REMOVALS TO GERMANY FROM THE UK

Reaching the Actual Door — How the Transhipment Van Works

Most international movers are built for one thing: a big lorry, a long motorway, a big delivery. That works until the German address is up a one-way medieval lane, inside a low-emission Umweltzone, or on a tram-lined street with nowhere to stop a 40-tonner. Then the big lorry becomes the problem.

We run it differently, and it's worth understanding because it changes both the price and what we can promise. The long haul across Europe is done by a large vehicle — that's the efficient way to cover the miles. But for the last stretch into a tight German city centre, we transfer your load into a smaller transhipment van that's allowed where the big one isn't and can actually get to the kerb outside your building.

In Germany specifically, that buys you three things a single-lorry mover can't easily offer:

• Umweltzone access — most German cities ban older, larger vehicles from their centres without the right emissions sticker; a compliant small van gets in
• Old-town and tram streets — the narrow lanes of a Cologne, Regensburg or Heidelberg Altstadt that a full lorry simply cannot enter
• No-loading-bay buildings — older apartment blocks with no service access, where a small van can pull up close and a big one can't

The point isn't the vehicle for its own sake — it's that you get the economics of a big lorry on the motorway and the access of a small van at the door, instead of paying for a little van to crawl 700 miles across the continent. When you tell us the German street at the survey, we decide there and then whether the final leg needs the small van, a furniture lift, or both.

The German Kitchen — and Other Things Brits Don't See Coming

If there's one thing that genuinely catches British movers off guard, it's this: German rental flats often come with no kitchen at all. Not "no fridge" — no kitchen. Bare walls, a couple of pipe stubs and an electrical connection where the cooker should be. A flat that does include one is advertised as an Einbauküche (EBK), and you pay more rent for the privilege.

The knock-on for a removal is real. Because tenants buy their own kitchens, they take them when they leave — units, worktops, sink, oven, hob, the lot — or sell them to the incoming tenant in a side deal called an Ablöse. The old joke about taking "everything but the kitchen sink" is, in Germany, slightly wrong: they take that too, and frequently the light fittings as well, leaving bare wires in the ceiling.

So a German move often includes a whole kitchen as freight. To be clear about what we do and don't do: we're not kitchen fitters, so the dismantling and the refitting at the far end are for you or a kitchen specialist to arrange. What we do is transport it safely — once it's taken down, we wrap and protect the units, worktops and appliances and carry them with the rest of your move. The main thing is to tell us at the survey, so the kitchen is counted in the volume and we plan the space and materials for it rather than meeting an unexpected flat-pack kitchen on move morning.

A few other German habits worth knowing before move day:

• Halteverbotszone — for most central addresses you arrange a temporary no-parking zone so the van has space outside. It needs a couple of weeks' notice; we organise it once we have the address.
• Möbelaufzug — the external furniture lift that hoists wardrobes and sofas through an upper window when the Altbau stairwell won't take them. Standard kit in Germany; we book and time it.
• Sperrmüll — the council bulky-waste collection. Handy for decluttering before you ship, and worth booking early because slots get busy at month-end.
• Leaving the old place — German tenancies often expect the flat handed back freshly decorated, which affects your timing. Build it into the plan so it doesn't collide with move day.

None of this is meant to be daunting — it's the opposite. Knowing it in advance is exactly what turns a German move from stressful to routine, and it's the sort of thing we talk through at the survey so there are no surprises on the day.

House Removals to Germany, City by City

Where you're heading shapes the move more in Germany than almost anywhere we go — the cities are genuinely different to deliver into. Here's what each tends to mean in practice:

• Berlin — sprawling and largely low-rise, with endless Altbau blocks built around rear courtyards (Hinterhöfe) and very few lifts. Brace for the famously scarce Anmeldung appointment, too — book it the moment you have an address.
• Munich — Germany's priciest and most tightly regulated city. Strict zone rules inside the Mittlerer Ring and limited parking make the small-van approach almost essential for central deliveries.
• Frankfurt — the one German skyline. More high-rise apartments than elsewhere, which means lifts and loading bays, but also booking slots and concierge rules. The Westend's older flats are a different, tighter story.
• Hamburg — handsome Altbau in Eimsbüttel and Eppendorf, sleek new-builds in HafenCity. Water everywhere, so access routes matter; we check bridges and one-ways before the day.
• Stuttgart — built in a basin and genuinely hilly, threaded with the city's famous Stäffele staircases. Some addresses can't be reached by a large vehicle at all, which is exactly the case the transhipment van exists for.
• Cologne & Düsseldorf — Rhineland cities with tight old centres. Watch the calendar: Karneval closes streets in late winter and the big Messe trade fairs swallow the city for days, both worth planning around.
• Leipzig & Dresden — increasingly popular, more affordable, and the furthest east we regularly run, so the longest haul and best suited to a planned shared-load.

Your city not here? We deliver everywhere from Nuremberg to Bremen to Hannover — just tell us the destination. If you're still deciding where to land, our guide to the best cities to live in Germany compares them for cost, jobs and lifestyle.

Customs, Transfer of Residence & the 14-Day Anmeldung

Since Brexit, every UK to Germany removal goes through customs, but it's routine for us and your household goods enter duty-free under Transfer of Residence relief when you're moving your main home and meet the usual conditions — broadly, that you've lived outside the EU for at least a year, have owned and used the goods for six months, and import within twelve months of the move. We assemble and lodge the file: a signed inventory, passport copy, proof of your new German address and the declaration itself.

Then there's the one piece of German admin that isn't ours to do but trips up nearly everyone — the Anmeldung. Within roughly 14 days of moving in you must register your address at the local Bürgeramt, and the certificate you receive (the Meldebescheinigung) is the master key for everything that follows: bank account, tax ID, mobile contract, broadband. In the bigger cities appointments are gold dust, so book one before you arrive if you possibly can. We flag it on every German move because it's the step that quietly delays people for weeks.