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0208 081 0188
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Removals to Spain
Williams & Yates moves full households to mainland Spain, for private clients and for the PAs and household managers who arrange these moves on their behalf. Your home is packed by our own trained crews, crated to measurement in our workshop where a piece calls for it, carried on a vehicle booked to your dates, and set down in Spain with a white-glove installation or a debris-clear unpack, whichever you choose.
One coordinator manages every stage, from the first survey to the final walkaround. If your home holds fine art, antiques, a piano or a cellar, this page sets out how that move works and what shapes it.
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What Shapes the Cost of a Move to Spain
The cost is set by five things: the volume of the move, how much crating is required, whether the vehicle is dedicated to your consignment or shared, the access at both ends, and whether a period of storage sits in the middle. A survey settles all five, and we quote only after a survey.
Every stage of the move is handled to the same standard:
- Our own crews pack your home, employed and trained by us, and the people who deliver in Spain are ours too.
- Every item is wrapped by a trained packer, with materials chosen for the piece, not for the pallet.
- Crates are built to measurement in our own workshop, from dimensions taken at survey, so the crate is waiting on collection day instead of being improvised in your hallway.
- A dedicated vehicle where the move needs one, so your dates stay your dates.
- One coordinator from the first call to the final walkaround.
- Customs handled to the letter, with the inventory completed on your behalf and the deadlines managed so the relief is granted rather than missed.
- A proper unpack at the far end, either a debris-clear unpack onto flat surfaces or a full white-glove installation with cupboards wiped down and beds dressed.
Your written quote from Williams & Yates names what is included at both ends, states how customs clearance is charged, and sets out what would trigger an additional cost. A single all-inclusive figure produced in under a minute by an online form has not accounted for your access, your crating or your paperwork, because nobody has looked at them yet.
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How Your Move to Spain Works
Every move begins with a survey at your home, in person or virtually. The surveyor establishes volume, works through access at both ends and assesses each item for the care it will need.
From the survey you receive a tailored quote and a dedicated coordinator. That coordinator is one person, and they stay with you throughout. They set the customs deadlines, confirm the destination access, schedule the team and answer the phone when you call. Nothing is handed between departments, and you are never re-explaining your move to someone new.
Getting Your Home to Spain: Route and Vehicle Options
Most moves to Spain travel by road, down through France and across the border, which is why our removals to France page covers much of the same ground. Some consignments route instead by ferry into Bilbao or Santander, which suits northern Spain and takes a long motorway run out of the journey. Our guide to moving house by sea, air or road sets out how that decision is usually made.
The bigger decision is the vehicle and it is a decision about control.
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Dedicated Vehicle
A dedicated vehicle is booked for your consignment alone. Nothing else shares the space or the schedule, and the vehicle runs from your door to your door. For a full family home, and for anything containing fine art or a wine cellar, this is the normal arrangement.
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Part Load
A part load shares a vehicle with other consignments travelling the same route. Our part loads are packed by our own crews and crated to exactly the same standard as a dedicated move, and they suit a smaller consignment well. The trade-off is the schedule, which is shared, so the delivery window is wider. Where your dates are fixed, a dedicated vehicle is the answer. Our guide to shared and dedicated loads covers the trade-off in full.
Timing on any Spanish move depends on volume, crating, route and how your documentation falls. Your coordinator will confirm it once those are settled, and will tell you plainly if the dates you have in mind are not realistic.
Spanish Customs and Transfer of Residence Relief
Since Brexit, a household moving from the UK to Spain is a third-country import, which by default attracts Spanish import duty and IVA at 21%. Transfer of residence relief, the franquicia por traslado de residencia, removes both where the conditions are met and the paperwork is complete. It is granted on documentation, not on request.
The relief is administered by the Agencia Tributaria and carries four conditions worth understanding before you plan anything else. You must have lived outside the EU customs territory for at least twelve consecutive months before the move. The goods must have been in your possession and use for at least six months beforehand. The import must be declared within twelve months of establishing your normal residence in Spain. And for twelve months after clearance the goods cannot be sold, lent, pledged or otherwise transferred without telling customs first.
Alongside that you will need a NIE, the Spanish foreigner identification number, before the consignment can clear. A NIE is a tax identification number, not a residency document in itself. As a third-country national since Brexit, you will also need a TIE, the biometric residency card, to live in Spain beyond the usual short-stay limits. The two are separate steps on separate timelines. A consignment can reach Spain before the residency side is fully settled, and where that happens the goods go into our storage facility until the paperwork catches up. Your coordinator therefore sequences the move around your NIE and your residence registration from the outset, and will confirm how storage in that situation is handled before you commit to dates.
Wine and Alcohol Are Treated Separately
Alcohol is explicitly excluded from the relief. Household goods can move duty free where the conditions are met, but a wine collection cannot, and duties and taxes are payable on it. That means a separate alcohol inventory listing the make, year, value and strength of every bottle, which goes to our customs agent for the duty calculation.
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Access Across Mainland Spain
Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca
The Costa del Sol and the Costa Blanca are largely gated urbanisations and hillside villas. The constraints are gate width, gradient, turning space, and in many developments the homeowners’ association rules on commercial vehicle access.
Madrid and Barcelona
Madrid and Barcelona are apartment cities, where the questions are lift dimensions, stairwell turns and what the building permits on a weekday. Both cities also operate advance permit systems for a removal vehicle to reserve loading space, and the notice periods differ, with Madrid needing considerably more lead time than Barcelona.
Seville and Granada
The historic quarters of these cities have streets that were never built for a removals vehicle, with permit-based access and set delivery hours. Seville’s restrictions in particular have been through several rounds of local policy change recently.
Completion dates rarely line up neatly. Where the Spanish property is not ready to receive the load, the consignment goes into our own secure storage, monitored around the clock, until it is. We plan for that pause rather than hoping it does not happen.
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Fine Art, Antiques, Wine and Pianos: Specialist Handling for Spain
Fine art, antiques, mirrors, chandeliers and pianos travel in crates built to measurement in our own workshop. Our custom crating workshop, fine art removals and specialist item removals pages cover how each piece is packed, crated and handled, including pianos specifically.
Spain adds one variable a UK move rarely has to think about: a summer road move crosses the French and Spanish interior in real heat, and the risk to sensitive materials is the swing in humidity rather than the peak temperature. Packing materials are chosen per piece with that in mind, including oil-based wrapping paper to reduce sweating and quilted paper for polished surfaces.
A wine collection travels separately in a temperature-controlled vehicle, on its own dutiable inventory as set out above. Where a piece contains a protected species such as ivory inlay, rosewood or tortoiseshell, it needs CITES documentation, which we handle, so this belongs in the first conversation rather than the last week.
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Removals From Spain to the UK
The same service runs in reverse. Households returning from Spain, whether from a coastal property being sold or a full relocation home, are handled by the same crews on the same routes, with UK customs and Transfer of Residence handled at the UK end instead.
Returning moves carry their own timing problem, because a Spanish sale and a UK purchase rarely complete on the same afternoon. Storage between the two is common, and in most cases we build it into the plan from the start instead of scrambling for space later.
Removals to the Balearic Islands
The islands work differently, because the consignment crosses by ferry and clears through the island’s own customs office, so we cover each of them on its own page: removals to Mallorca, removals to Ibiza, removals to Menorca and removals to Formentera.
Your Move to Spain With Williams & Yates
One coordinator runs your move from the first survey to the last piece set down. Behind them sit our own packing crews, an in-house crating workshop, secure monitored storage and the accreditations we hold: FIDI/FAIM, the international removals industry’s highest standard, alongside BAR and IAM membership and Which? accreditation.
If you are weighing up the move itself, our European removals hub covers our other destinations across the continent.
When you are ready, arrange a survey and we will talk your move to Spain through properly.
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These guys have been fantastic from quote to move day. They have made the extremely stressful process of moving abroad as easy as possible with fantastic customer service from start to finish. A very happy customer.
Ms Iankov
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To book or ask us a question, call us on 0208 081 0188 or get in touch.