Household & Personal Moves to France

A household move from India to France is a move of meaningful weight. Most families on this corridor have been planning it for a year or more — the residence documentation, the housing search, the school applications. By the time the packing begins, the stakes are high and the timeline is usually tight. The last thing that should add pressure is an uncertain or poorly managed move. Seemleius household and personal relocation from India to France is built to be the calm part of the process.

Starting at the India end

Every India-origin household move begins with the shipping bill filed on ICEGATE — the export declaration lodged with Indian Customs when personal effects leave the country, supported by the correct AD code linked to your authorised bank. We prepare this documentation as a standard part of the move, along with the full inventory and packing list that accompanies it. Where the household includes high-value items, FEMA disclosure considerations are addressed in advance so the shipment does not get held up at the port. The Indian export side is not an afterthought to be handled the week of departure; it is prepared properly, in advance, so the shipment leaves India with clean paperwork.

We work from all of India’s major residential cities. For Mumbai, Pune and western India origins, Nhava Sheva (JNPT) is the primary gateway — with some western India volumes also routing through Mundra for better vessel connections. For Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and South India generally, Chennai Port and Cochin are the natural gateways, with good direct services to both Le Havre and Marseille.

What travels in a typical India-to-France household shipment

• Furniture — including the heavier, crafted pieces from Indian homes that families want to keep; dismantled for export and reassembled at the French address
• Kitchen equipment — pressure cookers, idli pans, Indian-spec mixer-grinders and the cookware that does not get replaced at the French end; we pack it correctly and note that 230V Indian appliances run fine on the French 230V supply
• Textiles and soft furnishings — sarees, bedspreads, cushions and curtains that won’t be replaced at the French end
• Books and academic materials — particularly relevant for the researchers and students heading to Paris or Lyon
• Religious items and personal artworks — handled with awareness of their significance
• Electronics and personal effects for all family members

Settling into French daily life

The neighbourhoods Indian families choose tend to repeat. In Paris, the 15e and 16e arrondissements draw families wanting space and good schools; Neuilly-sur-Seine and Boulogne-Billancourt are the established premium suburbs; La Chapelle in the 18e is the Indian commercial and community heart of the city for groceries, restaurants and temples. In Lyon, the 6e and the Écoully suburb suit families. In Nice, the Cimiez area; in Bordeaux, the Caudéran district. Schooling is the major early decision — the French public lycée system is excellent and free but operates entirely in French, so families often opt for international options such as the British School of Paris, the International School of Paris, the American School in Saint-Cloud, or the Section Internationale (SIS) streams at Lycée International Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Healthcare runs through CPAM enrolment once residence documentation is confirmed; the carte vitale follows.

Freight options to France

French customs and duty relief on household goods

Personal effects and household goods imported into France by a person establishing residency may qualify for duty exemption under French and EU customs rules. The route is the Cerfa 10070 transfer-of-residence form (déclaration de changement de résidence), supported by a detailed inventory, proof of residence in India for at least twelve months, and evidence of your new residence in France. The goods must generally have been owned and used for at least six months. We lodge the Cerfa 10070 alongside the French Douane DELT’A entry under your EORI number; ICS2 advance data is filed for the air or sea leg as required. Done correctly, household effects move into France free of 20% VAT and duty — done loosely, the relief can be rejected and 20% VAT applied retrospectively.

How the move runs

1. Survey at your India address. We visit your home in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Kochi or another city, assess the volume and contents, and recommend the right freight option for your timeline.
2. Prepare Indian export documentation. Shipping bill on ICEGATE with the correct AD code, packing list and export declarations filed with Indian Customs.
3. Pack and ship. Export-standard packing at the India end; the consignment departs from the appropriate Indian port on the confirmed vessel.
4. Clear in France and deliver. French Douane DELT’A entry under your EORI, Cerfa 10070 transfer-of-residence relief lodged, and road delivery arranged to your French address with unpacking. Where arrival-week appointments are already in the diary, we time the delivery to fit around them.

The move from India to France is long in distance but manageable in practice when it is planned from the India end with the same rigour as the French end. Request your quote and we will build the schedule around your departure date from India and your required arrival in France.

Relief on used household effects: what the rules actually say

The relief that lets a person bring a lifetime of belongings into the EU without paying duty and TVA is set out in the Union Customs Code and applied in France by the Douane. What follows is a description of the rules as they stand, not of anything arranged on a family’s behalf — and it is worth reading before packing rather than afterwards.

The core tests are these. The person must have had a normal residence outside the EU for a continuous period, generally at least twelve months, and must be transferring that normal residence to France. The goods must have been owned and used at the previous residence for at least six months before the move. They must be intended for the same use at the new address. The declaration has to be made within a defined window around the date residence is established. And goods admitted under the relief must not be lent, hired out, pledged or sold for twelve months afterwards without telling the Douane first.

Some categories sit outside the relief altogether. Alcohol and tobacco do not qualify. Neither do commercial vehicles, nor articles used in the exercise of a trade or profession beyond portable instruments of the applied or liberal arts. New goods are the obvious flag: anything bought in the fortnight before departure and still in its retail box is exactly what an inspecting officer looks for, and a consignment padded with new purchases risks the relief across the whole shipment rather than on the individual items.

The documentary spine is a detailed, valued inventory in a language the Douane can read, together with evidence of the previous residence in India and of the new one in France. A vague inventory — “box 14: kitchen” — is the single most common reason a claim to relief moves slowly.

Sea or air, and the arithmetic behind the choice

The instinct is to treat air as the extravagant option and sea as the sensible one. On a full household that is broadly right, but the choice gets more interesting once the details are in.

Sea carries volume, and volume is what a house is. A 20ft or 40ft container from Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Chennai or Cochin into Le Havre or Marseille-Fos is the only economic way to move furniture, and the twenty-two to twenty-eight days at sea are one component of a door-to-door figure that realistically runs to two and a half or three months. Air carries urgency. It prices on chargeable weight — the greater of what a shipment weighs and what its bulk converts to — which is why a few dense boxes of books fly cheaply and a single mattress does not.

What works best on this corridor is rarely one or the other. A small air consignment out of BOM, DEL, BLR, MAA or COK into CDG or LYS covers the first month of living: clothes for the season, laptops and chargers, school records, prescription medicines in their original labelled packaging, a handful of kitchen items and whatever the children will not settle without. The container follows with the house. The family is not living out of suitcases for six weeks, and the sea shipment is not being rushed towards a date it was never going to meet.

One honest caveat about flying household goods: the French customs treatment of an air consignment is the same as for a sea one, so arriving ahead of the family does not help. Timing the air leg to land a few days after the family, rather than before, avoids paying storage at the airport for the privilege.

Delivery day, and what the French address does to it

The last two hundred metres of an India-to-France move are the part nobody plans and everybody remembers. French residential buildings, particularly in the centres of Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux, were built long before the furniture they are now asked to admit. The stair turns tightly; the lift is a cabin for two; the door from the landing into the flat is narrower than the flat’s own internal doors; and the entrance from the street is a carriage arch with a fixed height.

What crews do about it is standard and unglamorous. Large pieces are dismantled and rebuilt rather than carried whole. Where a piece cannot be dismantled, a monte-meubles is brought in — the external hoist that lifts loads to a window or balcony, and an ordinary sight on any French street on a Saturday morning. Using one requires the kerb outside the building to be reserved in advance through the mairie, and in central Paris that is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning.

Three questions asked during the survey prevent most of this trouble: which floor is the flat on, is there a lift and what are its internal dimensions, and can a rigid truck stand outside the door. A photograph of the stairwell is worth more than any description of it.

What families ask before the survey

Should the wooden furniture come at all?

Solid Indian hardwood — sheesham, teak, rosewood — usually should, because it is not easily replaced and it travels well when it is crated properly. Particle-board and veneer flat-pack rarely justifies the freight: it is difficult to dismantle without damage and cheap to replace in France. Anything with a marble or glass top needs a crate regardless of what it cost.

What about gold and jewellery?

It does not go in the container. Personal jewellery travels with the family under the declaration rules that apply to travellers at both ends, and high-value pieces that cannot travel that way are better left in a bank locker in India than packed into a consignment handled by dozens of people across two continents.

Can food and spices be shipped?

Sealed, commercially packaged dry goods are generally fine and families ship them routinely: masalas, dals, rice, packaged snacks. Anything of animal origin, anything fresh, and anything containing meat or dairy is restricted on entry into the EU, and home-made or unlabelled items invite the sort of inspection that holds up an entire container. Ghee and homemade pickle are the two that most often cause the problem.

Will Indian appliances work in France?

Electrically, yes. Both countries run 230V at 50Hz, so a mixer-grinder, a pressure cooker with a heating element or an Indian-market television will run from a French socket with the right plug fitted. The exceptions are appliances plumbed or vented to Indian specifications and anything depending on Indian broadcast standards. Fitted kitchen appliances are almost never worth the freight.

How is the shipment covered?

Marine transit cover is arranged against the declared, valued inventory. Cover is only ever as good as the valuation behind it, which is why the inventory is priced item by item at the Indian end rather than estimated as a round figure. Undervaluing to shave the premium is a false economy that only reveals itself at the point of a claim.

Can the container be held if the French flat is not ready?

Yes. Storage near the port of entry or near the destination city bridges the gap between the vessel arriving and the lease starting, and it is a normal part of this corridor rather than a sign that something has gone wrong. Tell your coordinator as soon as the dates start to diverge, because a decision taken before the container is discharged costs less than one taken after.