Removals to USA from the UK

Most household goods enter the United States duty-free, but the qualifying test is stricter than people expect and hinges on one number.

CBP’s own declaration form puts it plainly. To claim free entry, you are certifying that your household effects were used abroad for at least one year by you or your family in a household where you were a resident member during that period of use, and are not intended for any other person or for sale.

Three things in that sentence do real work.

Used, not owned. A year of ownership is not enough. The goods have to have been in use in a home you actually lived in.

Not for anyone else, and not for sale. Shipping a sofa over for a relative, or bringing stock for a business, is a different import with a different bill.

One year, and the form asks you to say which side of it you fall on. The declaration has separate boxes for foreign household effects used less than one year and more than one year. You tick one. Guessing isn’t an option, because the form is a declaration, and a false one is an offence.

The year does not have to be continuous, and it does not have to be the twelve months immediately before you ship.

Personal effects work differently, and this catches returning Americans out. Clothing, jewellery, cameras and similar items qualify for a resident only if they were taken abroad by you or for your account – in other words, things you took out of the States with you. Personal effects bought while abroad are a separate question on the form.

Tools of the trade have their own line. Instruments, implements, and tools of your trade or profession, and professional books, qualify if you took them abroad yourself, or if you owned and used them abroad while emigrating.

The practical trap is the same one as everywhere else: the pre-move shopping trip. A new dining set bought in the spring for the house in Texas, still boxed in the autumn, has not been used in your household for a year. It is a dutiable import travelling inside your consignment, and calling it anything else on the form is a false declaration.

Source: CBP Form 3299, Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles

Form 3299, the Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles, is the document you use to bring your household goods into the United States. It is the American equivalent of Canada’s BSF186 and Australia’s B534, and it does one thing neither of those does quite so bluntly.

It asks for your packing list in the same breath as your declaration. The form’s own wording is to tick the statements that apply “and submit packing list”. Your inventory is not an administrative extra. It is part of what you are signing.

The form also asks for the basic details of your arrival: your name, date of birth, date of arrival in the United States, US address, port of arrival, the vessel or flight you arrived on, and the names of the household members arriving with you.

Then it asks which of three you are: a returning resident of the US, a nonresident emigrating to the US, or a nonresident visiting. Your answer determines which duty-free statements you can claim, which is why the question comes before the goods.

And there is a list of things that must be declared separately, whatever else is in the container:

• Firearms and ammunition
• Alcoholic articles of all types, and tobacco products
• Fruits, plants, seeds, meats or birds
• Fish, wildlife, or animal products
• Articles for the account of another person
• Articles for sale or commercial use

None of that is exotic. Wine in the garage and a bag of seeds in a shed drawer are the ordinary things that turn a routine clearance into a held container, and the cost of that hold lands on you.

This is why a proper survey inventory is worth more than a list written the week before collection. It is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the document your declaration rests on.

Source: CBP Form 3299

Yes, but American vehicle rules are stricter than most, and the car’s age is usually the deciding factor.

Two federal agencies must both be satisfied, and each has its own form. Emissions go to the EPA on Form 3520-1. Safety goes to the Department of Transportation on Form HS-7. Both travel with the vehicle.

The line that decides most UK moves is twenty-five years. CBP states that motor vehicles less than 25 years old must comply with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. A car 25 years old or older falls outside that requirement. A modern British car, built to British and European standards, very often is not compliant, and that is the whole problem in one sentence.

Two further dates sit underneath it. Bumper standards apply to vehicles made after 1 September 1978, and theft-prevention standards apply to model year 1987 and later.

Federal emissions standards apply to petrol cars made after 1967, diesel vehicles after 1974 to 1975, and motorcycles over 49cc made after 1977.

What happens to a car that does not conform is the part worth reading twice. It does not simply get waved through and sorted out later. A registered specialist, an Independent Commercial Importer for emissions, or a DOT-registered Importer for safety must bring a non-compliant vehicle into line, and the EPA will not release the vehicle to its owner until that work is finished. You are paying for storage while it happens.

One more thing, and it is the cheapest to get right. CBP requires that the undercarriage of an imported car be free of foreign soil and recommends steam-spraying or thoroughly cleaning the car before shipment. It is a pest-control measure; it takes an afternoon in the UK, and it’s much more expensive to deal with at a US port.

None of this is meant to put you off shipping a car. Plenty go over without drama. It is meant to say one thing clearly: check your car’s age and compliance before you book anything, and if it is a modern car, get a price for selling it here first.

Source: CBP, Importing a Motor Vehicle