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limey610

We had 1800kg of personal effects moving from Chicago to Spain - on the Portuguese border.

It is a nightmare whichever way you go unless you itemize each and every item into a manifest showing quantity, original sales price, year of purchase and current market value. If you do this and pack items into clearly marked boxes that correspond to manifest then you stand a good chance of a clearance, using a broker, within 3 weeks of arrival into final country.

If you are looking to be resident in Portugal then you must customs clear there.

In our case we decided against a moving company and were torn between airfreight of the 1800kg or buying much more stuff and getting a 20ft container (the extra would have been a classic car).

As we also have a house in UK we flew the consignment there, cleared in London and then moved what we wanted via truck service to Spain.

Total cost for us was $2700 airfreight, $160 for clearance and $850 for trucking service to Spain - Total $3710.

Cost for a 20ft container all in would probably have been $5-5,000 doing it yourself and using a broker.

I found the movers were more expensive and could not guarantee clearance final costs or times.

Hope this gives some help.

liveaboard

I shipped a container from Netherlands; so did my neighbor.
Mine went by road, cost around 2,700 euros.
I asked many shipping brokers before I found anyone who wanted to deal with it; one told me no one ever fills a container more than 1/3 with personal stuff [unless you put a vehicle in] so if you want to pay to ship 20 cubes of air, go for it.
my container was completely filled, to the top. I welded rails in and added a full width upper platform.

Loading and unloading is a big job if you DIY. If you rent a container you have limited time.
If you buy a container, and you have somewhere to put it, things are more relaxed. you can take your time loading.
If you're going to ship by sea [as you obviously would], then the container has to have a valid inspection sticker.

You need to find a shipping agent, and he/she will book the transport from point to point. the exact routing is usually based on the cheapest acceptable, road, rail, and sea.
If you need loading/unloading at your location it will cost more. make sure the agent understands your needs. A truck with crane can be arranged, it just costs more.

I bought the container at a depot not to far from where I was living, and included 3 month storage with access for loading, and the depot had to lift the container onto the transport. This cost them nothing but they'll charge for it if it's not prearranged.

Obviously, I can't tell you anything about customs since mine was an EU move; Limey covered that.

My container is now my metal workshop, my neighbor uses his as a carpentry shop. If you want to sell it after you're done with it, you can get most of the money back, but transporting the empty can away will eat some of that.

Yes, they're ugly; I painted mine green and it's still ugly, but less.

There is also such a thing as 'part container', where you rent 1/4 or 1/2 of someone else's that is going in the same direction. Logistics could be more tricky but cost will be lower if you find one you can use. You're items might need to be boxed.

mfesharne

No matter what you ship, don't forget the Certificate of Baggage.

zoff

If you are moving from the New Jersey area, I can recommend a shipper in Newark. He did all the paperwork and everything went smoothly.

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