We will be moving from Cambodia to Egypt and we have a lot of boxes,the ship cost would be 4000- dollars ,so I am trying to figure out a way the boxes could fly with us and not go through all the customs rules they would have to go through with a freight company.I have seen people at the airport with loads of boxes so there must be a way cheaper price.

Thanks

How many people are traveling with you on your move?

Welcome to FT,

I assume customs duty for a country is the same whether the goods are shipped or with a freight company with the difference being the charge the freight company charges vs the airline.

Airline fees should be on the airline website for additional luggage.

Depends on the country. In some countries, customs inspectors looking at freight shipments will (and rightly so according to the rules) require proof of purchase prices of every single item. The airport inspectors might just wave the same goods through, or charge duty on just a few of the items that appear to be big-ticket purchases.

But 19 boxes are going to attract some attention.

I once brought a few dozen boxes with me as checked baggage. No real problem. Given where I was traveling from, bringing them as checked baggage and paying the excess baggage fee was much cheaper than shipping them by FedEx/DHL or shipping them as cargo; and certainly much much easier than sending them over land and then by sea.

Since you are on a sea port, it might be cheaper to ship by boat.

If flying, it might be cheaper for you to purchase Cambodia-US-Egypt tickets in order to benefit from the per piece fee scheme rather than the per kg fee scheme which is often much more costly. Regardless, you should contact you air carriers ahead of time as many require reservations for significant excess baggage.

Regardless of how your cargo arrives in Egypt, it will be noticed by the customs inspectors. I'd strongly encourage you, ahead of time, to arrange the services of a ground handler at CAI who also does customs brokerage. And print out, in advance, whatever information you can obtain from the Egyptian government as to what you can, and cannot bring in, and what duties you might face.

Weight, size and value of boxes will come into play. More money if the excess baggage is oversized and/or over weight. Also think about liability if the boxes are lost by the airline or there is damage to the contents. There is a limit to how much you can be reimbursed per bag and if you don't have proof of value the payout by the airline could be small.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

I'd take what's immediately necessary and arrange to have the remainder shipped by sea. That's pretty much how most people making permanent changes of station / residential moves do it.

And whether you ship (requiring a broker, but they pretty much know "the lay of the land" from daily interactions with local customs personnel) or take as expensive extra baggage, you will have to deal with customs with that many packages (one bag you still deal with them, but generally much more easily).

Check with the airlines under consideration for restrictions (size, weight, packing) and costs. You are likely to be surprised.

And some items may cost less to buy in the souk than to ship. Many expats skill off some items before they move, buy new in the new posting.

I live in Cairo, and I would have to say to you that going through Customs on arrival with a few dozen boxes - is going to be challenging in the extreme. Depending on which airline you are using (ie which terminal you arrive at) and how many other flights are arriving at roughly the same time, the baggage reclaim and customs areas can be a TOTAL MADHOUSE.

There is a very fair chance you will be asked to open every single box, in public.

There is another angle: if you are coming to Cairo on a posting, and these are your personal effects, you may face a problem re-exporting them if they do not have all the correct import paperwork.

you don't...

Start by consolidating the stuff into as few regulation suitcases or duffle bags as possible.

We just moved from between Middle Eastern countries last year (not the ones you've mentioned), and two of us checked 4 bags each (2 suitcases and 6 boxes) and had absolutely no issues. Here are a few thoughts from our experiences:

+ If you can ship your boxes via ship cargo, that is usually cheapest.
+ If you have airmiles to burn, you can book business class and get scads more luggage allowance. (For us we ended up with 90 kilos each instead of 20 kilos each, and our extra bags were charged the same, but we were allowed 30kgs instead of 20 in each box.)
+ Regarding import fees, some airports do not look as intently at your checked luggage as they would at cargo. In our case, they barely even glance up as we traipsed through with our eight 30-kilo bags/boxes.

But this was a different situation, of course, but just thought I'd share our experience. And, any more luggage than we had probably would have attracted much more attention. If you're flying with others, splitting your itineraries could prove helpful if you did decide to go through with it. I imagine how many bags/boxes per person makes a good deal of difference when it comes to how much attention you attract.

It could even be cost effective to bring some stuff now and after a short time, take a trip back to bring more stuff with you. By then, you might have a betteer idea of what you'll need.

Welcome to FlyerTalk� as this is a general travel topic, please continue discussion here in the TravelBuzz forum.

Good luck!

~Moderator, Information Desk

includes some first hand >

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...k-baggage.html

and in another thread >

As someone who has done this move more than once, I agree. Sea freight. Get a reliable forwarder. They'll take care of the customs paperwork. Most countries don't charge duties on used household goods and the forwarders know how to make that happen.