# Shipping Personal Belongings from Australia



## grimfandjango (Nov 1, 2018)

Hi guys,

I'm moving to Spain in May and I'm currently in the process of arranging shipping for around 7-8 boxes of personal goods (mostly electronics, clothing etc.). 

I'm using an international removalist but I just wanted to pick the brain of anyone who has been through a similar process.

Is there anything in particular I should be prepared for? I've read that customs can be quite difficult and there may or may not be tax involved depending on the situation. Any advice or tid-bits would be very helpful.

Thanks.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

grimfandjango said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm moving to Spain in May and I'm currently in the process of arranging shipping for around 7-8 boxes of personal goods (mostly electronics, clothing etc.).
> 
> ...


I helped out someone who moved to Spain from Australia in 2017 and shipped personal effects. She had to obtain an NIE number and also supply a certificate of empadronamiento before her belongings could be released by Customs.


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## Simon22 (May 22, 2015)

Check the contract for time to report damage, if there is no clause about it chances are you have to unpack and check everything on collection.


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## martinPH2 (Feb 21, 2018)

grimfandjango said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm moving to Spain in May and I'm currently in the process of arranging shipping for around 7-8 boxes of personal goods (mostly electronics, clothing etc.).
> 
> ...


I recently moved from US and imported my car plus a whole bunch of personal items (3 bicycles, alpine climbing gear, clothes, ...)
All was imported VAT free, customs free, car registration fee free.

STEPS:
- have NIE, have EORI, have padron, have baja consular (indicates you lived in Australia since XYZ and that you moved your residence to Spain); have documents confirming you lived in Australia for last 12 months (like water bills or so; might be needed for car import only)
- have your import agent supply all of the above to customs while the goods enter customs.

you might need to have the documents obtained within specific time period or charges will apply; for example, if your NIE and/or padron was obtained a long time ago and the goods are arriving now you might not be able to import customs fee free.

Customs agent should be able to provide you with the super detailed info.

Hope this gives you a direction


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## Nomoss (Nov 25, 2016)

Check on the insurance provided by the carrier, and arrange your own insurance if you're not happy about the cover. Make sure it covers all possible risks, and if there are any time limits or other get-out clauses.

We allowed the carrier to ship and insure our furniture and effects from Australia to the Middle East, and it disappeared.

After a set time it was deemed to be lost, and we were in the process of claiming from the insurance company when one of my company's agents found the shipment sitting damaged on a quay, in Iraq instead of Iran, and arranged onward shipment. It eventually made it to us, via Kuwait, as Iraq and Iran had no relations, much later, badly damaged and loosely thrown on the back of a truck. 

The insurance company then refused to pay anything on the basis that it was "a voyage of unusual duration". This was before email, so correspondence was by mail, the shipper eventually stopped replying, and we gave up.

The Australian company said they thought Iraq and Iran were the same country.
To be fair, they _were_ in Perth.
Make sure yours doesn't confuse your town in Spain with another somewhere else!
A US company operating in Canada shipped a crate of my stuff to Parma, in Italy, instead of Palma de Mallorca, in Spain. I never saw it again, but had bigger problems than that with them.

A well known English girls' school sent a young friend of my daughter to Heathrow with a ticket to Dakar instead of Dacca. Fortunately the mistake was discovered by the airline when she asked why they had spelt it wrong.


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