Almost no one starts a move to the USA because of the boxes. It starts with a visa, a job offer or a place at a university, and the logistics come later, when the calendar is already tight. That order is natural, but it comes at a cost: many of the decisions that make the move more expensive or slower are taken without noticing during the first few weeks.
In this guide we go over what you should plan for before moving a single piece of furniture. This isn’t a list of consular paperwork, which depends on your visa, but rather what directly affects your belongings: customs documents, what you can ship, how your cargo travels and what makes the quote go up or down.
Table of contents
- What a move to the USA is and what makes it different
- Your visa sets the timeline for everything else
- International paperwork and US customs
- What you shouldn’t put in the container
- Sea or air: times, volume and shipping type
- What makes the cost of moving to the USA go up or down
- Plan your move with someone who knows the route
What a move to the USA is and what makes it different
A move to the USA is an international relocation of household goods that combines road transport at origin, a sea or air leg, an import customs clearance and a final delivery at destination. Each of those stages has its own timelines and its own documents.
The difference compared with a long-distance move within Europe is fundamental. Within the European Union, your furniture travels with no customs border; here it crosses one of the strictest customs systems in the world, and US customs doesn’t wait for you to arrive before inspecting what you send.
The scale changes too. Between Barcelona and the East Coast there’s an ocean, and that means thinking in weeks, not days. Anyone who sets off on a move from Spain expecting their sofa a week after landing usually gets the first surprise of the trip.
Your visa sets the timeline for everything else
When can you book the move? In practice, once you have an approved visa or a reasonably firm interview date. Before that, any booking is a gamble, because your cargo shouldn’t reach the destination before you do, nor sit waiting at a port with no one able to clear it.
Our recommendation is to work backwards from the date you want to have your things in the new home. If the shipment goes by sea, that date determines when it gets packed, when the container is loaded and when you have to live for a few days with just the essentials.
A reasonable window is to start talking to the moving company two or three months before departure. That leaves time to carry out the survey or video survey to calculate the volume, to finalize the inventory without rushing and to decide which pieces of furniture stay behind. That last decision, by the way, takes more effort than it seems: selling, giving away or storing what isn’t travelling also takes weeks.
The type of visa matters for customs too. Relocating your residence permanently isn’t the same as spending a year on a student visa, and that difference can affect how your goods are declared on arrival.
International paperwork and US customs
The core of the international paperwork is simple to list and laborious to prepare. You’ll need your passport with the visa, an address at destination and a detailed inventory of what you’re sending, with a clear description of each box. US customs (CBP, Customs and Border Protection) works with form CBP 3299, the declaration for free entry of unaccompanied personal effects.
The duty exemption for household goods comes with a condition worth knowing early: common items must have been used by their owner abroad for at least six months —or one year in the case of private vehicles—, the owner must have lived outside their destination country for a minimum of one continuous year, and the goods cannot be sold, rented or transferred during the twelve months following import. Anything bought new for the move may be taxable, so it’s not a good idea to use the trip to upgrade your appliances.
Sea shipments to the USA also require a prior security declaration (Importer Security Filing or ISF) that must be submitted before the cargo is loaded. It isn’t something you handle directly, but it does explain why the inventory has to be finalized well in advance.
At Mudanzas Trallero we insist a lot on that inventory. A vague description like “miscellaneous items” is the fastest way to have a box opened during an inspection, with the days of delay and warehouse costs that entails.
What you shouldn’t put in the container
US customs pays especially close attention to products of animal and plant origin. Cured meats, cheeses, seeds, plants or soil stuck to garden tools can trigger an agricultural inspection, and the sensible thing is to leave them out of the shipment.
Alcohol is another tricky point. Bringing wine may be possible, but it’s subject to duties, taxes and rules that vary by destination state, so any bottle must be declared. If you have a wine collection that matters to you, it deserves a separate conversation before packing.
There’s a technical detail many people discover too late: the US electrical grid runs on 120 V and 60 Hz, compared with 230 V and 50 Hz in Spain. Many European appliances won’t work there without a transformer, and sometimes not even with one. Before paying to ship a washing machine, compare the cost of bringing it with the cost of replacing it.
Wooden packaging, such as custom-made crates for paintings or fragile pieces, must be treated in line with the international ISPM 15 standard. It’s a requirement to prevent pests, and any international moving company will take it into account when building them.
Sea or air: times, volume and shipping type
Most moves to the USA travel by sea. Air makes sense for a small or urgent volume, such as the clothes and work items for the first few weeks, but its price per cubic meter shoots up as soon as the cargo grows.
Within sea freight there are two options. With groupage (shared container), your belongings share a container with those of other clients and you pay for the volume they take up. With a full container, the space is yours alone: a 20-foot container offers around 33 cubic meters of interior space and a 40-foot one, roughly 67.
As a rough guide, a door-to-door sea shipment between Spain and the East Coast can take between six and ten weeks, and a bit longer if the destination is on the West Coast or inland. Groupage is usually slower than a full container, because it depends on the container filling up.
Our advice is to split the cargo in two: what you need to live during the first few weeks, which travels with you or by air, and the rest, which can go by sea without rushing. That split avoids buying the same thing twice on arrival.
What makes the cost of moving to the USA go up or down
The price of a move to the USA depends above all on volume. Every cubic meter you decide not to ship shows up in the quote, which is why sorting things out beforehand is the most effective money-saving tool you have.
Then come the shipping type, the destination city, the access at both ends and the packing. Delivering to a Manhattan apartment with a service elevator and restricted hours doesn’t cost the same as delivering to a house with a garage in Texas.
It’s also worth asking what the quote includes at destination: customs clearance, port fees, unloading, assembly and removal of packing materials. The costs that show up at the end are usually in that part, not in the main transport. A higher but complete quote often works out cheaper than a tight one that leaves out the American side.
Insurance deserves its own line. An international move covers thousands of kilometers and goes through several handling steps, so checking what the policy covers and how items are valued is as important as comparing prices.
The date carries weight too. The summer months concentrate many moves because of the school and work calendar, and that shows in availability. If you have flexibility, ask how the quote changes by moving the departure a few weeks.
Plan your move with someone who knows the route
A move to the USA goes well when it’s planned in the right order: first the visa and the dates, then the inventory and the selection of what travels, and finally the shipping type. Reversing that order is the most common way to overpay or wait longer than you should.
At Mudanzas Trallero we are members of the International Federation of International Movers (FIDI) and we know well what this kind of relocation demands, from packing at your home in Spain to delivery on the other side of the Atlantic. If you’re just starting to organize it, the sooner we talk, the more room you’ll have to choose.
Request a quote for your move to the USA with Mudanzas Trallero
