UK → LATVIA Moving to Latvia: how customs works, and the documents to expect

Latvia’s State Revenue Service, the VID, describes what it wants to see when a household from outside the EU declares to it. Its goods list gives the type, the amount, the weight and the value of what you are bringing, in general descriptions. Where the receipts are long gone, it values the goods from the objective information you give. None of that declaring falls to you when moving to Latvia from the UK with us, because the declaration is made in France, a long way short of Riga.

The list that matters here is the one we ask you to sign. Your inventory, by item rather than by room, falls due 3 calendar days before your collection window. It fixes the space and the weight your move needs at our end as well as the declaration in France. If the list shows you past the allowance for your size, an early word costs the locked step up to the next size, not a surprise on the day. People booking this lane ask how exact it has to be, and the thread below gives our answer. It is the one part we cannot do for you if you pack yourself, our template makes it quick, and the packing add-on takes it off your hands altogether.

The relief itself comes from EU law, and on this route French customs applies it. You qualify when your habitual home has been outside the EU for twelve consecutive months or more. Each item must have served you at that home for at least six months, and the goods must come in within twelve months of your settling in Latvia. Alcohol, tobacco, commercial vehicles and the tools of a trade stay outside it. Alcohol, tobacco and vehicles do not travel with us in any case. For twelve months after release, anything you give away, lend, hire out or sell loses the relief: the authorities must be told first, and the charges fall due.

The VID’s own page names six documents, among them proof of the six months’ use and proof of a home in Latvia, and the declaration there goes in electronically through the EMDAS system. It is written for goods declared at the Latvian end, which is not how this lane runs. You do not file in EMDAS or hand the VID those six. Your own set is on this page, we confirm it after your quote, and customs can still ask for more.

The declaration in France is the second of our two customs stages. The export side is declared in the UK as the van loads. In France, our customs partner prepares and lodges the import for you. Our transfer of residence page sets out the two stages, and we collect your documents 7 days before the window.

Latvian law gives a person one month, from the day they habitually live at the new address, to declare it. A foreigner who holds a Latvian residence permit has that duty too. You can declare at the local municipality, at the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, or on the Latvija.lv portal, where the state fee of €4.27 is waived. The UK Government’s own guidance lists the same three routes.

The permit comes first for a UK citizen. A stay over 90 days in any six months requires one, temporary or permanent, from that same Office. So the order is permit, then address, with the address declared in your first month there. Neither is a customs paper on this lane.

Latvia takes a different line on licences from its neighbours. A UK driving licence stays valid for driving in Latvia until the date printed on it. Before that date you exchange it for a Latvian one. What you cannot do is renew or replace the UK licence from Latvia. An international driving permit does not stand in for the exchange either. So the date on the card is the deadline, and for most people it is years away rather than months.

A car brought from the UK is a separate matter. Latvia expects you to register it there and to convert it for driving on the right. The UK Government points to Latvian guidance for both. We do not carry vehicles, so a car makes its own way down the Via Baltica. It is worth knowing before it leaves that its headlamps and its paperwork both change at Riga.

Latvia ties healthcare to the permit in a way the other Baltic states do not. A temporary residence permit application goes in with a valid health insurance policy, so a UK family arrives insured by the Office’s own rule. Once you hold a job on that permit you may register with the National Health Service and receive its card for state-funded care. It then sends you a list of family doctors to approach yourself. A practice may turn you away only when you live outside its area or its list is full.

On tax, a double taxation agreement between the two countries sends each income to one tax office, not both.

The van reaches Riga by the Via Baltica, the E67; it covers 970 km between Warsaw and Tallinn, and Riga sits on it beyond Kaunas. We record 24.2 hours of driving, which fits three tachograph days, so the ranges open on day 3 for every size. The Channel ferry is rest in that count rather than driving. The 20 and 30 m³ vans are quoted at 3–5 days. The shared loads, 5 and 10 m³, can take until day 10, since they leave when the other households in the van are ready too. Logistics narrow that span as the run firms up.

From 1 December to 1 March, every vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes in Latvia must run on winter tyres that carry the mountain-and-snowflake mark, and all-season tyres no longer count. The vans that serve this lane drive under that rule, so a winter delivery to Riga or Liepāja is routine, and the range already allows for it. Flights of stairs beyond the kerb are the additional crew add-on, costed for your building before you book. Goods-in-transit cover protects the load between loading and arrival, capped at £20,275 for any one event, the excess and the exclusions printed. Every question about the run goes into one WhatsApp thread, read by the desk Mon to Sat, 8am to 10pm UK time, and read the next morning when it arrives later than that.

Latvia’s public holidays are set in statute, and three of them shape a move more than the rest. Līgo Day on 23 June and Jāņi Day on 24 June are the summer solstice, and the whole country leaves for the countryside. The Day of the Proclamation of the Republic is 18 November, and when it falls on a weekend the next working day is the holiday instead. Christmas runs from 24 to 26 December, and 31 December is a holiday too. May Day on 1 May and the Restoration of Independence on 4 May close the country in spring, and 4 May moves to the Monday when it falls at the weekend. For example, a window ending on 22 June lands your van in Riga on Līgo, so we would say so before you pick it.

What the calendar cannot change is the price. Our guide figures for London to Riga today are £2,573 for 10 m³ and £5,834 for 30 m³, clearance in each. Once booked, the figure is fixed: a 25% deposit at booking, the remainder on the day the van loads.