UK → ROMANIA Moving to Romania: how customs works, and the documents to expect

Most people asking about this route have moved before, and many are moving home. The questions they bring are the ones a long drive and a past bad experience raise: what do I actually pay, when, and can it change; what proves I live there when the house is already mine; how long is three days of driving really. The EU’s rulebook answers the customs part, applied in France on the road east, and one Romanian agency answers the residence part. This section answers the questions in that order, with the arithmetic shown rather than asserted.

The thread below starts with the question in its plainest form. Here is the plain answer. The deposit is 25% at booking; the balance follows on loading day. Booking is what fixes the price, across every size on this route. You see the split in writing on your quote before any money moves. On today’s published figures a 10 m³ move from London to Bucharest comes to £2,102, and your own quote settles the figure for your two addresses.

The fixed price removals page sets out the three categories, and the removal company changed price page says what to do if a mover has already done this to you once. The Goods-in-Transit policy pays up to £20,275 per event after a £481 excess, loading to arrival. It is capped, with named exclusions, and the cover page says which. Tax is the other money question people moving home ask. A double taxation agreement with the UK stops the same income being taxed in both countries, and the National Agency for Fiscal Administration is the office that answers questions about it once you are resident.

French customs applies the EU’s relief for a household arriving from outside the Union, set out in Regulation 1186/2009. The Romanian Customs Authority publishes that regulation’s list of exempt goods as its own, but no declaration to it falls to you on this lane. The tests are the Union’s. Your normal residence was outside the EU for at least twelve months in a row. The goods were yours, and for anything not consumable in use, for six months before leaving. Entry for free circulation happens within twelve months of settling, in one consignment or several. For twelve months after that you cannot lend, hire out, pledge or sell the goods without notifying customs. Sell or lend early and the relief is lost, with the duty due at that day’s rate.

Alcohol, tobacco, commercial vehicles and the articles of a trade, portable instruments aside, are outside the relief.

Two of the papers on this page do the most work here: the Non-Cession Certificate, which is that twelve-month no-sale promise in writing, and the proof of residence at each end. The transfer of residence page shows both and the cases where something else stands in.

Residence itself runs through Romanian immigration. A UK national applies for a long-stay visa through the Romanian eVisa portal, and the purposes run from work and study to retirement, family and digital-nomad stays. Anyone staying longer than three months registers as a resident with the General Inspectorate for Immigration, which issues the residence permit, the permis de ședere. Permanent residence follows after five consecutive years with no more than six months away in any of them. GOV.UK’s Living in Romania page lists the steps as they stand, and the licence exchange through the Romanian portal with a DVLA check code, which you apply for before the UK licence expires.

The permit does a second job at the border. The Entry/Exit System takes a non-EU national’s photo and fingerprints on entry, and the permis de ședere is what exempts a resident; someone who settled before 2021 holds the same card with Withdrawal Agreement rights printed on it.

On our routing tool, London to Bucharest is 26.8 driving hours. Our ranges rest on the tachograph’s daily limit of 9 hours at the wheel plus time for loading and unloading, with loading day counted as day one. Divide the hours out and you get three days of driving, which is why nothing on this lane arrives before day 4. Your own vehicle then runs at 4–6 days. The 5 and 10 m³ tiers ride with other moves at 4–11 days; it is the widest range on this page because consolidation adds its margin to a long base.

Counted from loading day, the earliest Bucharest delivery is three days after the van leaves your door. That is the honest shape of a move this long: not a next-day promise, and not a fortnight of silence either, because the thread you book in stays open from the first day to the last.

The border queue that used to sit inside that arithmetic is gone. Romania’s land borders joined the Schengen area on 1 January 2025, according to the European Commission, so the van entering from Hungary meets no passport control. Customs is a separate matter, and it comes earlier on the road: your goods come from outside the EU and clear as third-country goods in France, which is exactly the clearance your quote includes.

Romania has 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 m³ on our matrix, and the 30 m³ cap is 2,400 kg; each cap is an enforced limit rather than a hint. If your packing runs past yours, saying so early makes it the locked-price step to the next size, and nothing else changes. The same goes the other way: a list that comes in under the size you booked does not reprice downwards on the day. So size from the inventory rather than from instinct, and send the list early if you want us to size it.

Romania keeps the Orthodox calendar. In 2026 its Easter falls on 12 and 13 April, a week after the UK’s, with Unification Day on 24 January, Children’s Day on 1 June, the Assumption on 15 August, St Andrew’s Day on 30 November and the National Day on 1 December. Tell us if your arrival is close to one of them, so we plan the delivery day around it rather than into it. At our end the calendar has no collections between 16 December and 7 January. If you worked in Romania before, the Romanian pension department is where you claim a Romanian pension, and a UK State Pension keeps its annual increase here. Pets go by the EU’s pet rules for dogs, cats and ferrets, and they do not travel with us; GOV.UK links Romania’s own guidance, in Romanian.