Moving to the USA

A move from the UAE to the United States is as much a paperwork exercise as a logistics one. US Customs & Border Protection applies some of the strictest import controls of any destination we serve — documentation, prohibited items, accurate classification and often additional inspections. On this corridor, the difference between a shipment that arrives on schedule and one that sits in a US port accruing storage charges usually comes down to how thoroughly the paperwork was prepared before the goods left the UAE.

Seemleius has run the UAE–USA corridor long enough to know where the friction points are. We have moved families landing in Brooklyn on H-1B start dates, founders setting up Delaware C-corp offices in Manhattan, and tech engineers transferring into the San Francisco Bay Area on L-1 visas. The corridor rewards preparation. This page explains how the route works. From here, choose the guide that matches your situation and we will go from there.

Sea and air: choosing the right mode

Both are options on this corridor, and both have a clear use case. Sea freight from Jebel Ali to New York or Newark typically takes 30 to 38 days; west coast routings via Los Angeles or Long Beach run 28 to 35 days; Houston and Savannah land in similar windows depending on the rotation. Air freight from DXB to JFK, IAD, ORD or LAX moves in 14 to 16 hours of actual flight time, with door-to-door windows of 5 to 10 days once consolidation, customs and inland trucking are factored in.

Sea freight is the primary choice for full household shipments — cost-effective for volume, with transit times that are long but predictable and fully built into the planning from the start. Air freight is the right call for urgent items, high-value goods or a smaller shipment where transit time matters more than cost. We present both options with honest numbers so you decide with full information, including the inland trucking that takes you from the US gateway port to the final address.

US gateway cities we work through

What CBP wants to see

US Customs & Border Protection treats every inbound shipment as commercial unless the documentation clearly establishes it as personal-effects. For residence-shift movers, that means a CBP Form 3299 (Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles) supported by a valued inventory and proof of residency status. Used household goods generally enter duty-free under the returning-resident or new-resident provisions, but the exemption is conditional on the form being correct, the inventory matching the container, and prohibited items being absent. For commercial shipments, ISF (Importer Security Filing) — the “10+2” rule — must be submitted at least 24 hours before vessel loading at Jebel Ali, with accurate Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification on every line item.

How a UAE–USA move is put together

1. Survey and quote. We assess what is moving from your Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Sharjah address, recommend sea or air freight, and set realistic port-arrival and final-delivery dates against the relevant US gateway.
2. Customs preparation. Every item is documented to the standard CBP expects — classification, valuation, prohibited-items check — before the shipment leaves the UAE. ISF is filed where the shipment is commercial; CBP 3299 is completed where the shipment is personal-effects.
3. Pack and ship. Export-standard packing with a full inventory, dispatched on the booked route into the appropriate US gateway. Sea sailings out of Jebel Ali typically depart twice weekly to the east coast and weekly to the west coast.
4. Clear and deliver inland. We manage US customs clearance and arrange the inland trucking leg from the port of entry to your US address — whether that is a residential street in Queens, a tech campus in Mountain View, or a warehouse in suburban Houston.

Which guide fits your move?

The USA is a wide country in every sense — geography, visa type, purpose of move. A household arriving from Dubai on a family visa, a tech company relocating a team to San Francisco, and a commercial shipper sending goods to a Houston distributor are all on the same corridor but running entirely different moves. Each guide below addresses one of those situations properly. Find yours, or start with a quote and a coordinator will point you in the right direction.