UK → GREECE Moving to Greece: how customs works, and the documents to expect

When moving to Greece from the UK you will read of a stricter relief than the one your goods use, and the road there is longer than to almost anywhere else we go. Both facts are good to know on the day you book, not the week before you load. Greece also keeps its own calendar, and your car does not travel with your sofa. So here is the route in the order it happens: the documents, the drive, the money, the islands, and the calendar.

On this lane the relief for your belongings is the EU’s, and French customs applies it when the van reaches France. The EU regulation asks for twelve months living outside the Union, and goods you have owned and used for at least six months. Greece publishes a stricter first test for people claiming there. The Greek tax and customs authority grants its relief to a person whose habitual abode has been abroad for at least two years. Habitual abode has a definition of its own. It is the place you live for at least 185 days in any twelve-month period, because of personal or professional ties. Years at a university abroad do not count towards it. That test is not the one your goods meet here.

How do the papers on this page meet those tests? The Non-Cession Certificate is the written form of that no-sale undertaking. The proof of residence at both ends shows French customs your twelve months away and your new home in Greece. With your quote in hand we settle the exact pack together, due 7 days before your collection window. Our transfer of residence page explains the relief and these papers.

Our routing tool records 32.8 driving hours between London and Athens. Only Helsinki is further among the lanes we publish. Geography explains it. Greece’s only land neighbour inside the EU is Bulgaria. The other way is the sea. Overnight ferries sail from Italy’s Adriatic ports, Ancona and Bari among them, to Igoumenitsa and Patras, and the longer crossings take most of a day.

For your delivery range the difference matters less than you might think. We compute the range from driving hours, and under our rules a ferry crossing counts as driver rest rather than driving. In other words, the hours at sea do not lengthen the arithmetic. Whichever way the van goes, this route starts at day 4, and a 30 m³ load of your own carries a range of 4–6 days. The 5 and 10 m³ tiers share a van with other moves, so their range is the wide one, 4–11 days. The day before loading you get a precise time, and the thread you book in stays open the whole way.

To Greece our matrix offers 5, 10, 15 and 30 m³. There is no 20 m³ tier on this lane, so a home that would be a 20 elsewhere chooses between a 15 and a 30, and the inventory decides which. The 30 m³ carries a cap of 1,800 kg on this route, lower than the cap on most of our lanes, and it is an enforced limit, not guidance. If your packing takes you past it, tell us early: you pay the locked-price step to the next size, nothing more.

The price itself behaves the way the rest of the site describes. It locks when you book, across every size offered on this route. Today’s published example for a 10 m³ London to Athens move is £2,918; your own quote then fixes the number for your two addresses. A 25% deposit books it, and the balance falls due on loading day. In transit, cover of up to £20,275 per event applies, with a £481 excess, from the moment of loading to arrival. Our fixed price removals page sets out what sits inside that price and what is disclosed beside it, and the cover page names the exclusions and the claim deadlines.

A quote is for two named places. On a mainland move that is simple. For an island, name the island and the harbour before you ask for a price. Then the quote and the range are computed for the place you are going, rather than for a port on the way. The same goes for the building. An apartment up a lane too narrow for a van, or a village house reached by steps, is a carry. A carry belongs on the quote at the start, not on the invoice at the end. Send photos of the street and the door with your inventory.

Once you are in, the paperwork turns from customs to tax. GOV.UK’s Living in Greece page says a resident registers for a tax number, the AFM, files a yearly return and declares assets held outside Greece as well as inside, with penalties for missing it. Benefits need an AMKA social security number too, and public healthcare through EOPYY needs the residence permit. A UK licence is good for six months, then you exchange it. None of that touches the van, but all of it starts the week the boxes arrive.

Greece keeps the Orthodox calendar, so its Easter rarely falls on the UK’s. In 2026 Greek Easter runs from Good Friday on 10 April to Easter Monday on 13 April, a week after the UK’s. The Dormition on 15 August closes much of the country. Clean Monday, the start of Lent, falls on 23 February in 2026, and Ochi Day on 28 October; neither moves a British diary, both move a Greek one. Epiphany on 6 January, Independence Day on 25 March, May Day and Whit Monday on 1 June close offices too. Tell us if your arrival falls near one of them, so the delivery day is planned around it. At our end, no collections run from 16 December to 7 January, every year and every route.

One more thing people ask on this lane, and the thread below shows it: you do not have to be in Athens yourself. A relative or friend can take delivery for you if we know their name and number before the day. The customs file stays in your name throughout. A pet does not ride with the boxes: the EU’s rules for dogs, cats and ferrets apply, and GOV.UK links Greece’s own page for them.