Guide · Settling in
Customs relief: the three conditions that decide everything
Importing your furniture into France duty-free supposes three cumulative conditions of regulation 1186/2009. What they require, what they exclude, and why the file is built before shipping.
It is the first question a move from outside the European Union raises, and the one whose answer costs most when it arrives too late. The relief exists, it is wide, and it is not automatic.
Three conditions, checked together
Community regulation 1186/2009 opens relief from duties and taxes on the personal belongings of a person transferring their residence. Three conditions govern it, and meeting two is not enough.
Transfer of normal residence. You genuinely leave your country to settle in France. This is evidenced by a consular certificate, a deregistration, or any official document from the country of departure, matched on the French side by a title deed, a lease or an employment contract.
Prior ownership. You have owned the goods for at least six months before departure. The valued inventory carries the trace, and invoices for recent purchases serve to show what precisely falls outside.
Non-disposal. You undertake not to sell or lend those goods for the twelve months that follow. It is a signed undertaking, and it remains checkable throughout that period.
What stays taxable whatever happens
Four categories fall outside the relief whatever your situation: alcohol and tobacco, commercial vehicles, professional equipment, and goods acquired in the six months before departure. A personal car can come in under the relief, but it then raises a type-approval question to settle before it is loaded.
That last line deserves reading before the boxes are packed. A piece of furniture bought a few weeks before the move will travel taxable, inside a load otherwise entirely relieved. This is not an accounting detail: it is a reason to postpone a furniture purchase by a few months, or to make it in France.
The file is built before shipping
This is the rule that avoids the most avoidable expense of the whole move. A container arriving with an incomplete file does not leave again: it waits in a warehouse, at the consignee’s cost, until the missing documents are produced. Storage charges run meanwhile, and they are not symbolic.
Five documents make up the file: the valued inventory, proof of the residence left behind, proof of the residence taken up in France, the twelve-month undertaking not to dispose, and an identity document with, where applicable, the residence permit on which the settling rests.
The inventory, useful twice and in opposite directions
It deserves more care than it gets, because it serves both the customs file and the carrier, and the two read it in contrary directions.
Undervalued, it weakens your compensation in case of loss or breakage: any claim will rest on it. Overvalued, it draws customs attention to a load supposed to consist of goods owned for six months.
An honest value, that of a second-hand item in its real condition, is the only tenable position. It protects on both sides, and it is also what makes the declaration of value in the quote consistent with what customs has in front of it.
From within the European Union, the question does not arise
No declaration, no relief to claim and no valued inventory to produce: free movement of goods applies and your furniture travels as if it were changing region.
Two exceptions remain, and they do not concern furniture. An imported vehicle must be registered within the month following its acquisition or import, and a tax clearance is requested before registration, never after. A pet travels with electronic identification and a European passport, on a calendar that is started first and not last.
Frequently asked questions
Does the relief apply if I keep my residence abroad?
No. The relief supposes a transfer of normal residence to France. Shipping furniture to a house where you spend a few weeks a year is an ordinary importation, subject to duties and value added tax on the whole load. It is the point that most surprises second-home buyers, and it is checked before loading, not when the container lands.
Can I resell a piece of furniture imported duty-free?
Not for twelve months. Non-disposal is the regulation's third condition, and it outlives the container's arrival: selling or lending a duty-free item within that period exposes you to paying the duties avoided. The rule is rarely explained at loading, and yet it is the one that materialises latest.
Which goods stay taxable despite the relief?
Alcohol and tobacco, commercial vehicles, professional equipment, and any goods acquired in the six months before departure. A sofa bought the month before therefore travels taxable, inside a load otherwise entirely relieved. The list is read before loading, because it decides what goes.