Household & Personal Moves to France

A household move to France from the UAE is almost never a purely practical decision. Somewhere in the plan is a vision of what life there is going to look like — the Paris neighbourhood, the village in the Var, the apartment near the Bordeaux waterfront. The job of the move is to get your belongings there without the reality of it falling short of that vision. Seemleius household and personal relocation to France is built around making the logistics invisible enough that the experience of arriving feels like it should.

Two kinds of household move to France

The mix of destinations on this corridor is wider than almost any other Seemleius runs. Paris arrivals are often timed to a job start or a school year; they tend to have a firm date and a specific district in mind — the 16th, Neuilly, Boulogne-Billancourt for families, the 7th or 8th for couples and singles closer to work. Southern France moves — Nice, Antibes, Aix-en-Provence, the villages of the Luberon, the Bordeaux waterfront — are more often lifestyle-driven, with a little more flexibility in the timeline but a lot more emotional investment in the destination. Lyon sits between the two: increasingly popular with families who want a real French city without Paris’s scale or price. We approach all of them with the same care and the same rigour, but we adapt the planning conversation to match what you are actually navigating.

The arrival paperwork: what to expect

For non-EU nationals, the first administrative beat after landing is usually the OFII visa validation — for long-stay visa holders this confirms residence within three months of arrival and replaces the old residence permit application for the first year. Renewals move to a carte de séjour. Healthcare enrolment with the Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie (CPAM) follows, attached to your address — which is why a confirmed delivery address before arrival matters more than people realise. For school-age children, the choice between the public lycée (free, French-language, excellent), an international school (Lycée International, École Jeannine Manuel, EIB) and a British or American school (BSP, AIS Paris, EAB) is one of the earliest decisions; admissions cycles for January and September intakes fill several months ahead. We brief every household before arrival on the sequence, but the school choice in particular is one we suggest people start on the moment the move is on the table.

What we move

• Furniture — wrapped, dismantled where required and reassembled at your French address, including upright pianos and bulky pieces that need stair-carry into Haussmann buildings without service lifts
• Fragile items: glassware, ceramics, art, mirrors — individually cushioned and crated as appropriate
• Electronics and home appliances — packed against sea transit humidity and handling; voltage is already compatible (France runs on 230V, the same as the UAE) so most items work on arrival
• Wine, if part of the shipment — handled correctly given French import sensitivities around alcohol and the volume thresholds that apply to personal effects
• Clothing, books, kitchenware and the full everyday contents of a home

Sea or air, and what goes into that choice

How the move runs

1. Survey. We assess your home’s volume and contents and discuss the timeline to recommend the right freight option — including the Le Havre versus Marseille routing decision based on your French address.
2. Pack. Our crew packs to export standard and builds a complete inventory before anything leaves the UAE — the inventory is prepared in French as well as English for the customs dossier.
3. Ship and clear. The shipment travels to France on the booked route; we manage EU import clearance and the Cerfa 10070 transfer-of-residence application at the French end.
4. Deliver and unpack. We bring everything to your French address, unpack, and place furniture so you arrive to a home, not a stack of cartons.

The care is the same whether you are moving into a Haussmann apartment or a farmhouse in the south. Request your quote and we will plan the move around your destination and your dates.