UK → LUXEMBOURG Moving to Luxembourg: how customs works, and the documents to expect

The people who ask us about moving to Luxembourg are rarely moving a large house. More often it is forty boxes, a bike and a few pieces of furniture. They are bound for a flat in the capital that is not ready on the day the UK home has to be empty. That shape of move sets the plan below. It covers the EU’s customs relief, the commune’s three-day rule, and what to do with the gap before the keys.

French customs admits a household arriving from the UK free of import duty and VAT, because the van enters the EU on the French coast, well before Belgium and the Grand Duchy. The relief is the one the whole EU applies to a transfer of residence from a third country. It rests on three tests. You lived outside the EU for twelve consecutive months. You had and used each item for six months or more. The goods arrive within twelve months of settling. You may bring them in one consignment or several. Furthermore, if you give, lend, sell, hire out or pledge any of it within twelve months of entry, that item loses the relief and the duty and tax fall due. You promise that in writing on the Non-Cession Certificate listed on this page.

Luxembourg’s customs administration publishes a form of its own for this relief, which asks for proofs such as a residence certificate, an employer’s attestation or an identity card. It serves goods declared to that administration, so it does not fall to you on this lane, where the declaration is made in France. Start from the papers on this page; customs can ask for more. Once you have a quote we instruct the exact pack and run both stages of clearance on your behalf; our transfer of residence page walks through them. The pack is due 7 days before your window opens, the finished inventory 3 calendar days before.

What is particular to Luxembourg is how quickly the commune wants to hear from you. A citizen of a country outside the EU declares their arrival at the commune within three days of entering, whatever the length of stay. The commune asks for proof of the home, such as the owner’s agreement, an extract of the lease or a notarial deed. The exact list varies from one commune to the next. A newcomer from abroad goes in person; the online route on MyGuichet.lu is for moves within the country. An EU citizen, by contrast, declares only for a stay beyond three months and files a registration declaration within 90 days; the UK’s exit is what puts a British mover under the three-day rule. Afterwards you can ask the commune for a certificate of residence. It is no customs paper on this lane and not in the pack on this page.

So, when moving to Luxembourg, plan the first three days around that visit. Have the lease with you when you travel, not in a box on the van. The visit keeps its own clock: the van does not wait on it, and we do not need the certificate to move your goods.

The question this lane brings up most is a gap. One customer had to empty their house in mid-August and could not get into the Luxembourg flat until twelve days later. Another put it more plainly. Once we had collected their things they were leaving the UK with no plan to return, so whoever held the goods had to deliver them too.

Both are the same answer. We can collect on the day your UK home must be empty, hold your goods at our own storage facility, and deliver when your Luxembourg address is ready. We price the storage on request, and our removals and storage page explains how the bridge works. The alternative is to choose a later collection window and keep your things where they are, which costs nothing at all. Either way, you hear the loading day inside your window at least 24 hours ahead, and the delivery range runs from loading, not from booking.

Every size on our matrix runs to Luxembourg, 5 to 30 m³, and the biggest van carries the full 2,400 kg here. The van takes a short Channel crossing, Dover to Dunkirk from two hours or Dover to Calais in around ninety minutes. It then runs through Belgium to the Grand Duchy. The crossing counts as the driver’s rest, so the delivery range for every size starts at day 1, on a tachograph day of 9 hours at the wheel. A 20 or 30 m³ van of your own is quoted at 1–3 days. A 5 or 10 m³ share may take until day 8, because it travels with other moves. That sharing is also what keeps its price low.

The whole country is within reach of a single partner crew, because the Grand Duchy is small. A delivery in the north or along the Moselle is the same run as one in the capital. The driver’s help is at the van, at the kerb. For a flat up several flights, or a street where the van cannot stop by the door, additional crew is the add-on to ask about at the quote stage. We price it from your inventory, and availability on your date decides it.

A UK citizen who stays more than three months needs more than the arrival declaration. You apply for the temporary authorisation to stay from abroad before you travel, and it is valid for 90 days; a type D visa follows where you need one; then, after arrival, you apply in Luxembourg for the residence permit itself. The British government’s guidance for people living there says the same in fewer words: extend your stay beyond 90 days through the Luxembourg authorities, and exchange your UK driving licence for a Luxembourg one.

And you may not need the car at once: public transport has been free across the whole country since 1 March 2020, on tram, bus and train alike, apart from first class, and the free travel ends at the border. Second-class train travel to a handful of stations just over the French and Belgian borders is free as well, and the cross-border fares beyond them were cut when the free travel began. For a family arriving a few days before the van, that is one bill fewer while the keys are sorted out.

Luxembourg keeps eleven legal public holidays, some of them its own. The national day is 23 June. Europe Day, 9 May, is a holiday here and not in France, and so is the day after Christmas, beside 1 May, Ascension, Whit Monday, 15 August and 1 November. The commune’s desk is closed then, which bears on the three-day declaration above. Carnival Monday and the capital’s kermesse Monday are local customs rather than legal holidays, so an office may well be open on them. On our side there are no collections over the festive closure, 16 December to 7 January, and you can choose a window as far as 3 months ahead.

People test the price lock before they trust it, as the thread below shows, and it holds. A 10 m³ share, London to Luxembourg City, is £1,245 as an example and the 30 m³ van £2,393. The figure you book is the figure you pay, fuel or no fuel. A 25% deposit locks the window, and the balance falls due on loading day. If your packing outgrows your size, you pay the locked difference to the next one; our fixed price removals page explains the step. Transit cover runs from loading to arrival; £20,275 is the most for one event and £481 the excess, with the exclusions set out on the cover page. Your thread, meanwhile, is read Mon to Sat, 8am to 10pm UK time.