I am looking for anyone who has relocated their belongings from the western US (California) to Finland. Most of the information I have found discussed moves within the EU to Finland. I have about a 10foot x 10 foot (3.05 meter x 3.05 meter) storage unit that I would like to pack up and get sent to Finland. What companies did you use and about how much was it?

I have been in Finland about 8 months and will be here permanently. I got rid of non compatible electronics, mostly I have heavy sports equipment that will be hard/expensive to sell and then replace here, and a few art pieces that are too big for carry on. I have this stuff in paid storage in the US now for about 200 a month, so in the long run it will probably cost me less to just have it shipped here. I do not have anywhere in the US I could store it for free.

I did find this page for expats, but have not asked for any quotes yet.

[https://www.expat-finland.com/moving\_to\_finland/international\_movers.html](https://www.expat-finland.com/moving_to_finland/international_movers.html)

12 comments

  2. Join the Facebook group Americans in Finland. Ask the question there, there’ll be people there who can provide answers.

  3. I moved from The Bay to Helsinki. We initially contacted a a company called north star moving. The costs for a two bedroom apartment was around 7k door to door. I decided i did not want to pay this and ended up contacting a family member and shipped my own crap, via a freight forwarder, to the Helsinki port. This cost about 2k.

    Just understand the move, especially with a car, is not typically worth it. It is much more easy to buy the stuff here. You also want to check what can be taxed….Finland loves it’s taxes and high ones at that. My Mustang cost more in taxes than I paid for it.

  4. A word of warning: shipping by sea takes ages as there is severe shortage of shipping containers. I’m still waiting for my stuff from UK to arrive in Australia. About 6 cubic meters was packed in November and is now expected to arrive late May or early June.

  5. Niemi was good for me. They arranged the logistics on the other side, handled all import documentation, and delivered it.

  7. We used alpha moving. It’s a Scandinavian company with representatives in Helsinki. They charged about 9,000€ for a 3 bedroom apartment without beds (US and European beds come in different sizes).

    This move was during the first CoVId shutdown. So shipping rates were quite cheap. I hear that prices now are pretty expensive.

    We did not move our car. Like somebody mentioned above, the cost to “upgrade” the car to European standards was pretty astronomical.

    I really liked alpha. They moved us to Finland and then back. We moved from the Eastern US so my rates may be cheaper than ours.

    Otherwise, terveruola. Enjoy the adventure.

  8. Shouldn’t your employer be sorting all this out for you?

    People I know who’ve moved here typically have a relocation agency take care of these matters.

    If they are asking you to take care of it, make sure they are giving you plenty of budget to do so. I’d expect a move cross atlantic even for a single person would be at least €10k.

  11. I recently relo’d from Bay Area to Helsinki. Coordinated through Paramount (https://www.pts-moves.com/) who contracted a local mover to pack stuff and then https://www.victorek.fi/en/ managed the Finnish side of things including customs clearance and delivery. Paramount arranged a smaller air shipment which arrived in about 2 weeks and then the sea shipment took around 4 months. When i looked into shipping the car, it would have been cheaper to ship and pay for the changes over the price+tax difference in Finland… but I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of having to arrange all the changes and not using it during that time. YMMV. Feel free to DM and I’ll be glad to explain any more details.

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