Your new life in Britain starts here, straight from the States

Britain runs one main check on an incoming household shipment, and it is a paperwork check rather than an inspection regime. HM Revenue and Customs wants to know whether your goods qualify for Transfer of Residence relief. If they do, your used belongings enter free of customs duty and import VAT. If they do not, the standard 20% import VAT applies to the value of the shipment, plus any customs duty due on individual items.

There is also a US export leg to sort before anything leaves the country. We take care of the US export documentation for you. The thing that matters is that the inventory and values on it line up with what is declared to HMRC on the British side.

On a US-to-UK sea move, your belongings usually land a few weeks after you have already flown over. That is completely normal. Start the ToR1 application as soon as you have a move date so the reference is ready for clearance. If eligible goods clear before relief is granted, HMRC provides a late-claim and repayment route, but it adds paperwork and may leave you funding duty and VAT in the meantime. Make sure the inventory matches what is actually travelling by sea; a gap between what is declared and what turns up at the port is far slower and pricier to untangle later than it is to get right at the start.

For a full household, most families ship a 20ft or 40ft container. A single room or a studio's contents usually travels as LCL (Less than Container Load) groupage, consolidated with other US-to-UK shipments at the departure port. On this route the size question is worth revisiting before you book: a 40ft container of American furniture often turns into a 20ft container once you have honestly measured the British house it is going into.

For an American mover, almost the entire tax question at the border comes down to one thing: is your ToR relief approved before the goods arrive? With it, your used household effects come in free of customs duty and import VAT. Without it, HMRC assesses the shipment as an ordinary import.

A US-to-UK file is nearly always cleaner when your qualifying used belongings are clearly separated from everything else. The things that blur the line, like a new television bought on a Black Friday deal or a case of wine you meant to bring, are worth flagging before the container is packed rather than after it is sitting at a British port.

If you are not sure whether something qualifies for relief or needs declaring on its own, ask us before it ships. Sorting a category question at origin is quick. Sorting it after arrival, with the shipment held for reassessment or duty and VAT already paid while a late claim is considered, is not.

An Atlantic crossing is shorter than most international moves, but your belongings still go through several handovers on the way. Cargo insurance is well worth having, especially on anything that matters to you or carries real value.

Always go through the policy terms, exclusions, and declared values with your broker or insurer before you commit to cover.

Americans have fewer routes into Britain than most people assume, and two of the ones they hear about from Australian or Canadian friends are simply not open to them. There is no Youth Mobility Scheme place for US citizens, and the UK Ancestry visa is limited to Commonwealth citizens. What is left is a real set of options, but almost all of them run through either an employer, a qualification, or a family relationship. Requirements and salary thresholds change often, so always confirm the current rules with the Home Office before you lock in any relocation or shipping decisions.

US household shipments to Britain leave through a handful of container and groupage ports, then arrive at one of the UK's main gateways for customs clearance before onward delivery. Which US coast you leave from matters more here than on almost any other route we run: an East Coast departure crosses the Atlantic directly, while a West Coast shipment goes south through the Panama Canal and can take twice as long for the same destination.

Since 1999 we have been moving people from the United States to Britain, from collection at your American address through export, the Atlantic crossing, UK customs clearance, and delivery to your new home. We handle every step, so you can put your energy into the move itself rather than the logistics.

1. Collection and packing at your US address

2. US export and port handling

We sort the US export documentation, load the container at your departure port, and hand it safely to the vessel.

3. The crossing and UK customs clearance

We book the sea or air freight as agreed, track the container across the Atlantic, and manage the UK import declaration and clearance at Felixstowe, Southampton, London Gateway or Liverpool on arrival. Your ToR reference number goes on that declaration, which is why we push to have the approval in hand well before the vessel docks. The customs section above covers exactly what is needed.

4. Delivery to your new British home

Once your shipment clears customs, we arrange the final leg and the drop at your UK address. If your new place has restricted access, a shared stairwell or no off-street parking, tell your Move Manager early. Those are common in British cities and much easier to plan around in advance than on the day.

5. Unpacking and setting up

Our local delivery team places the furniture and boxes where you actually want them, so you can start settling in rather than facing a mountain of unpacking on your own.

Our US-to-UK support is built around a single contact: a dedicated Move Manager who owns your file from the first quote through American collection, export, the crossing, UK clearance, and British delivery. You are not handed off between teams at each stage.

On a UK move that continuity matters most around the ToR application. A late claim and repayment may be possible for eligible goods, but having the reference number before the customs declaration avoids charges and extra administration. HMRC's queue lengthens sharply over the summer, so one accountable person tracking the application alongside the sailing schedule is how a timing problem gets spotted early.

From collection in the States through loading at your departure port, the Atlantic crossing, UK clearance, port release, and the final delivery to your British door, your Move Manager stays in touch and keeps you posted at every stage.

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A private car is not excluded from Transfer of Residence relief the way alcohol and tobacco are, so if it meets the same ownership and use conditions it can come in without customs duty or import VAT. Without that relief, expect customs duty plus 20% VAT on a car's value, which turns a sentimental import into an expensive one very quickly. The practical catch is different from the tax one: your American car is left-hand drive on a country that drives on the left, its headlights dip the wrong way, and its speedometer reads in miles per hour but was never approved for British roads.

For most Americans the honest answer is to sell before you go. Even with ToR relief covering the tax, the shipping, approval, modification and insurance costs on a left-hand-drive car usually outrun what the same money buys on the British used market. The exception is a car you genuinely could not replace, and in that case it is worth costing the whole path properly rather than just the freight.

This is the good-news section. The United States is currently treated as a listed country for Great Britain pet travel, which means your dog or cat needs no rabies blood test and no quarantine, provided every step is done in the right order. That puts this corridor in a completely different category from an Australia or New Zealand move, where quarantine is unavoidable.

We handle the freight and logistics side of your move. Your pet's health certificate, vet sequencing and approved-route booking run through the official GB pet travel process, arranged alongside your move rather than as an afterthought to it. Country listings and requirements do change, so confirm the current rules on GOV.UK before you book anything.

The US-UK corridor is one of the most travelled in the world, and the shared language makes it feel like the softest landing available. In many ways it is. But the shared language also hides the differences until you are standing in them, and a fair number of those differences directly affect how you plan and pack a shipment.

From a shipping point of view, Britain is predictable for Americans who get their ToR file right and are realistic about what belongs in the container. The real challenges are not customs mystery. They are the voltage difference, the size of British homes, and the visa route that has to be settled before any of the rest of it is worth doing.

London is expensive, but it lands differently depending on which American city you are leaving. Movers from New York and San Francisco often find it noticeably cheaper, particularly once healthcare and childcare are in the comparison. Movers from Denver, Nashville or Raleigh usually find it a shock. Outside London the arithmetic changes again: Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Sheffield are dramatically cheaper on housing than any large American city.

Groceries generally cost less than in the US and eating out costs less than in a major American city, partly because tipping is modest and menu prices already include VAT. Fuel is far more expensive, and cars are taxed and insured differently. Utilities are comparable. The thing that genuinely surprises Americans is space: British homes are much smaller for the money, and that is the fact with the most direct bearing on your shipment.

For planning purposes, housing is the decision that drives everything else. Whether you have a confirmed British address before the container leaves the States decides whether you need temporary storage on arrival. Measure the doorways, the staircase and the kitchen before you commit to bringing the big furniture, because the American sectional that fits a suburban living room does not always make it into a Victorian terrace.

This is the conversation Americans find hardest. Headline salaries in the UK are lower than US equivalents in most professional fields, and the gap is widest in technology, law and medicine. A senior software engineer who earned well into six figures in dollars will usually see a smaller number in pounds. What partly offsets it is the other side of the ledger: no health insurance premiums, employer pension contributions, statutory paid leave, and childcare and university costs that work on a different scale.

For anyone coming on a Skilled Worker visa, the salary question is not just personal, it is a visa condition. The role has to meet the general threshold of £41,700 or the going rate for the occupation, whichever is higher, and sit at degree level for new applicants. Lower thresholds apply to PhD holders, new entrants and shortage occupations. Because these figures have moved more than once in recent years, confirm the current numbers with the Home Office rather than working from a salary guide.

One practical note on timing: tie your container's arrival to confirmed immigration status rather than betting on approval by a target date. A shipment that lands before you have a confirmed British address and a granted visa is a storage bill, and on this route storage in a UK port is not cheap.

The United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income wherever they live, which makes this the one area where an American move to Britain is genuinely more complicated than a British move anywhere. You keep filing US returns after you leave. The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and the Foreign Tax Credit are the two mechanisms that usually stop the same income being taxed twice, and an FBAR filing is required once your foreign accounts total more than $10,000 at any point in the year. FATCA reporting may apply on top. None of this is optional and none of it goes away by moving.

On the British side, the UK tax year runs 6 April to 5 April and your liability depends on the Statutory Residence Test. There is one genuinely valuable change for new arrivals: the old non-domicile remittance basis was abolished on 6 April 2025 and replaced by a four-year Foreign Income and Gains regime, open to people who have not been UK resident in the previous ten tax years. Most Americans arriving fresh will qualify. It has to be claimed, and claiming it costs you the personal allowance and the capital gains annual exempt amount for that year, so it is a calculation rather than an automatic win.

Two things worth raising with an adviser before you go. First, the US-UK social security agreement has been in force since 1985, so you contribute to one system rather than both, and a certificate of coverage is how you prove which. Second, some British products that look like obvious tax wrappers, ISAs among them, are not treated kindly by the IRS and can create reporting obligations you would not expect. Get advice from someone who handles both tax systems, before you open accounts rather than after.

Britain remains a major destination for American professionals, particularly in finance, technology, life sciences, higher education, and the creative industries. London dominates, but Cambridge and Oxford anchor serious life-sciences and research clusters, Manchester and Leeds have real technology and media employment, and Edinburgh is a financial centre in its own right.

The practical constraint is sponsorship. Unlike Australians or Canadians, US citizens have no working-holiday route into the UK, so most people need either a licensed sponsor or a visa that does not require one. That makes the Global Talent and High Potential Individual routes disproportionately useful for Americans, because they let you arrive and then look, rather than needing the offer first. If you graduated from an eligible university in the last five years, check the HPI list early. It is the closest thing to an open door on this corridor.

Expect the hiring process itself to feel different. British recruitment tends to be less aggressive on salary negotiation, references matter more, and notice periods of one to three months are normal rather than exceptional. Build that into your shipping timeline: a British employer who wants you to start in eight weeks is not unusual, and it is a tight window for a container.

The NHS is free at the point of use for people with the right immigration status, and most visa applicants pay for that access upfront through the Immigration Health Surcharge, currently £1,035 per adult per year and £776 for students, under-18s and Youth Mobility applicants. You pay it for the full length of the visa when you apply, which is a serious upfront number for a family. Register with a local GP practice as soon as you have an address, because most NHS access runs through that registration rather than through walk-in care.

Banking has one classic newcomer trap: most British banks want proof of address to open an account, and most landlords want a bank account to sign a tenancy. The way through is usually a digital bank that accepts alternative documentation, or an account opened before you arrive. Your American credit history does not transfer, so expect to start again on credit scoring even if you arrive with a spotless record and a well-paid job.

Public transport is genuinely good in the cities and between them, and a lot of Americans find they do not need a car in London at all. If you do drive, note the timing: your US licence is valid for 12 months after you become resident, and the United States is not on the DVLA list of countries whose licences can be exchanged, so after that year you take the British theory and practical tests as a new driver. Book lessons and tests early, because waiting lists in some areas run to months.

Britain uses the pound sterling (GBP). USD/GBP has moved around meaningfully over recent years, so the rate on the day you transfer makes a real difference over a large sum. If you are converting dollar savings to pounds for a rental deposit, first-month costs, or a British property purchase, the timing and the method both matter.

Wise and similar specialist services give mid-market rates with transparent fees and are widely used by American movers for USD-to-GBP transfers. A traditional US bank wire to a British account is slower and usually less cost-efficient for a personal transfer. If you will have ongoing dollar income, whether that is US rental income, investment distributions or a pension, set up a multi-currency account or a regular-conversion service before you leave rather than after.

Your shipment is priced in a mix of currencies too, with UK port charges, customs handling and any temporary storage sitting in pounds that may drift against the dollar between booking and paying. On a large move where the final delivery cost is substantial, it is worth confirming the sterling total at the time you book.