Shipping and moving your household to Greece

Most of what we ship leaves Greece. This lane runs the other way, and the people on it are usually coming home: Greeks who spent a working life in Melbourne, Chicago, Johannesburg or Stuttgart and are bringing the house back with them, families settling here, and people who simply need their belongings to arrive in Greece and be put where they belong.

This is a page about your possessions, not about your life. We collect them wherever they are, clear them into Greece with our own customs brokers, deliver them and unpack them. We do not do visas, residence permits, house-hunting or schools - that is a different profession, and pretending otherwise would not help you.

What we ship on this lane

• Household and personal effects - a full container (FCL) or a part load (LCL) of only a few cubic metres, from anywhere in the world to any address in Greece, including unpacking on arrival.
• Cars and motorcycles, by sea or, from Europe, by road. A vehicle is a separate category in the Greek relief rules and is worth planning before the household goods are booked - see Vehicles.
• Boxes, cases and excess luggage, where a container makes no sense: a student’s room, a parent’s house, the four cases that would not fit on the plane.
• Items left behind. If something was missed at the far end, or is still sitting at an airport, we can go back for it and forward it on. It is one of the things people call us about most.
• Air freight into Greek airports, where the shipment cannot wait for a vessel.

How it works

Inventory at origin → packing, wrapping and timber crates where needed → loading → export customs in the origin country, through our partner there → vessel or aircraft → arrival at Piraeus or Eleftherios Venizelos airport → import customs, handled by our own brokers → delivery and unpacking at your address in Greece.

The Greek half is the half we control directly. We have customs brokers at Piraeus port and at Eleftherios Venizelos airport, as well as at any other Greek customs office, so the clearance is not subcontracted at the exact point where a returning shipment usually gets stuck. Deliveries go anywhere in Greece, mainland and islands.

The Packing List made at origin governs the inspection here. Every item is numbered on it, and it is what releases your goods at the Greek customs office - which is why we would rather it was made properly at the start than corrected at the end.

What Greek customs looks for

The question at the Greek border is not whether your things may come in. It is whether they come in relieved of duty and tax or not, and that turns on your status as a person transferring their normal residence - what Greek customs calls μετοικεσία.

Qualifies for the relief

• Used household and personal effects belonging to someone transferring their normal residence to Greece, claimed under the ΑΑΔΕ rules.
• One item of each category of means of transport - a car counts as its own category, with its own conditions on prior ownership and use.
• Goods you actually owned and used abroad, evidenced by the Packing List and by the documents below.

Does not, or is taxed

• Anything claimed without the certificate of transfer of residence issued by the competent Greek consular authority where you were living. The relief is not automatic; it is claimed.
• A second claim. ΑΑΔΕ’s own manual states the relief is granted once, and to each eligible person individually rather than per family.
• Commercial goods, stock and equipment for a business, which are an ordinary import and are declared as such.
• Vehicles outside the categories the relief covers - public-use passenger vehicles, goods lorries and special vehicles are excluded.

Documents you need

Origin side

• The Packing List, made at packing, itemised and numbered.
• Export clearance documents from the origin country, prepared by our partner there.
• For a vehicle: the registration document and proof of ownership.

Greek side

• A copy of your ID card or passport.
• Your Greek tax identification number (ΑΦΜ).
• Authorisation for our customs broker.
• The Law 105 solemn declaration - we supply the form; it must be certified.
• The certificate of transfer of residence, where the μετοικεσία relief is claimed.
• The delivery address in Greece and contact details.

Official sources

• ΑΑΔΕ - Persons transferring their normal residence to Greece: the customs authority’s own page, with its FAQ and manual.
• ΑΑΔΕ - Manual on customs relief on transfer of normal residence to Greece (μετοικεσία): who qualifies, which goods are covered, and the conditions on means of transport.

The competent authorities are ΑΑΔΕ and its customs offices (Τελωνεία) for duty, tax and the transfer-of-residence relief.

Other documents or procedures may be required, and each country’s laws can change without notice. Contact us and we will give you an up-to-date briefing.

Why us

We have spent decades sending Greek households to Australia and America. The shipments coming back are the same households, some of them a generation later, and the mistakes are the mirror image: a certificate that had to be issued by a consulate that has since been left behind, a car booked alongside the furniture when it needed its own file, a packing list written in a hurry that nobody can now reconcile with what is in the box.

So we start with the relief you can claim and the documents behind it, not with the volume. We tell you what has to be done in the country you are leaving - while you are still there and it is still easy - and we handle the Greek side ourselves, at the port or the airport, right through to carrying the boxes in and opening them.

Coming home is a big enough thing on its own. The cargo should be the part you do not have to think about.