Moving to Portugal from the USA

Ocean freight takes 5–8 weeks door-to-door (roughly 12–18 days port-to-port, plus pickup, customs clearance in Leixões or Lisboa, and final delivery). Air freight takes 10–14 days door-to-door. We recommend shipping sea freight 5–7 weeks before your arrival in Portugal so your Certificado de Bagagem is in place and your belongings are ready shortly after you land.

If you qualify for Transferência de Residência relief, your used personal effects and household goods can be imported free of customs duty and IVA (VAT). The claim is supported by a Certificado de Bagagem from the Portuguese Consulate. City Post Express prepares the inventory and declarations in the format the Autoridade Tributária expects — it is part of our standard service, not an add-on.

Costs depend on volume, weight and whether you choose air or ocean freight. Our shared container ocean freight is the most cost-effective option for personal effects, quoted as one all-inclusive flat rate that covers US pickup, ocean transit, customs clearance with your Certificado de Bagagem, and door delivery in Portugal. Contact us with a rough inventory and your US and Portuguese addresses and we will send back a clear quote with no hidden fees.

Yes, but it is a separate regime from household goods. US left-hand-drive vehicles are legally fine in Portugal (Portugal drives on the right), but you will need to register the vehicle with IMT, pay or claim exemption from ISV (Imposto Sobre Veículos), and insure it locally. A transfer-of-residence exemption exists if the vehicle has been owned and used by you for at least 6 months abroad, but the paperwork window is tight. Contact us for vehicle-specific guidance before you ship.

We deliver to every district on the Portuguese mainland — Lisboa, Porto, Faro, Coimbra, Braga, Évora, Setúbal, and everywhere in between — and to Madeira and the Azores via onward sea link. Rural addresses, hillside villages, cobbled streets, small lifts — our local partners handle all of it. No address in Portugal is too remote for us.

You can ship in multiple consignments. Many clients send an air freight shipment with essentials first, followed by a larger ocean freight shipment with the bulk of the household. Under Transferência de Residência rules, all consignments must be declared for release within 12 months of establishing your residence in Portugal.

Not necessarily. Customs officers can ask for the owner to be available, but in practice the Certificado de Bagagem, NIF and inventory usually satisfy them. You can authorise someone — a friend, relative, or your fiscal representative — to receive the delivery on your behalf. We coordinate the timing so it lines up with your move.

Shared container (LCL) ocean freight is the most affordable option for personal effects and household goods. Our flat-rate packages bundle US pickup, ocean transit, customs clearance and Portuguese delivery into one price — typically 40–60% less than shipping boxes individually through parcel carriers like USPS, FedEx or UPS, which also tend to charge customs fees separately. Air freight is faster but costs more per kilogram.

Parcel carriers charge per box and add customs brokerage fees separately, so a 20-box move can attract 20 separate customs events and 20 sets of per-box fees. A shared container ocean freight move treats your entire shipment as one customs event with one set of documents — the Certificado de Bagagem and inventory — and one all-inclusive price. For personal effects, that is usually dramatically cheaper.

For more than a few parcels, the best option is a dedicated international mover like City Post Express rather than a postal carrier. We use shared container ocean freight for cost-effective shipping, air freight for urgent items, and we handle the Portuguese customs side — the Certificado de Bagagem, the AT declarations, the Transferência de Residência relief claim — as part of the service. That is what separates an international move from a stack of individual parcels.

It depends on the furniture and the home. Portuguese apartments in Lisbon and Porto often have narrow staircases, small lifts and compact rooms, so oversized American sofas and king beds do not always fit. Rural and Algarve properties have more room. We recommend shipping items with sentimental or high value and measuring both the space and the access route before deciding. Our team advises on this during your free consultation.

Yes — a Portuguese NIF (Número de Identificação Fiscal) linked to a Portuguese address is required for customs clearance and for the Transferência de Residência relief. If you are not yet in Portugal, a fiscal representative or lawyer can arrange the NIF remotely. We recommend sorting this out before your shipment leaves the US so there is no delay at customs on the Portuguese side.