The first quote on an international move usually comes back as a range, not a number, and the range is wider than people expect. A three-bed move from the UK to Spain might come back at £4,500 to £7,500, depending on volume, route, and how full the warehouse is when consolidation is booked. UK to Australia is wider still, often £7,000 to £14,000, because air freight, sea freight and container-share can all sit on the same page. The variation isn’t sloppy quoting. It’s the real price range until the survey pins down the volume and the shipping line confirms the booking.
Prices here are set out by destination, starting with the USA because that’s the one we’re asked about most, then Mauritius, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Canada, Europe and Australia. The table gives the headline figures for anyone who only wants numbers. They’re working ranges for 2026 and they move with shipping rates, so a surveyor’s figure for your own move will always beat a table, this one included.
| Destination | Three-bed home, own 20ft container, door to door | Smaller move, shared container | Typical door-to-door time |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA, east coast | £5,500 to £10,000 | £2,000 to £4,000 | 4 to 6 weeks |
| USA, west coast | £6,500 to £12,000 | £2,500 to £4,500 | 6 to 8 weeks |
| Mauritius | £5,000 to £8,500 | £1,800 to £3,500 | 6 to 9 weeks (8 to 12 shared) |
| Japan | £5,000 to £8,500 | £1,500 to £3,500 | 7 to 10 weeks |
| India | £3,500 to £6,500 | £1,400 to £3,000 | 5 to 8 weeks |
| Sri Lanka | £3,500 to £6,000 | £1,400 to £3,000 | 5 to 8 weeks |
| Canada | £5,500 to £11,000 | £2,000 to £4,000 | 5 to 8 weeks |
| Spain or France | £3,500 to £5,500 by road | £1,200 to £2,500 part-load | 3 to 7 days by road |
| Australia | £7,000 to £14,000 | £2,500 to £5,000 | 10 to 14 weeks |
| New Zealand | £7,500 to £14,000 | £2,800 to £5,500 | 12 to 16 weeks |
All of these assume full packing and delivery at both ends, with insurance on top. A “smaller move” here means roughly five to ten cubic metres, which is a one-bed flat or the contents of a three-bed once you’ve sold the big furniture.
What you’re paying for
International quotes look complicated because they cover a longer chain than a domestic move. There’s the origin work (survey, packing, loading), the sea or air leg itself, customs clearance at both ends, delivery and unpacking at the destination, and insurance over the full trip. The headline figure is the sum of all of those added together.
Sea freight is by far the most common route for full household moves. Air freight is faster but typically four to six times the cost per cubic foot, so it’s used for partial shipments and urgent items. In practice, most international removals go by sea for the bulk of the load, with a small air consignment for clothes, paperwork and anything the family needs before the main shipment turns up.
Sea freight comes in a few forms. A sole-use container means the household gets a 20-foot or 40-foot box to itself. Groupage, also called LCL (less than container load), means your goods share a container with other people’s, consolidated at a UK warehouse and split at the other end. Sole-use is faster and your things are handled less, so the price per cubic foot is higher but the risk of damage is lower. Groupage is the cheapest per cubic foot but the slowest, because the shipment waits at the warehouse until the container fills. From Leicestershire, containers usually leave through Felixstowe, about 130 miles away, or Southampton.
UK to the USA
East coast ports (New York, Boston, Norfolk, Charleston, and Houston round on the Gulf) sit at £5,500 to £10,000 for a three-bed in its own container, and four to six weeks door to door. The west coast, meaning Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle or Tacoma, runs £6,500 to £12,000 and six to eight weeks, either through the Panama Canal or by rail across the country from an east coast port. Charleston, by the way, appears on every bit of shipping paperwork as USCHS, which looks like a typo the first time you see it.
Smaller moves to the USA go groupage, at roughly £2,000 to £4,500 depending on the coast. That route suits people moving for a two or three-year work posting who are renting furnished and only want their own things around them.
US customs needs CBP Form 3299 and a copy of the inventory, and the owner has to be in the country before the shipment clears. That catches people out when the visa date and the sailing date are close together. Customs is fairly relaxed about used household goods. Mostly. Food, plants, anything with soil on it (garden tools and walking boots are the usual culprits), and alcohol above a small allowance are where shipments get held for inspection, and the storage charges at the port while that happens are yours. There’s more on visas and forms in our guide to moving to the USA from the UK.
UK to Mauritius
A three-bed in its own 20-foot container typically costs £5,000 to £8,500 door to door, with six to nine weeks in transit. Groupage is cheaper, around £1,800 to £3,500 for a smaller load, but allow eight to twelve weeks because it waits for a consolidated sailing into Port Louis.
Most of the island’s roads weren’t built with a 40-foot trailer in mind, so plenty of containers are emptied at the port or a depot and the goods finish the trip in a smaller truck. That’s normal and it’s usually in the destination agent’s price, but ask. Grand Baie in December, full of holiday traffic, is its own particular kind of slow, and a delivery booked for then can easily run a day late. Clearance goes through the Mauritius Revenue Authority, and what you pay in duty depends on your residence or permit status, so have that paperwork sorted before the container sails rather than after.
UK to Japan
People are often surprised that Japan isn’t the most expensive route on the list. It’s a long way, but the big lines run regular services into Tokyo, Yokohama and Kobe, which keeps sea rates reasonable. A three-bed in a 20-foot container usually lands at £5,000 to £8,500, with seven to ten weeks door to door. Smaller shared-container moves run £1,500 to £3,500.
The paperwork step people miss is on arrival. You declare your unaccompanied goods to customs at the airport when you fly in, on the personal effects declaration, Form C5360, and you’ll need the stamped copy later to clear the shipment duty-free. Skip it at the airport and clearing the container gets harder and slower. Access at the Japanese end matters too. Narrow residential streets in Tokyo often mean a small truck and a longer carry, and the destination agent prices that in.
UK to India
India is one of the cheaper long-haul routes. A three-bed in its own 20-foot container is usually £3,500 to £6,500 door to door, and a smaller shared load £1,400 to £3,000. Allow five to eight weeks, longer if the goods have an inland road leg after the port. From Leicestershire a lot of India moves head for Gujarat, which usually means Mundra or Nhava Sheva near Mumbai and then a road trip that can take longer than people plan for.
The customs side changed this year. India replaced its old baggage rules in February 2026, and the Transfer of Residence allowances for people moving back after time abroad now work on a different set of tiers. We don’t have a clean, confirmed figure for every tier yet, and we’d be wary of anyone quoting one with total confidence. Ignore older forum posts, and check your allowance with a customs broker at the port you’re shipping into before you pack.
UK to Sri Lanka
Costs are close to India, £3,500 to £6,000 for a three-bed container and £1,400 to £3,000 for a shared load, with five to eight weeks door to door into Colombo. Where it tends to slow down is the port, clearance at Colombo can take longer than the sailing makes it look, sometimes a week or two, and it helps a lot if you or an agent you trust can be there for it. Returning residents can often bring used household goods in on better terms than first-time movers, but the rules are specific about how long you’ve been away and what counts as used, so get that checked early instead of at the port.
UK to Canada
Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver sit at £5,500 to £11,000 for a three-bed container and five to eight weeks. Canada Border Services wants a list of everything you’re bringing, on the Personal Effects Accounting Document (form BSF186), and it covers goods following on after you as well as what you carry.
Put the shipped items on that list when you first arrive. Things left off can end up being charged duty.
UK to Spain, France and the rest of Europe
Short-haul European moves are the cheapest in the international category, partly because of distance and partly because the goods can go by road. A three-bed move to Spain or southern France usually sits at £3,500 to £5,500 driven, via the Channel Tunnel or a ferry, and three to seven days door to door. Shipped, the same move is more like £4,500 to £7,500. Since Brexit, EU moves need full customs declarations at both ends, which adds time and admin but only a modest premium, usually a few hundred pounds at most. Some firms charge a flat customs fee and others build it into the quote. Worth asking which. Our guides to moving to Spain and moving to France go through the paperwork.
UK to Australia and New Zealand
Australia is the longest sea route from the UK and the most expensive per cubic foot. A three-bed sole-use 20-foot container to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth sits at £7,000 to £14,000, with eight to twelve weeks port to port and more like ten to fourteen door to door. Groupage for a three-bed runs £4,500 to £8,000 but adds four to six weeks, because the consolidation warehouse holds the shipment until the next vessel.
Every shipment is inspected on arrival by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, which the trade still calls AQIS out of habit. Wooden items that aren’t ISPM-15 treated, anything organic that wasn’t declared, and certain seeds or plant material can be quarantined or destroyed at your cost. A good firm briefs you on prohibited items before packing, but declaring contents accurately is your responsibility. The prohibited list is in our guide to moving to Australia from the UK. New Zealand runs £7,500 to £14,000, with ten to twelve weeks at sea and the strictest biosecurity checks of any English-speaking destination.
What pushes the price up or down
Volume is the headline driver. International quotes are priced by cubic foot or cubic metre rather than by bedroom count, so an accurate survey is the difference between a quote that holds and an argument on packing day. The way it usually goes is the surveyor estimates volume during a home visit or a video walk-through, you sign off on that figure, and the move is priced against it. If the volume comes in higher on the day, the quote is revised.
Shipping rates themselves are volatile. The Drewry World Container Index, the benchmark most of the trade watches, moves week to week with vessel capacity, fuel prices and seasonal demand. A quote given in March may not hold in June if rates have jumped. Reputable firms quote with a validity window, often 30 to 60 days, and state clearly any bunker adjustment factor (BAF) or currency clause that lets the price change.
Access at both ends shifts the price. A ground-floor flat with a loading bay outside is much faster to pack than a fourth-floor walk-up. The destination often costs more than people expect, a city-centre flat in Madrid, a Brooklyn brownstone with no lift, a beach house outside Brisbane with a narrow approach road. The destination agent prices their portion on local access and the UK quote rolls that in.
Insurance changes the bottom line too. Standard goods-in-transit cover is usually a percentage of declared value, and full international cover, marine cargo style, runs 1% to 3% of declared value depending on the route and the level of cover. A high-value household may want the full cover. A smaller move is usually fine with the standard policy.
How to get a quote you can compare
Start with a survey, in person or by video. Phone quotes based on bedroom count alone are usually 15% to 30% out.
Then look for a breakdown by line item, covering origin services, transport, destination services, customs and insurance. If it’s all bundled into one “all in” figure, ask for the split, because the quote you can compare is the quote you can negotiate. A named shipping route and an approximate transit time should be on there. “Eight to twelve weeks” is fine. “We’ll let you know” isn’t. So should a validity period and a clause on how the price changes if shipping rates move.
Customs support matters more than most people think. The paperwork at the destination is much harder to manage from the UK than the outbound side, so a firm that handles both ends, through a partner agent abroad, is worth more than the cheapest quote that only handles the UK side. Trade body membership counts for more on international moves than domestic ones too. FIDI and BAR Overseas are the two most UK-based international removers belong to, and both vet members on financial stability, insurance and standards.
If you’re moving from Leicestershire, Rutland, north Northamptonshire, south Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire, or around Rugby, our international removals team will survey your home and quote against the route you need. The survey number is the one to plan around, more than anything in a price table. To book one, phone 0800 043 5393 or send us your destination and moving date through the contact form, and someone from the team will call you back.