Shipping Furniture From China to the Netherlands

It is a Dutch import VAT deferment licence. Without it you pay 21% import VAT at the border and reclaim it later. With it, the VAT is recorded on your periodic return as both input and output tax and nets to zero, so no cash leaves your account at all. On a container of furniture that is several thousand euros of working capital, which is the main reason so much European-bound cargo clears through Rotterdam. A non-Dutch company can hold one through a fiscal representative.

Seats under heading 9401 and furniture under 9403 carry 0% third-country duty into the EU; mattresses under 9404 carry 3.7%. There is no EU anti-dumping measure on Chinese furniture, seating or mattresses. The heading decides it, so the commodity codes should be on the quotation and checked by your broker before the container is booked.

Twenty-five to thirty-two days port to port from Shenzhen to Rotterdam on current Cape of Good Hope routing, and twenty-six to thirty-six days as an LCL consignment. Add two to four weeks of production and consolidation before the sailing and about two weeks for clearance and a delivery booking. Door to door, a typical order runs fifteen to seventeen weeks from deposit.

Yes, and many importers do. Rotterdam has the highest service frequency for Chinese cargo in Europe, so a sailing is easier to find and the onward trucking network is dense. For an address in southern Germany or northern France it is worth comparing a Rotterdam entry plus road against waiting for a call at your own national port — the gateway often wins on landed time as well as cost.

Below about 15 m³, LCL — and Rotterdam has frequent consolidations, so the wait is shorter than on thinner lanes. Above 15 m³ a 20 ft container is usually cheaper per cubic metre and safer for stone and solid timber. Ask for the all-in landed LCL figure rather than the ocean rate: Dutch LCL commonly lands at USD 180–350 per cubic metre once destination charges are counted, against about USD 35 for the sea leg alone.

Only solid-timber packaging needs treatment, and the certificate has a short life — commonly about three weeks — so it is timed close to the sailing rather than issued early. Plywood and other engineered boards are outside the rule entirely, which is why we build most crates from plywood and reserve solid timber for loads that genuinely need it. Treatment is applied before the crate is closed; swapping packaging afterwards voids it, and nobody discovers that until the container is at the far end.

Every line is measured and photographed at the warehouse and the packed dimensions are sent to you before you pay. Volume is where LCL quotations go wrong: a timber frame adds roughly a third to what it protects, loose bulky items are billed on the space they occupy, and knock-down construction with the voids inside wardrobes and sofas filled can take 15 m³ down to 12. That is a whole price band on most lanes.

Board thickness follows the weight inside: roughly 15–18 mm plywood for pieces under 100 kg, 20 mm and up with steel strapping from 100 to 500 kg, and a framed structure on forklift skids above that. Inside, 2–3 cm of clearance filled with cushioning, so the piece cannot move but is not compressed. Lids are screwed rather than nailed, so a customs inspection can be closed again properly. A crate takes three to seven days from an approved drawing.