, lunch is taken seriously, and small talk usually starts with a polite bonjour. France is five hours behind Thailand in summer and six in winter, so calls home tend to happen in the morning.

The early months are mostly paperwork. Validating your visa, getting a social security number, opening a bank account and registering with a doctor each need documents, and some need the document from the step before. It feels slow at first, and then one day it's done. Keep copies of everything, and bring translated civil documents like birth and marriage certificates with you.

France costs more than Thailand, and the difference shows most in housing and eating out. A small apartment in Paris can take a large share of a salary, while cities like Lyon, Nantes or Toulouse are more manageable and smaller towns more so again. Restaurant meals are a treat rather than a daily habit, but a market basket of bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables is good value.

You'll miss some flavours at first. Thai ingredients are easy to find in bigger cities, especially in the Asian supermarkets of Paris's 13th arrondissement, though fresh herbs and fruit cost more than at a Thai market. Electricity and heating in winter are new costs for most people, as is home insurance, which every tenant must have.

For the move itself, the costs that surprise people are about timing. If the container arrives before you have a French address, storage starts, and a short-term rental while you look for a home adds up quickly. Lining up those dates saves more than haggling over the freight.

France's minimum wage, the SMIC, is 1,867.02 euros gross a month for full-time work from 1 January 2026, about 1,478 euros after employee contributions. Salaries in Paris and in fields like tech, engineering, finance and luxury are well above that, and they are much higher than Thai salaries for similar work, though so is the cost of living.

The gap between gross and net pay is wider than most people expect. Social contributions come out before income tax, and in return you get health cover, a state pension, unemployment insurance and family benefits.

When comparing job offers, remember French salaries are usually quoted as a yearly gross figure. Some employers pay a thirteenth month, and a cadre contract changes your contributions, notice period and sometimes your hours. Ask which one you're being offered.

Thailand taxes you as a resident in any year you spend 180 days or more there. Once you've moved and become a French tax resident, France taxes your worldwide income. France and Thailand have had a tax treaty since 1975, which decides which country taxes each kind of income, so the same money isn't taxed twice. Income from property you keep in Thailand, like rent from a Bangkok condo, is the classic case to check with an adviser.

French income tax on 2025 income, declared in 2026, is 0% up to 11,600 euros, 11% up to 29,579 euros, 30% up to 84,577 euros, 41% up to 181,917 euros and 45% above that. These bands apply per share of the household under the family quotient system, so a married couple with children pays quite differently from a single person on the same income.

If you own a lot of property, France's real estate wealth tax, the IFI, starts above 1.3 million euros of net property. Someone who hasn't been a French tax resident in the previous five years pays it only on French property until the end of their fifth year in France, which matters if you're keeping a house or land in Thailand.

Start with permission. As a spouse of a French citizen, your residence permit allows you to work. On other visas, your right to work depends on the category, and a French employer hiring from abroad usually has to apply for a work authorisation for you. The talent permit is simpler for employers because less of the paperwork sits with them.

French is the key to most jobs outside international companies. English helps in tech, tourism and big firms in Paris and Lyon, and Thai-language skills are valued in hospitality, trade and some travel businesses. Free French classes are part of the integration contract many new residents sign with OFII, and they are worth taking seriously.

If you'd like to work for yourself, the micro-entrepreneur regime is a simple way to start, within turnover limits. Regulated professions such as nursing, medicine, law or accounting need your Thai qualifications recognised in France, which rarely happens automatically, so begin early.

French healthcare is excellent, though it works differently from Thai private hospitals. You usually pay the doctor and get part of it back, and a top-up insurance called a mutuelle covers 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. There's no health agreement between France and Thailand, so arrange private international cover for the gap.

State schools are free and secular. Children who arrive without French usually join special support classes, called UPE2A, alongside a regular class, and younger children often pick up the language faster than their parents. International and bilingual schools exist in Paris, Lyon, Nice and a few other cities, with private fees.

Getting around is easy. High-speed trains link the big cities, city transport is cheap, and motorways are excellent but tolled. In the countryside a car is still very useful, even if the next town is only a few minutes away.

France and Thailand have no social security agreement, so years paid into Thailand's Social Security Office don't count towards a French pension, and French years don't count in Thailand. Before you leave, ask the Social Security Office what happens to your old-age contributions, and keep your records safe.

Open a French bank account as early as you can, because rent, salary and bills all expect one. If banks turn you down, the Banque de France can designate a bank that must open a basic account for you. Keep a Thai account open too, for any income or bills in Thailand, and move larger sums through a currency transfer service rather than a standard bank wire, which usually costs less.

When you travel, remember the cash limits at both ends: no more than 50,000 baht in Thai currency out of Thailand to France, and a declaration for 10,000 euros or more in cash when you enter the EU.