European moving guide · 11 min read
European moving costs explained
A European move costs £65 per hour of crew time, plus £1.50 per road mile door to door, plus one crossing (£250 Eurotunnel or Channel ferry, £300 Irish Sea), plus £100 for each driver overnight the run legally requires. A 2-bed home from London to Paris is £945; the same home to Madrid is £2330 because the run is 1080 miles with two overnights.
Part 1
The four numbers behind every European quote
Almost every European removal quote you will be sent is a single round number. That number is really four: the hours a crew spends handling your things at both ends, the road miles between the two doors, the booked crossing, and the nights a driver must legally rest on the way. When a mover hides those four inside one figure, you cannot tell which one they got wrong — and on moving day, the one they got wrong becomes your problem.
We publish all four. Crew time is £65 an hour. Road distance is £1.50 a mile, measured door to door rather than depot to depot. The crossing is £250 for Eurotunnel or a Channel ferry and £300 for the Irish Sea, because the sailing is longer and freight prices accordingly. Overnights are £100 each, and they are not optional: EU drivers' hours rules cap a day at nine driving hours.
- Crew hours × £65 — the only line you can shrink, by being packed and ready
- Road miles × £1.50 — fixed by geography, not negotiable
- One crossing — £250 Channel, £300 Irish Sea
- Driver overnights × £100 — zero to three, set by distance and the law
Part 2
Worked examples on four real routes
A 2-bed household to Paris is 290 road miles with no overnight: £945. The same home to Berlin is 720 miles and one overnight: £1690. To Madrid it is 1080 miles and two overnights: £2330. To Dublin, 460 miles with the Irish Sea crossing and one overnight, it is £1350.
Notice what changes and what does not. The crew line is identical on all four, because a 2-bed takes the same four hours to carry whether it is going to Calais or Cádiz. Only distance, crossing and rest move the total. That is why a quote that jumps by hundreds between two similar-distance countries deserves a question.
Part 3
Groupage vs a dedicated van: the trade you are actually making
Groupage — sharing a lorry with other households — is cheaper on paper and expensive in practice. Your goods sit in a warehouse waiting for the load to fill, get handled three or four extra times, and arrive on a date nobody can promise. Every claim we have ever been asked to comment on for another firm involved a consolidation warehouse.
A dedicated run costs more per cubic foot on a small load and less on a full house. If you are moving under 250 cubic feet, ask us about a part load on the same formula — two crew hours instead of four — rather than accepting groupage. If you are moving a whole house, a dedicated crew is almost always both faster and cheaper once the handling fees are counted.
Part 4
The costs movers add after you have signed
The published add-ons exist because these things genuinely cost money — but they should be quoted before you book, not invoiced afterwards. Parking permits and bay suspensions run £90 upwards in most European cities. A furniture hoist in Amsterdam or Vienna is around £260. A ZTL pass for an Italian historic centre, an alpine tunnel toll, a Swiss customs clearance: all real, all foreseeable at survey.
Ask any mover for these in writing before you commit. If they will not name them, they intend to discover them on the day, when your furniture is already on their lorry and your negotiating position is zero.
- Local parking bay or removal permit — from £90
- Furniture hoist or external lift — from £260
- Export packing, materials included — from £220
- Extended transit cover above the included limit — from £60
- Storage either end, per week — from £35
Part 5
Six questions that expose a soft quote
Ask these before you pay a deposit. A firm that can answer all six in writing is a firm whose price will hold.
- Is this price for a dedicated vehicle or groupage, and if groupage, what is the delivery window?
- How many road miles are you charging for, and from which address to which address?
- Which crossing is booked, and is the cost inside the price?
- How many driver overnights does the run include?
- What parking permit or access equipment does my destination need, and who is paying for it?
- What is the insured limit, and what does it cost to raise it to my declared value?
Questions
Common questions
£65 an hour of crew time, £1.50 a road mile, one crossing at £250 (£300 Irish Sea) and £100 per driver overnight. A 2-bed to Paris is £945; to Berlin £1690; to Madrid £2330.
It is cheaper per cubic foot on very small loads, but it adds warehouse handling, an uncertain delivery window and the highest damage risk in the industry. For anything from a 1-bed upwards, a dedicated crew usually costs the same or less once handling and storage fees are included.
VAT, fuel, trunk motorway tolls, blankets, straps, transit insurance, the customs inventory and the crossing. Local permits, hoists, ZTL passes and export packing are published add-ons quoted with the price before you book.
Usually because one includes the crossing, permits and overnights and the other does not. Ask both firms to break the price into crew, mileage, crossing and overnights — the gap almost always sits in a line one of them has left out.
Keep reading
More European moving guides
Customs and Paperwork for Moving Household Goods to Europe After Brexit
The documents each country actually asks for, who files what, and the two mistakes that strand a load at the border.
Packing and Access for European Moves: Surviving 1,000 Miles and a Sixth-Floor Walk-Up
Export packing that survives the autoroute, and the permits, hoists and ZTL passes that decide whether the lorry can reach your door.