Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hi all,

Quick question about taking residency in Spain...when moving from the UK to Spain and taking over furniture and belongings, are expoort/import taxes applicable or not?

TIA

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Yes. However you can get 100% relief if you follow the rules which you can find at https://www.agenciatributaria.es/sta...d_03112016.pdf
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Best
Loco

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

We have just moved our entire belongings from the UK and were charged £300 in tax's, I understand to claim this back is such a complicated process its simply not worth the effort.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Thanks all

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

thankyou

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Actually we used a Spanish customs agency who cost us just over €100,and they sorted everything for us.
We had to pay just under €1000 in taxes, which they reclaimed back for us within a month or so.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Thats great. Can I ask who you used please?

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hi
I am trying to take some furnishings to Spain too, and I would love to know which customs agent you used, could you share this info?

at the moment I have a U.K. agent who is dealing with a Spanish customs agent and I’m locked in limbo. Neither of them seem very fast moving!

regards
Al

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hopefully Alfonsocolli will come back to us.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Of course. His name is Manuel, the company is Mrsamper.com.
He is the owner and director.
You can easily look them up, you'll also notice that he has a specialised team with various qualifications.
So not just a one man band, but a company that specialises in import and export.
Good luck and please do let me know if your happy with his services so I can reccomened him again.
If not happy then I wouldn't reccomened him again.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Sorry, only just got notified of your post, see above the company.
Mrsamper.com

Please let me know how it went and good luck, as we found it one of the most stressing things during the plan to move here.
At one point we almost decided to move to Italy....

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Well if you are driving across with your goods via Dover, I hope you manage to miss the 15km queue there....

https://metro.co.uk/2022/01/22/huge-...exit-15964763/

Brexit just keeps on giving....

:banghead:

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

You can’t blame brexit. This will be the intransigent French throwing a wobbly because we’ve left and they haven’t go the number of fishing licences for which they are trying to strongarm the British about.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Thanks mate.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hi Alfonsicolli and all,
The pandemic forced all my plans back and back again, my stuff should have been there pre Brexit, but some things you cannot plan for!

thank you for your recommendation, I am definitely gonna contact Mr Samper. My U.K. export agent who initially offered to do both the U.K. and Spanish side has just informed me that due to the fact they cannot get a Spanish import agent they cannot help me! They only took 3 weeks to tell me 😳

i feel like im back to square one, now I have a few questions for Alfonsicolli :-

1) do they speak English (I would expect so) my Spanish is not good enough for this!
2) did you do everything by email?
3) did you translate all the forms ( ie what the item is made of, what the items actually are etc)


regards
al

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Thats terrible. Hope it works out for you.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

O dear Bishee, you are obviously in total denial about Brexit, the false promise and the ongoing cost and impact.

A spokesperson for Logistics UK, which represents hauliers, ferry companies, ports and customs agents, told Reality Check: "The queues we are seeing now result from the implementation of UK import requirements combined with volumes that are now picking up."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60111856

To the OP, just be aware that the customs people clearing goods at our ports are very busy so this will impact non-commercial goods which are leaving the UK also.

Best dot the i's and cross the t's with any paperwork...

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Disagree. Don’t believe everything you read. It’ll be the French causing any transition delays their side.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

O dear, you do appear to be in denial.

Please refer to this UK issued document issued by the 'Border and Protocol Delivery' group in December 2021 for the applicable new checks.

2021_December_BordersOPModel.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

And I thought that Brexit we were promised was going to mean less paperwork and seamless access to EU markets.... LOL

The French although you appear to be portraying them as demons are implementing the agreement which was signed.

Ditto with the Northern Ireland protocol. The UK government signed this international treaty and now wants to backtrack on it.

To the OP maybe cast an eye of this above document for any sections that might be applicable.

I am quite sure that it is well documented the hoop you now have to jump through and addition fees that are due if you move items from the UK to EU counties.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

This is not a thread about Brexit but one that is asking for peoples actual experiences regarding the taxes that may have to be paid.

Rosemary

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

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Hi Al
Yes to all 3 points
For the translation, just use Google translate, as the spanish authorities do not speak English.
Try to value everything as low as possible, within reason, and any way, once you can prove that you cancelled your residency in the UK and gained residency here, Manuel will refund the tax you paid.
We paid about 1000k in euros

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hi Alfonsicolli,
Did you have a uk export company onboard too? Ie export from U.K. and the Mr samper for your Spanish import and tax etc.

did you need a G M R number ( which Is general export number) to make the export easy?

or did Mr Samper Organise everything including the U.K. side?

regards
al

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

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Hi Al
We drove to Spain with our goods in the van.
UK said nothing and Manuel sorted the spanish side for me, as we were 'importing' to Spain.
So the UK had no interest.
We paid customs the Tax and Manuel his fee and he then refunded the tax when we provided proof of residency.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Looks like the website should should end in .es rather than .com.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

My bad everybody.
This is the website
https://www.manuelsamper.es/

I think his old website was mrsamper.com.

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

If I brought, say, a long item … a 2m specialist exterior blind into Spain by car via the channel tunnel … presumably there would be no border at which I need declare my transport of it from the U.K. to Spain?

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

thanks for the guidance

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

excellent

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

No worries, hope it all goes well.
But note that we went by ferry to Santander.
Not sure what happens if you go through France
But when we looked it up at the time, to go through France is much more complicated..

Let me know how the move goes (where you moving to Btw?)

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

France may make it complicated and then Spain will ask you to pay customs tax

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

And how will France know that my blind isn’t part of my luggage - say, skis, and how will Spain know that I am driving across the border into Spain? Shengen borders don’t have border checks

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Just saying, English registration plate maybe?
Your call at the end of the day ☺️

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Hi Folks

This is my experience of my recent transport of personal effects into Spain…. (I am not a resident)

My history is of renovating a villa and furnishing it entirely from the uk via eBay with both second hand and ex dispjay items etc. Where we managed to do the job at a fraction of the cost compared to furnishing from Spain.

In the past we drove the items down via Brittany ferries and took my tools, renovating and furnishing the place.

This worked up until Brexit.

We sold the villa (and actually made a profit 😮) in 2019 and returned to the apartment we have owned for 18 years, the apartment needed a Refurb so off we go again.

I managed to get there in Jan 2020 with my van tools and items for the Refurb, a full bathroom, appliances, Etc plus my tools as usual.

The intention was to finish the job and bring my furnishings down prior to Brexit on Jan 1st 2021.

As we all know all the best plans…… and the pandemic torpedoed my plans.

So we have an apartment finished but not furnished and a load of stuff waiting in our uk house which had been bought for the job over a 2 year period.

How to get it there? I wanted to go the usual, Brittany ferry to Santander route and drive down with my tools and take the furniture with me…

After research we realised we needed export papers and import to Spain paperwork and a IVA figure would need to be paid to cover the fumurniture we were bringing.

So I set about ringing around searching the net, the Spanish embassy proved a waste of time regarding information….. we found most info on sites such as this.

The uk paperwork side proved to be relatively easy to sort out, ie a queue of willing companies were prepared to do it for between £120 to £200.

We finally found a uk company who said they would do both sets of paperwork using their Spanish import company, all for £199. I thought jackpot!

I contacted them in January and and set the ball rolling, after 3 weeks they conceded defeat and said their Spanish agent proved to be non communicative, ie it fell down as the Spanish company were not interested in replying or Co operating, they tried to get another agent and failed.

So I was back to square one!

So I started again I contacted loads of Spanish import agents and not one answered ! I started to ring them and starting with Mr Samper (recommended on here) I made contact “I will pass it to my colleague” great I thought……after a week I contacted every email on their list and not one person answered!

I contacted at least 10 other agents in both Spanish and English! Not one reply!

The amount was 6 cubic metres which is the rear of my transit custom van!

Now the rough cost would have been

350 ferry out
350 ferry back
380 fuel
Tax 140
Paperwork 200
Total £1420
I would have had my van and tools and a runaround vehicle.

We decided to use a shipper, and we found Ambrose logistics of Huntingdon Cambridgeshire.

Now we were not penny pinching this was arranged to suit us ie we wrapped the items, we wrote the inventory including approximate value (valued to minimum) weight of each item, material and import tariff code (found on online database)

We spent a lovely weekend in Cambridge and then delivered the stuff to them at their depot on Monday morning….

They are a lovely family who have Spanish connections and they were very obliging and friendly.

They undertook the paperwork and efficiently sent our stuff to Spain alongside other cargo in an arctic truck.

The Spanish warehouse they normally use for storage, did not give a price for storage (they never replied to the shippers) so we opted to meet the driver at his first drop in Alhaurin de la grande, we hired a Spanish van and had a long day meeting the driver, off loading the stuff reloading to our hired van.

We finally shifted it all to our apartment, finishing at 9pm.

After a few days our apartment looked great, all furniture assembled an in place all pictures on the wall etc.

The cost of this was
£799 shipping cost including paperwork
£212 pounds Iva tax (paid on our behalf)
E100 euros van hire

Total £1110

This excludes hidden costs such as fuel to Cambridge, stop over in Cambridge costs,
And it must be noted we paid IVA on both the items we took over and the shipping costs which put up the cost of the IVa

Ironically….mr Samper called me whilst we were reloading our van in Alhaurin, to say they could help me…… just a month too late, so a tip maybe to contact Mr Samper far before you intend to go.

Damages were minimal, a concern we had as we would normally pack our own vehicle, and we have never had any damages in the past.

I found out Ambrose use an import agent called T.A.A who are based in Alicante port, they maybe worth a try..

Was it worth it? probably, but it was better than having to sell the stuff in the uk and start again, I had carefully accumulated all the stuff over a long period and then I would have the hassle of trawling the furniture shops in Spain and pay excessive prices for run of the mill stuff, some of the art pieces we have are Artisan house items, which would be prohibitively expensive in Spain.

Sadly my Brittany ferries days are over, my membership has lapsed and I do not intend to renew it…. End of an era!

If there is anything I can help with based on my experience just let me know

regards
Al

Re: Moving to Spain with possessions
 

Great and informative post. That works out cheaper than sending pallets. I sent a similar volume on 4 pallets from Italy to Spain for about 1000 Euro (the cost is the same from the UK, but you need to add IVA), plus the local van hire, storage. pallets, wrapping etc..

We live and learn through others experiences.