UK → IRELAND Moving to Ireland: how customs works, and the documents to expect

Ireland is the one country on our list where the paperwork, not the van, sets your date. Irish Revenue grants relief from import VAT and duty on your household goods when you transfer your normal residence to Ireland, but only on its own terms. You must have lived outside the EU for a continuous 12 months before the move. You must have owned and used the goods for at least six months. The goods must arrive within 12 months after you move, or up to six months before it. And if you hire out, lend or sell them within 12 months of import, the charges become payable after all. Alcohol and tobacco beyond the traveller’s allowance, tools of a trade and commercial vehicles get no relief at all.

The claim goes on Revenue’s declaration form C&E 1076. Revenue asks for it, with your supporting documents, two weeks before the goods arrive, emailed to the port of entry. You may make the claim yourself or through an authorised agent. Revenue may also examine a larger consignment at your new home rather than at the port, at your request and at your cost.

People ask whether we sail into Dublin or go round by Belfast. We go through Dublin, and we clear customs into Ireland properly, because that is what protects your relief. Stena Line runs Holyhead to Dublin eight times a day, and the crossing takes three hours and fifteen minutes. Those hours are not added to your delivery range. The ferry counts as the driver’s rest under the rules our ranges are built on. So the sea is the easy part: London to Dublin is 5.8 hours of driving, and every range on this route starts on day 1.

Holyhead is not the only door. Stena also sails Fishguard to Rosslare four times a day, the short crossing from south Wales. Travelling with a dog or cat? Ireland admits a pet from Great Britain only through designated points, Dublin Port and Rosslare among them, on an EU animal health certificate, with the rabies jab at least 21 days old and, for a dog, a tapeworm treatment one to five days before arrival. The animal rides with you, never in the van.

Revenue wants three kinds of proof: that you lived abroad, that you have moved to Ireland, and that the goods are yours. Its own examples are receipts showing tax paid, documents for a property bought or rented, and proof of employment or of leaving a job. The pack on this page follows the same lines, so the things you are gathering for Ireland do double duty. A tenancy agreement proves the new home. A letter confirming employment is commencing proves the move. No Irish address yet? A statement from the person you will live with, verified at a Garda station, can stand in.

Two cases come up often enough to name. Someone moving at the end of a school year, still on a UK payroll until the month ends, has no P45 yet. Someone moving home to Ireland without a job lined up has nothing to show for employment at all. Neither case is a dead end. Both are a conversation with our customs officer, well before the pack is due.

Ireland keeps ten public holidays a year, and a Monday holiday on the Irish side closes the partner’s yard as well as Revenue’s offices. The fixed dates are 1 January, 17 March, 25 and 26 December, plus the first Monday of February, May, June and August and the last Monday of October. Easter Monday moves. The February Monday, St Brigid’s Day, is the newest of the ten, kept since 2023. Good Friday, by contrast, is a normal working day in Ireland, which surprises people arriving from the UK. If your collection window ends on the Friday before a bank holiday weekend, a shared load may wait until the Tuesday to be delivered. We would rather tell you now, so you can choose a window that avoids it.

Two Irish particulars help the van find you and the state find you. Every address in Ireland has an Eircode, seven characters whose first three name the post town and whose last four belong to the address alone; give us yours and the driver has the door, not the townland. And you will need a PPS number for work and public services, applied for on MyWelfare with photo ID, proof of an address no older than three months and the reason you need it, then finished at an appointment in person.

On 13 October 2026 our example prices for London to Dublin were £1,442 for a shared 5 m³ load, £1,528 at 10 m³ and £2,949 for a vehicle of your own. Your own quote prices your exact addresses, and then it locks, on every size at once. Inside that figure sit the customs clearance work and the driver’s help beside the van, not alongside it as extras. If packing runs past your size, you move up to the next one at the price it was locked at when you booked, never at a new price on the day. A 25% deposit holds the date, and you pay the balance on loading day.

Goods in transit cover of £20,275 per event runs from loading until arrival, with a £481 excess and the named exclusions on our goods in transit insurance for removals page. Weight matters on this route as on every other: the allowance for each size is a limit we enforce, so an inventory that is honest about the bookcases is the hour that pays for itself. Our page on how to pack for moving house shows how to list them once. Those figures belong to the pair named: a Cork or Galway address is priced from its own door, which is what your quote does.