UK → NETHERLANDS Removals to the Netherlands from the UK

Two questions come up on nearly every enquiry about removals to the Netherlands. How long after collection will the boxes reach Amsterdam, and what will customs want to see? The second has a precise answer, because your goods clear in France on the way and the list is on this page. The first depends on the size you book. Both are below, with the sources.

A household arriving from the UK brings its goods into the EU free of import duty and VAT when four conditions hold. Your home has been outside the EU for twelve unbroken months. You have owned and used the goods for at least six months. They land within twelve months of the day you take up residence. Furthermore, you do not loan, pledge, lease out or transfer them within twelve months of import, which is the promise the Non-Cession Certificate above records. Alcohol, tobacco and commercial vehicles fall outside the relief, and none of them travels in our van.

The claim is ours to make, not yours. Your goods clear French customs at Calais on the way north, and our agent lodges the declaration for you, with the relief claimed on it. Douane, the Dutch customs service, tells people arriving in the Netherlands to hand their removal company a certificate from the municipality’s personal records database, the BRP, or proof of deregistering in its place. With us neither one is needed, because France is where this clearance is done and the pack on this page is what carries your claim. People moving on this route have said the rental agreement was the first proof in their hands, and that is the paper the list asks for.

Anyone staying in the Netherlands for more than four months registers with their municipality within five days of arriving. Partners and children come to the appointment too, in person, and the municipality posts the number to you within a few weeks. There is no charge, and the citizen service number, the BSN, follows from it. A family member joining you later applies in time if the application is in within three months of their arrival. After five years’ residence, the temporary document gives way to a permanent one. That number is the key to Dutch life, from a bank account to a doctor, though it plays no part in your customs pack.

We instruct the rest, and we handle export and import clearance alike; our transfer of residence page describes each stage. Your pack is due 7 days before your window, and the finished inventory 3 calendar days before.

Every run on this route crosses the Channel to Calais, and the sailing from Dover takes around 90 minutes. Your goods clear French customs there, then the road runs up through Belgium to the Dutch cities. That crossing doubles as the driver’s rest, so every size’s range on this route opens at day 1. A tachograph day of 9 driving hours underlies every range we quote.

The drive itself, London to Amsterdam, is 6.1 hours. A dedicated 20 or 30 m³ van is quoted at 1–3 days. A 5 or 10 m³ part load rides with other moves and may take until day 8, which is the honest reason its range is wider and its price lower. That is how part load removals work. The loading day comes to you with 24 hours’ notice or more, inside your window, and the range counts from it, not from the day you booked.

Amsterdam’s canal houses were built narrow and tall, and their staircases are steep enough that furniture has gone up the outside for centuries, hauled by the hook on the gable. Today a lift ladder does the same job, and plenty of flats across the Dutch cities still come with stairs a sofa will not turn on. The driver helps at the van, kerbside. A second-floor flat with a lift, as one customer on this route had, is a short carry. A third floor without one, or a piece that has to come in through the window, is additional crew: ask for it when you quote, and we price it from your inventory, subject to availability on your date.

Dutch cities also run low-emission and zero-emission zones for vans and lorries. We choose the vehicle and plan the route, so those zones are ours to deal with, not yours.

The registration above is the first of four steps the Dutch authorities set a new arrival, and the government’s own relocation checklist lists them in order. A stay of more than 90 days may need a residence permit. The immigration service is clear on the point: a British citizen who moved after 31 December 2020 applies for one with a stated purpose, work or family among them. The citizen service number follows the registration within a few weeks. With it you apply for a DigiD, the login for the tax office and your municipality alike, and you do that once you are in the records database. The immigration service keeps a page for British citizens that says which permit fits which purpose.

Finally, a UK driving licence is good for 185 days, so apply for the exchange before they run out. The checklist also says that belongings brought in may need a declaration to Customs. On this route, your household goods are declared for you at French customs. A pet travels on paperwork of its own, which the same checklist says depends on the animal and where it comes from, and never on the van: what we can’t move lists the rest.

A car cannot ride in the van, but many people drive one over, and it sits outside your pack: we lodge nothing for it. Dutch customs treat it apart from the household goods. It needs its own import declaration, with copies of the registration certificate and the proof of ownership. Once that declaration carries the relief code, you take it to a vehicle-tax declaration point and apply for exemption from the Dutch tax on cars and motorcycles. Alternatively, you attach it to the tax declaration form. The exemption’s conditions are the ones above, the twelve months abroad and the six months’ use.

The Dutch calendar has one date to plan around above the rest. King’s Day, 27 April, turns every city centre into a street market, and a collection or delivery on it is one to avoid. Liberation Day follows on 5 May, with Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension and Whit Monday in the spring. Whether a Dutch employer gives the day off depends on the collective agreement rather than the law. Boxing Day is a holiday as well, so a December delivery is planned around two closed days. No collection runs in our festive closure, 16 December to 7 January, and the booking calendar reaches 3 months ahead and no further.

The price you book is the one you pay, whichever of the five sizes you take. A 10 m³ share from London to Amsterdam is £1,066 as an example, the 30 m³ van £2,068, customs clearance inside each. You pay 25% to lock the window and the balance on loading day. If your packing passes your size’s cap, telling us early costs the locked step to the next size and nothing beyond it; the rule is on our fixed price removals page.

Should your Dutch address be ready later than your UK one, storage through our removals and storage service bridges the gap, as the thread below shows. From loading to arrival your goods are covered, £20,275 at the most for one event and £481 the excess; our goods in transit insurance for removals page lists what falls outside it. The desk reads your thread Mon to Sat, 8am to 10pm UK time.