Moving to France

A Marseille-bound container leaves Jebel Ali on a fixed weekly rotation, transits Suez, and lands at the Fos terminal around 18 to 22 days later. We give you the vessel name, the booking reference and a projected berth date the day after your survey. That is the standard moving to France from Dubai runs on, and the standard we have held on the UAE–France corridor for 22 years.

Some 1,213 moves on, the corridor still carries two distinct groups. One moves for work — a consultant joining a Paris practice, an aerospace engineer posted to Toulouse, a UAE firm setting up a French subsidiary in Lyon. The other moves for a slower life in the south — a family taking on a house near Nice, a couple settling in Provence or the Bordeaux vineyards. The route is the same; the priorities are not, and we plan each accordingly.

1. Survey and brief

   A UAE survey or a video walk-through, volume measured in cubic metres, and any item that changes customs treatment flagged early. Sea and air options come back against your French start date and the Le Havre versus Marseille routing call.

2. Documentation before sail

   EORI confirmed where a commercial flow needs it. The déménagement de retour dossier prepared — Cerfa 10070, French inventory, proof the UAE residence is being given up and the French one taken on, plus ICS2 advance security data.

3. Export pack and dispatch

   Export-grade packing from Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Sharjah, ISPM-15 treated timber where it applies, and a full bilingual inventory. Booked onto a rotation to Le Havre, Marseille-Fos or Dunkirk, or air from DXB.

4. Clearance and delivery

   DELTA lodgement at the port of entry, transfer-of-residence relief applied, container devanned and trucked to your door. Convoi exceptionnel permits arranged for over-dimensional loads. The crew unpacks, reassembles and clears the debris on the same visit.

The UAE–France corridor in detail

Ports and sea routes

Sea is the practical choice for a full household or a large commercial volume, and three French ports cover the corridor. Marseille-Fos is the natural landing for the south — the Côte d’Azur, Provence, Lyon and the Rhône valley — with Jebel Ali to Fos running roughly 18 to 22 days quay-to-quay. Le Havre serves Paris and the north most directly, on the Seine axis with frequent service and onward road or barge into the capital. Dunkirk is the option for routings favouring the far north. Add three to five days for clearance, then a day or two of road delivery.

Air routes from Dubai

Air suits a tight corporate start date or a priority part-load that cannot wait for a vessel. Direct flights from Dubai International reach Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Nice Côte d’Azur, Lyon-Saint Exupéry and Marseille Provence in around seven hours, with a working-day clearance once the freight lands. A common pattern is a split consignment — priority items by air to CDG for an early move-in, the rest by sea behind it, both cleared under one inventory.

DELTA, the douanes and déménagement de retour

France is an EU point of entry, so clearing customs here clears your goods into the single market. Douanes Françaises run DELTA as their electronic backbone. For UAE-origin household goods the working relief is the déménagement de retour — transfer-of-residence relief under EU Council Regulation 1186/2009, declared on Cerfa form 10070. It covers French duty and the 20% import VAT on personal effects owned and used for six months or more, where the resident has lived outside the EU for at least twelve months and is establishing primary residence in France. The dossier needs a detailed French-language inventory and proof that residence is genuinely moving from the UAE to France. New goods above the relief threshold, commercial stock and certain vehicle situations sit outside it. Commercial cargo runs its own route — an EORI number, DELTA entry with ICS2 advance data, and T1 or T2 transit treatment where the goods move onward inside the EU.

Vehicles and the quitus fiscal

A used vehicle owned long enough can travel under the same transfer-of-residence relief, but registering it in France is a separate exercise. The first document the prefecture asks for is the quitus fiscal — a tax-clearance certificate from the local tax office confirming VAT is settled or not due. With that in hand the car moves to a French registration (carte grise), which calls for a certificate of conformity, a réception à titre isolé inspection where the model was never type-approved for the EU, and a contrôle technique test for older vehicles. We flag early whether a particular UAE car is worth bringing, because some are simpler to sell in Dubai than to homologate in France.

Restricted and excluded items

A few categories will not travel on a household move, or need their own paperwork. Firearms require French licensing and prior authorisation. Alcohol beyond personal quantities is treated as a dutiable, taxable import. New boxed electronics read as commercial stock rather than personal effects. Plants and certain foodstuffs need phytosanitary certificates or cannot enter at all. We screen the inventory at survey so nothing surfaces as a surprise at the quay.

Pets to France

Pets travel under DGAL rules on the French side. A cat or dog needs an ISO-standard microchip, a valid rabies vaccination, and an EU pet passport or the equivalent EU health certificate issued by an official UAE vet within the validity window. We coordinate the booking with a specialist pet-relocation agent and hand off at the arrival airport so the animal and the household arrive in step.

Destination clusters and pricing

Paris anchors finance, luxury and consulting, with international schools concentrated in the western suburbs. Toulouse is the aerospace capital, built around Airbus and its supply chain. Lyon draws life sciences, technology and regional headquarters; Marseille pairs a working port with a large international community; Nice and the wider Côte d’Azur remain the lifestyle magnet, with Sophia Antipolis just inland. Pricing builds from volume, route, freight mode, customs treatment and how easily a truck can reach the door — every quote itemises freight, customs, haulage, packing and insurance, with no single bundled figure hiding the detail.