Your move from Brazil to Belgium, from start to finish.

You need to be moving from a country outside the European Union to Belgium, thereby transferring your normal residence, have lived at least 12 consecutive months outside the Union, have owned and used the goods for at least 6 months, resume using them in Belgium, import the goods within 12 months after you begin residing in the country and not lend, pawn, rent or transfer the goods during the 12 months following import. All requirements are cumulative.

It depends on what you are bringing, and this is a particularity of Belgium. For household goods and personal effects, competence is, in principle, vested in the local head of customs at the importation office. For cars and trailers, motorcycles over 50 cc, motorhomes, recreational vessels and sport aircraft, as well as cases invoking special circumstances, competence lies with the regional director of the customs and tax center of the region where you will settle. This means that the decision-making instance changes according to your destination address and the contents of the move.

Yes, but it is a four-step process that must be planned in advance. First customs clearance, in which the Belgian official source expressly recommends hiring a customs broker. Next technical homologation, which issues the individual approval certificate. Then registration with the vehicle service, normally carried out by the insurance broker. Finally, the tax on placing into circulation. Vehicle customs duty relief requires the same conditions as for household goods, and does not apply to company vehicles nor to new vehicles.

They are the two documents that mark the end of the customs stage of the vehicle in Belgium. After customs checks the declaration presented by the customs representative in the Enig Document, a customs clearance certificate is issued. With that certificate, the customs office issues the pink form, which is the registration application, with the customs seal 705 applied. At that point the vehicle is fiscally regular and can proceed to technical approval and registration. Without the pink form with the seal 705, registration does not occur.

Because homologation requires proving conformity with the European standard, and the inspection centre requests from the manufacturer the partial approvals for the brake, power and emissions tests. If these approvals do not exist for your vehicle, the tests must be redone, and the emissions test requires a specialized laboratory which, according to the Belgian official source, is located in Germany. If the test is not redone, the individual approval is issued with the statement that the European emissions standard is not applicable, which significantly increases the tax on placing into circulation. That is why we evaluate the feasibility of the car before shipment.

Yes, and the criterion is the date of first registration. For a vehicle brought from the United Kingdom without European type-approval, if the first registration date is before 1 January 2021, it is possible to initiate a validation procedure at an inspection center. If it is after that date, the validation procedure is no longer available and the full importation process is mandatory. This is a relevant detail for those who traveled Brazil, the United Kingdom and then Belgium.

Excluded are alcoholic products, tobacco and tobacco products, company vehicles and material intended for professional purposes. There are also special formalities for vehicles, protected plants and animals, permitted weapons — prohibited ones are seized — and food above certain quantities. We review the inventory with you before shipment, because the presence of an item on this list does not invalidate the entire international move, but generates taxation on the excluded part and may delay the customs clearance of the whole shipment.

Yes. The transport of the animal is a process separate from the move of the goods, with its own requirements for microchip, rabies vaccination and international veterinary certificate within the validity period, as well as the rules for entry into the European Union. Our pet department conducts this process in parallel to the move, with the documentation synchronized to your flight dates. We have already transported more than 1,000 animals.

Collection, packing and export documentation in Brazil are conducted by One Moving's own team, without intermediaries. In Belgium, we work with accredited agents of our international network for the customs duty relief application at the competent customs office, the customs clearance in Antwerp, the final delivery and the furniture assembly. When there is a vehicle in the move, we also coordinate the role of the customs broker, because in that case the decision on the relief lies with the regional director and not with the local office.