Into Europe
Ashford is about as well placed for a European move as anywhere in Britain. A load leaving a TN address is at the crossing before most firms have cleared the M25 — and that is a genuine advantage, not a marketing line.
Most removals firms claiming European coverage start by driving to Kent. We start in Kent. Junction 9 of the M20 runs straight down to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone, and the port at Dover is barely further along the same road.
What that means practically: fewer hours on the vehicle before the crossing, less exposure to the M25, and a departure that can leave your street at a civilised hour rather than before dawn. On a route where everything else is fixed by ferry schedules and customs, the bit we can control is worth having.
The shortest run of the four by a wide margin — the tunnel is barely down the M20. A posting to Paris, a house in the south-west finally being furnished, or a second home in Normandy.
Île-de-France · Normandy · Brittany · Nouvelle-Aquitaine · Occitanie · Provence
The Ashford–France routeThe busiest British route in Europe. Retirement to the coast, work in Madrid or Barcelona, and a growing number of people working remotely from Valencia.
Madrid · Catalonia · Valencia · Andalusia · Murcia · the Balearics by ferry
The Ashford–Spain routeFewer moves, more complicated ones. Northern cities for work, Tuscany and Umbria for restorations, the lakes for retirement.
Lombardy · Piedmont · Veneto · Tuscany · Umbria · Lazio
The Ashford–Italy routeThe longest drive of the four, and increasingly a complete relocation rather than a holiday home being furnished.
Lisbon · Cascais & Estoril · Porto · the Silver Coast · the Algarve
The Ashford–Portugal routeThis is where being a storage-led firm changes what we can offer. On an international move the UK property almost always has to be handed over before the destination is genuinely ready, and the gap can be weeks.
Goods hold in sealed containerised storage here in Ashford and are exported when you say. It turns the most common problem on a European move into a scheduling decision rather than a scramble — and it means you are not paying to store things in a country whose language you are still learning.
A household leaving the country is rarely all in one place. There is usually a storage unit somewhere, a parent's garage, a flat a grown-up child has been using. We collect from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol and consolidate before the vehicle heads for the tunnel.
Arrange that early — adding a collection once the vehicle is loaded is a different proposition entirely.
Moving a household out of the UK is now a customs export. In practice that means three things: an inventory, itemised and valued line by line rather than "box of kitchen"; transit paperwork raised before the vehicle leaves; and evidence for transfer of residence — proof you are genuinely leaving the UK and taking up residence at the destination, which is what allows used personal effects to move without import duty.
We prepare and lodge the export side and tell you exactly what to obtain and when. The pieces only you can get — your residency application, your address proof at the other end — have the longest lead times and are worth starting first.
This matters more than anything else. Transfer-of-residence relief applies when the destination becomes your primary residence. If you are staying UK-resident in Ashford and furnishing a holiday house, the relief does not apply and the goods are a conventional import with duty and VAT on declared value.
Plenty of people genuinely do not know which they are when they first ring. That is fine — it just needs settling before the inventory is valued, because correcting it afterwards is painful.
A dedicated vehicle carries your household alone and leaves when you are ready. A shared load consolidates with other moves going the same way, so you pay for your share; the trade is waiting for it to fill and fitting around the other deliveries.
Neither comes with a day count from us. Transit depends on the route, the consolidation schedule and clearance at both ends — your written quote sets out the expected window for your specific move and says plainly what would shift it.
Good to know
Genuinely, yes. The M20 runs from junction 9 straight to the tunnel at Folkestone, and Dover is barely further. A load leaving a TN address reaches the crossing quickly, where a firm starting further inland spends a good part of the day just getting to Kent.
Yes. Since Brexit a household move out of the UK is a customs export, so there is an itemised and valued inventory, transit paperwork raised before the vehicle moves, and a transfer-of-residence process at the destination. We prepare and lodge the export side; you supply the evidence that you are leaving the UK and taking up residence at the other end.
It depends on the route, on whether your load has its own vehicle or is sharing one, and on how clearance runs at both ends. Rather than publish a figure we cannot stand behind, your written quote sets out an expected window for your specific move and says what would shift it.
A dedicated vehicle carries your household alone and leaves when you are ready. A shared load consolidates your goods with other moves going the same way, which costs less because you pay for your share — the trade is waiting for it to fill and fitting around the other deliveries.
Yes, and on an international move it is often the sensible sequence — the UK property has to be handed over before the destination is ready. Goods hold in sealed storage here and are exported when you say.
Those are the four we run properly from here. If you are moving somewhere else in Europe, ask anyway and we will tell you honestly whether we can help or point you at a firm that specialises in that corridor.
The paperwork has a longer lead time than the packing, and the storage gap catches almost everybody. Tell us where and roughly when.