Moving to the USA

The flow of people from India to the United States has defined international migration for decades. H-1B professionals arriving in Silicon Valley and Seattle, L-1 intracompany transferees setting up US operations, graduate students heading to universities from Boston to Austin, and families completing green-card journeys from cities across India — every one of them has a household to move. Roughly 4.8 million people of Indian origin live in the United States today, the single largest Indian diaspora outside India, concentrated in Silicon Valley, New York and New Jersey, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and the Seattle area. Seemleius has run this corridor long enough to know that the India-side export process is where most international moving companies fall short. We don’t.

This page sets out how the India–USA corridor works from our end. The starting point is not the US gateway port — it is your home in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Delhi or wherever else in India the move begins. From there, we manage every step: Indian export documentation, the sea or air freight journey, US CBP customs clearance, and final delivery to your American address.

The India export process: what it actually involves

Exporting household goods and personal effects from India is a permitted category under Indian customs law, but it requires formal treatment. A shipping bill must be filed through the ICEGATE system before goods can be cleared at the port of departure. The inventory prepared for customs must be item-level and detailed. The exporter’s documentation — passport, visa, proof of emigration — forms part of the supporting file. For sea freight, departure is through one of India’s major container ports: Nhava Sheva (JNPT) near Mumbai for western and central India, Mundra for Gujarat, Chennai Port for south-Indian departures, Cochin for Kerala. We manage this process completely — the shipping bill, the customs declaration and the inventory are our responsibility from the survey visit onwards.

Where an Authorised Dealer (AD) bank code is needed for the export — particularly when remittance or repatriation considerations apply — we coordinate with your bank to ensure it is in place before filing. FEMA compliance on the export of household goods is straightforward for genuine resident-emigration moves, but the documentation has to support the declaration. We get that right at the first attempt.

US Customs: strict from the start

US Customs & Border Protection enforces some of the most rigorous import documentation requirements of any destination we serve. Personal and household goods brought in by a US resident or new arrival can enter duty-free under the returning-resident and new-resident provisions — but only with correct documentation: CBP Form 3299 (Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles), an accurate detailed inventory, evidence of prior ownership and use, and a clean prohibited-items check. For sea freight, an Importer Security Filing (ISF, the 10+2) is mandatory and must be lodged at least 24 hours before the vessel loads in India; missing or inaccurate ISF data exposes the shipment to a USD 5,000 penalty regardless of whether the goods themselves are perfectly legitimate. A vague inventory, an undeclared item or a prohibited product can trigger inspection of the entire container and hold the goods while charges accrue. We prepare every element of the US customs submission at the India end, before the goods are in motion.

US gateway cities and inland delivery

Freight options and realistic transit times

Sea freight is the primary mode for full household volumes on this corridor — cost-effective, with transit times of approximately 32 to 40 days from Nhava Sheva to New York/Newark, and broadly similar to the US west coast via the Pacific routing. Air freight is the fastest option for urgent or smaller shipments. Direct passenger and freighter services run between Mumbai (BOM), Delhi (DEL), Bengaluru (BLR), Chennai (MAA) and Cochin (COK) and the major US hubs — JFK and Newark in New York, IAD at Washington Dulles, ORD at Chicago, SFO at San Francisco and LAX in Los Angeles. Air India, United, American and Vistara operate non-stop or near non-stop routes, with the Bengaluru–San Francisco service among the longest scheduled non-stop flights in the world at roughly 17 hours. Block hours of 15 to 17 in the air make air freight realistic for genuinely urgent volumes. We present both modes honestly, with real costs and transit windows, so you decide with accurate information.

Start with the guide that fits your situation

A family moving from Chennai on a spouse’s H-1B visa, a Bengaluru technology firm opening a US office, and a pharma exporter shipping commercial goods to a Houston distributor are all on the India–USA corridor but running entirely different moves. Each guide below is written for one of those situations — the right advice, the right process, the right questions. Find yours, or start with a quote and a coordinator will direct you from there.