Moving Abroad Checklist: What to Take and What to Leave Behind

Your Moving Abroad Checklist

Not everything you own is worth shipping to a new country. Some items are restricted or prohibited by customs authorities, some cost more to ship than to replace, and some simply won’t work once you get there. This moving abroad checklist helps you work out what to take, what to store, and what to leave behind, which can save you real money on shipping costs as well as headaches at customs, whichever destination country you are heading to.

This is intended as a general guide only. It remains the responsibility of every customer to check the specific import and customs regulations for their destination country. Our international removals team and Customer Services Managers can talk you through the requirements for your particular move, and our moving guides cover country-specific advice for a number of popular destinations.

Moving abroad from UK checklist: the short version

Moving Overseas Checklist: Admin to Sort Before You Go

A move to another country involves more than packing. Alongside your shipment, work through this moving overseas checklist well before you leave, and start planning several months ahead where you can. The GOV.UK guidance on moving, living or retiring abroad and the UK government’s foreign travel advice are good places to start.

Rules differ by country, so check each item against your destination rather than assuming one country’s rules apply to another.

Settling In: What to Do After You Arrive

Arrange temporary accommodation for your first weeks if your permanent home is not ready, and review any rental contract carefully before you sign it. Research local housing rules and compare renting and buying before committing. Once you arrive, register your address with the local authorities where this is required, confirm your healthcare eligibility, and learn local laws and customs, which makes life abroad easier to settle into. Allow time for your shipment to arrive, and keep your first-week essentials in your hand luggage until it does.

Building Your Moving Abroad Packing List

A useful way to work through your moving abroad packing list is to sort belongings into four groups: what goes in your shipment, what goes with you as hand luggage, what’s worth putting into storage rather than shipping straight away, and what gets sold, given to friends and family, or left behind entirely. Passports, visas, medication and a change of clothes belong in hand luggage. Everyday furniture, clothes and kitchen items usually travel well by sea or air freight, most commonly consolidated into a shared or dedicated shipping container for the journey. A simple rule of thumb: if you haven’t used something in the last six months, it’s a strong candidate to sell or donate rather than pack. The items below are the ones most commonly left out of a shipment, whether because they’re restricted, not cost-effective to ship, or simply won’t suit a new home on the other side of the world.

Packing tips for moving overseas

Start packing early and work room by room. Keep a carry-on bag or hand luggage for everything you need in your first days, with essential medications in it, and use your checked luggage allowance for clothes and essentials you will need before the shipment arrives. Rolling clothes saves space, vacuum-seal bags make the most of a suitcase, and stuffing socks inside shoes saves space too. Bulky items such as winter coats and bedding take up room, so consider whether they suit your new climate: if you are heading to a colder climate you will want warm clothing close to hand, and if you are moving somewhere warmer much of your entire wardrobe may not be needed. Pack the last things a week or so before collection, so moving day is calm.

Electrical Appliances and Voltage Differences

Kitchen Appliances and Electronics

The UK runs on a 230V electricity supply, while many popular destination countries, including the US, Canada and Japan, use a lower voltage, roughly between 100V and 127V. Kitchen appliances and other home electronics built for the UK market may run poorly, overheat or fail outright when plugged into the wrong voltage through a simple adaptor rather than a proper voltage converter, and some won’t work at all. Before you pack a kettle, toaster or other kitchen appliance, check the destination country’s standard voltage and whether your appliance is dual-voltage. Where it isn’t, it’s usually cheaper to buy a like-for-like replacement locally than to ship the original and add a converter with built-in surge protection. Laptops, phones and most small gadgets are the exception: they’re typically dual-voltage already and only need a plug adaptor, so they’re usually fine to carry with you.

Important Documents to Carry, Not Ship

Birth certificates, marriage certificates, academic records, medical records and other important documents should travel with you in hand luggage, never packed into a shipment. Shipments can take weeks to arrive and can occasionally be delayed further at customs, so any document you might need in the first few weeks in your new country is safest kept close. It’s also worth keeping digital copies of these documents somewhere you can access them if the originals are ever lost in transit.

Sentimental Items and Family Heirlooms

Photographs, family heirlooms and other sentimental items are, by definition, irreplaceable, which makes them worth extra thought rather than automatic exclusion. It often makes sense to carry the smallest and most precious of these with you rather than ship them, while larger sentimental pieces, such as antique furniture or fine art, can be professionally packed by our specialist fine art and antiques removals team. Either way, it’s worth deciding early, since specialist packing takes more lead time to arrange than a standard shipment.

Household Items Rarely Worth Shipping

Bed Linen and Bulky Textiles

Bed linen, towels and other bulky textiles take up a disproportionate amount of space and weight for their value, and are widely considered one of the least cost-effective categories to ship internationally, since bedding sized for UK beds may not even fit a bed bought in your new home. Unless a specific set has sentimental value, it’s usually better to buy fresh linen locally once you’ve settled on the size of bed you’ll actually be using, which also saves space in the shipment for things you can’t easily replace.

Large flat-pack furniture faces a similar problem: it’s rarely designed to survive being dismantled and reassembled more than once, and the cost of shipping it can outweigh the cost of buying an equivalent piece new at your destination. Well-made solid furniture, by contrast, often travels well and is usually worth the shipping cost, particularly if it would be expensive or difficult to replace locally. If you’re not sure yet whether a particular piece of furniture will suit your new home, it’s often worth choosing to store it for a few months rather than deciding in a rush before moving day.

Vehicles and Everyday Toiletries

Cars, motorbikes and other vehicles can technically be shipped overseas, but the combination of shipping cost, import duty and destination-country registration and roadworthiness rules usually makes it more practical to sell before you go and buy locally once you’ve arrived. Some countries restrict importing vehicles altogether. It’s worth getting a specific quote before assuming either way, since the costs vary a great deal by destination.

Everyday toiletries are a smaller but easy win: full-size bottles of shampoo, toothpaste and similar items are heavy, take up shipment space, and are almost always available to buy again within a day or two of arriving. It’s rarely worth shipping anything beyond a travel-sized supply for the first week.

Restricted Items: What Not to Take When Moving Abroad

Some items may be hazardous to life, health or property, or contravene local or UK customs regulations, and cannot be included in your shipment. Customs regulations vary by country, and new goods may attract duties and taxes on import, so consult the customs authorities of your destination for specific import rules. Restricted items include:

Our export packers are trained to refuse any goods declared as prohibited, so it’s worth checking this list carefully before packing day rather than at the point of collection. Getting it right first time also helps your shipment clear customs without delay at the other end.

Personal Items Not Covered by MoveProtect

A small number of personal and high-value items sit outside standard MoveProtect cover unless they’ve been declared and agreed with us in writing beforehand:

If any of these apply to your move, speak to your Relocation Consultant before packing day so cover can be arranged in advance.

What You’ll Need to Declare on Entry

Depending on your destination, you may need to declare the following items to customs on arrival, even where they aren’t restricted:

Declaration thresholds and rules vary by country, so check your destination’s specific customs allowances well ahead of moving day. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are known for strict customs and biosecurity regulations.

What Gets Left Behind

Between restricted goods, items that cost more to ship than replace, and belongings better carried in hand luggage, most house moves abroad end up leaving a meaningful pile behind. That’s normal, and working through it early, rather than the week before collection, gives you time to sell furniture you’re not taking, give old clothes and other items to friends and family, or responsibly dispose of anything that isn’t coming with you to your new home. Starting early also makes life abroad easier to settle into. If you’re ever unsure whether something can be shipped, ask your Customer Services Manager before packing day rather than after.

Why Trust Abels With Your Overseas Move

Abels holds a Royal Warrant as Removals and Storage Contractor by Appointment to His Majesty The King, first granted in 1988 and re-granted in January 2025, and is a member of the British Association of Removers (BAR member A001). We also hold FIDI FAIM Plus certification alongside ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 27001 accreditation, covering quality, environmental, health and safety, and information security management. Our teams handle the customs paperwork and packing standards that international moves require every day, so you’re never working through your moving abroad checklist alone.

To talk through your move, call us on +44 1842 816600, email [email protected] or request a quote.