Shipping Vintage Furniture Abroad After Brexit

Shipping Vintage Furniture Abroad After Brexit

Sending vintage furniture out of France has, since 2021, become a more demanding exercise. Brexit reintroduced a customs border between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which directly affects a flow that historically connected Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, London and Edinburgh. Many buyers only notice when a piece is held at the border for lack of an EORI number. Without going into tariffs that change often, here is what a buyer or seller needs to understand before arranging a shipment: declarations, import VAT, CN codes, the status of pieces over 50 years old, and the choice between collaborative shipping and commercial freight.

What has changed since 2021

Before 2021, sending a Wegner chair from Paris to London sat within the single market: no customs declaration, no import VAT, no tariff classification to provide. Since 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom is legally a third country for the European Union. Any goods crossing the Channel are subject to an export declaration on the EU side and an import declaration on the UK side. The same logic mirrors over to Switzerland, Norway, the United States, Canada or Japan, none of which has ever been part of the single market.

Concretely, three changes affect vintage buyers. First, an EORI number (Economic Operators Registration and Identification) is needed to export as a professional operator; private individuals usually go through a carrier that handles the formality. Second, import VAT is due in the destination country, at a rate that varies with the nature of the goods and the buyer's status. Third, tariff classification must appear on the commercial invoice. For furniture, the most common codes fall under heading 9401 (seating) and 9403 (other furniture).

Declarations, codes and value

The commercial invoice is the central document. It travels with the piece and serves as the basis for duties and taxes. It must state seller, buyer, precise description (type, designer, year, materials), declared value in euros, country of origin and CN code. Declared value raises a recurring question: should one indicate the sale price, the insurance value, the replacement value? The customs rule requires the actual transactional value. Under-declaring exposes the shipment to reassessment, seizure or a hold at the border. Over-declaring exposes the shipment to needlessly high duties. The right approach is to declare correctly and to insure separately at replacement value.

The CN codes (the EU combined nomenclature, which builds on the World Customs Organization's HS codes) relevant to vintage furniture fall under only a few headings: 9401 for seating, with separate subheadings for swivel seats (Knoll office chairs, for instance), upholstered seats with wooden frames (Wegner, Mogensen, Juhl) or seats convertible into beds; 9403 for other furniture, depending on material and use; 9405 for lighting. The full code is checked on the European Commission's Taric site for export, and on the UK Trade Tariff for the British side. It is always better to start from these two tools than from codes copied elsewhere, which change from one revision of the nomenclature to the next.

Pieces over fifty years old deserve specific attention. The European regulation on the movement of cultural goods, mirrored in France by the Code du patrimoine, frames non-EU export of goods over 50 years old whose value exceeds set thresholds. For furniture, the current threshold sits above a few tens of thousands of euros, but it evolves and must be checked at the time of shipment. Beyond one hundred years, certain customs regimes allow a classification under antiques (chapter 97), sometimes accompanied by reduced import VAT in the destination country; this is notably the case in the UK, subject to documentation. For pieces under a hundred years, this regime does not apply, even where historic value is established. An export certificate may be required and is requested from the Ministry of Culture for concerned pieces.

The choice of carrier depends on dimensions and fragility. For pieces of ordinary size within the EU, Cocolis offers an economical collaborative model over long distances, relying on private individuals or semi-professionals who pool truck space. It works well for sofas, armchairs, tables or dismantled bookcases on the continent. It is not suited to export outside the EU, because no professional customs declaration is handled. For international commercial freight, carriers specialising in art and design objects, or general freight forwarders, handle crating, transport, declaration and delivery. For fragile or rare pieces (Murano glass, complex lighting, marquetry), a bespoke crate made by a professional case-maker is often essential. As an order of magnitude, allow several hundred euros for a compartmented case with high-density foam, to be confirmed case by case.

Sources to consult

To prepare a shipment, a few public resources are usually enough. The European Commission's Taric allows verification of the CN code, export duties and any applicable measures. The UK Trade Tariff (gov.uk) gives the British mirror: code, duty, VAT, antique-specific regimes. The portal Douane.gouv.fr sets out French export obligations, particularly on cultural goods. For import VAT, each destination country publishes its rates and thresholds; specialist carriers provide a pre-shipment simulation, which should always be cross-checked with an official source. A figure heard in passing does not replace these checks: regimes change, and a shipment prepared on outdated information ends up held at the border.

How we handle these shipments

Our delivery grid relies on Cocolis for France and continental Europe. For a destination outside the EU, the quote sets out transport, crating where the piece warrants it, insurance and customs formalities; import duties and VAT are payable by the recipient, and we issue the commercial invoice with the CN code and the actual sale value. If a piece over 50 years old may require an export certificate, we say so before the purchase. For a quote, write to us with the piece, the destination country and the address. The documentation of a piece is also discussed in our article on how vintage furniture prices have moved.