Moving from the UK to the US: Form 3299, the bond nobody quotes, and what the container costs

Who qualifies for free entry

Newer purchases are dutiable and belong on a separate list.

Duty-free entry is a use test, not a passport test. Used household goods that you owned and used abroad for at least a year enter the United States duty-free under HTSUS 9804.00.05, claimed on CBP Form 3299. Residents returning and non-residents moving here both use that heading if the goods meet the year. The desk file, current as of 21 Sept 2026, is full of people who packed a sofa they bought eight months ago and treated it like the rest of the shipment. Newer purchases are dutiable and belong on a separate list. The twelve-week international checklist is where that split gets written down before the packers arrive.

What fails the year does not sneak through on a kind description. Goods for sale, goods you have not used, and anything you bought on the way out of the UK are outside HTSUS 9804.00.05. Alcohol, food, and plants have their own rules, and a car is not a household good in the way a bookcase is. If you are comparing this lane with a move the other way, the US to UK lane is a different customs regime. The same household, priced by reviewers on the way back, is a different bill.

Inventory before the container loads

Miscellaneous is how a tailgate exam becomes an intensive unload.

Number every carton before the container is sealed. Contents named, values in one currency, room by room: that inventory is the packing list CBP reads, and it is also the detail behind CBP Form 3299. Miscellaneous is how a tailgate exam becomes an intensive unload. The inventory calculator is the plain way to do this while the flat is still intact. Reviewers who write in later rarely complain that the list was too specific. They complain that a carton of unnamed kitchen goods sat in an exam bay while the rest of the house waited.

Values should be what you would say to a customs officer. One currency, consistent, and close enough that a broker can defend it. Mixed pounds and dollars in the same column is a small thing that reads as sloppy, and sloppy is what gets a box opened. If you are converting units for the cube, do it in the unit calculator and keep the inventory in the currency the US agent asked for. The mover can type the list. You still own the contents and the values, because you are the one claiming the exemption.

Form 3299, the ISF, the bond

A late filing is a fine and a hold.

You sign CBP Form 3299, the forwarder files the ISF, and the US agent buys the bond. The Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles goes to the destination agent with your passport, visa or I-94, and the inventory. The Importer Security Filing, the 10+2, is due at least 24 hours before the container is loaded in the UK. A late filing is a fine and a hold. That is a dull way to start a new city. A single-entry customs bond is a condition of entry, arranged by that same US agent and billed to you. Ask for it as its own line.

Exams come in three speeds, and only one of them has a public price band. Document review, a tailgate look, or an intensive unload. The importer pays the intensive one. September 2026 rate cards put that intensive exam at $1,200 to $2,500, on top of whatever the move already cost. Clean labels and a numbered inventory are the only odds you control. Across 47 reviews that mention customs in this file, the delay people describe is rarely the ocean. It is the week the container sat while someone decided what an unlabeled carton was.

Uncollected freight does not wait politely. After 15 days, goods go to general order and storage runs. They can be sold after six months. That clock starts at the port, not when you feel ready to rent a van. If you are flying ahead of the shipment, leave a person or the destination agent who can take delivery inside that window. CBP Form 6059B is the separate declaration you fill when you cross in person with goods in your luggage. It is not a substitute for Form 3299 on the container.

Sole-use, groupage, or air

Air is priced like air, not like a container.

This lane is priced by the cubic metre and then delayed by how full the box is. A sole-use 20 ft or 40 ft leaves when you do. Groupage, the shared container, leaves when the mover has sold the rest of the cube. The recurring story in the reviews we read each week is the shared container that sailed when it was full, three weeks after the family did. Measure the shipment in the CBM calculator before you pick a mode. September 2026 rate cards show shared space at $180 to $320 per cubic metre, with a 3 CBM minimum.

Door to door, the coast changes the rate card, not the paperwork. East Coast, Gulf, and West Coast are three different September 2026 cards, and the dollar span of a 20 ft and a 40 ft is a range, not a promise. Mover guides checked in September 2026 put ocean transit at three to five weeks, then the US inland leg. Air is the option when the cube is small and the date is fixed. Air is priced like air, not like a container. Compare a Canada landing on the US to Canada page when that is the real destination.

The US agent is the person who makes the container legal. They arrange the single-entry customs bond, receive Form 3299, and clear the freight. The ocean carrier, and we are not one, moves the box. Your remover in Britain loads it. If the quote is only the UK pickup, you do not yet have a price. The bill of lading guide is worth reading before you sign, because that document is what the port will actually hold.

What a mover can and cannot do

The cheapest quote on this lane is the one that left out the bond and the destination charges.

A mover ships the goods, writes the inventory with you, and has the forwarder file the ISF. A mover does not sign CBP Form 3299. That signature is yours, because the one-year claim is yours. The US agent arranges the bond and the entry. None of that is a reason to pick a firm from a badge. We do not hand out best-mover labels on this lane. The UK review file is the pile we actually read, and the FMCSA trust page is the US-side registration check once the destination agent is named.

The cheapest quote on this lane is the one that left out the bond and the destination charges. Ask for the two numbers that appear after the ship docks before you compare the ones that appear before. September 2026 rate cards put a single-entry customs bond at $150 to $400, and the intensive exam, if it happens, at $1,200 to $2,500. A quote that ends at the UK port is a pickup price with a hole in it. The estimate reading guide is how you mark that hole before you pay a deposit.

Read the UK firm and the US agent as one job. The UK mover pages show who loaded the container. The US mover pages show the market it is landing in. A long-haul domestic move once you are inside the country is a different product, priced on the long-distance service page, and it should not be folded silently into the ocean quote. If the paperwork names a broker you have never heard of, that is normal. If the paperwork names no one, that is the problem.

What it costs

Prices are the whole move as the reviewer typed it.

The reviewer-reported median on this lane is $2,300, across 229 reviews. 99 are dated since 2022. Prices are the whole move as the reviewer typed it. They are self-reported, skewed to long-distance work and to people with something to say. The reverse lane is 145 reviews at a median of $3,297. Interstate household moves, for scale, sit at a 2025 median of $4,500 on the US cost page. This UK to US file is the busiest cross-border lane we hold. The wider cross-border set is 374 reviews at a rating of 3.38.

Rate cards are not our medians. September 2026 rate cards put a 20 ft door to door at £4,500 to £6,500 on the East Coast, £5,000 to £7,000 on the Gulf, and £5,500 to £8,000 on the West Coast. In dollars those cards show $5,000 to $13,600 for a 20 ft and $6,400 to $18,000 for a 40 ft. Shared space is $180 to $320 per cubic metre. The bond at $150 to $400 and the exam at $1,200 to $2,500 are the lines that show up after arrival. Fuel is a separate irritant. Diesel was $5.60 in the week of 31 Aug 2026, which can move a surcharge and does not tell you what your quote should be.

Restricted items and the vehicle

Household goods under HTSUS 9804.00.05 do not cover the vehicle.

The categories that stall a household shipment are the ordinary ones people pack without thinking. Alcohol, food, plants, and anything that looks like it is for resale. Alcohol is also a state question once it clears the port, so a case of wine that was legal in the UK can still be a problem in the state you land in. Run the odd items through the prohibited calculator before they go in a carton. The desk does not have a second price for any of that. If a site quotes a flat duty for unnamed goods, it invented the number.

A car pays 2.5% duty plus DOT and EPA compliance, which is why most people sell it before they fly. Vehicle import paper is DOT HS-7 and EPA 3520-1, and the conversion work is the part that hurts, not the duty percentage. A right-hand-drive car that should have been sold in Slough is the review we could recite from memory. If you are keeping it, start that paper before the ship date, not after the container is on the water. Household goods under HTSUS 9804.00.05 do not cover the vehicle. It rides its own entry.