Decluttering for a domestic move is about convenience. Decluttering for an international move is about arithmetic.
Ocean freight is priced by volume. A 20-foot container runs roughly 1,100 cubic feet, and you’re paying for the container whether it’s full or not. The moment your belongings spill into a second container, or force you up to a 40-foot, the cost steps up sharply. Meanwhile air freight is priced by weight and costs multiples more, which makes it viable for a few boxes and nothing else.
So the question isn’t “do I still like this?” It’s “is this worth its cubic feet, on a ship, across an ocean?” For most of what’s in your house, the answer is no.
The rule that governs everything: replacement cost vs shipping cost
For every large item, compare two numbers: what it costs to ship, and what it costs to buy the equivalent at your destination.
Furniture almost always loses this comparison. A sofa takes up 60 to 80 cubic feet, a meaningful share of a container, and you can buy a sofa anywhere in the world. Unless it’s genuinely valuable, custom, or irreplaceable to you, sell it.
What usually wins the comparison:
- Things with real value per cubic foot: jewelry, watches, artwork, rare books, collections
- Things that are hard to replace where you’re going, specialized tools, professional equipment, instruments
- Things that are genuinely irreplaceable: family pieces, photographs, documents
- Clothing, which is dense, personal and expensive to rebuild from zero
What usually loses:
- Most furniture, unless it’s antique or bespoke
- Appliances (voltage, see below)
- Books, beyond the ones that matter. Books are extraordinarily heavy for their value.
- Anything bulky and cheap: laundry baskets, plastic storage, cleaning supplies, pantry staples
Voltage and standards will strand your electronics
This catches people every time.
The US runs 120V/60Hz. Most of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia run 220 to 240V/50Hz. A transformer handles small devices, but anything with a motor or heating element (vacuums, hair dryers, kitchen appliances, power tools) performs badly or fails on the wrong frequency even with a converter.
Related traps:
- TVs use different broadcast standards region to region, and a US set may not tune local channels even if it powers on.
- Game consoles and Blu-ray players are region-locked.
- Large appliances are almost never worth shipping, different voltage, different dimensions, different plumbing and gas fittings.
Laptops and phone chargers are typically dual-voltage and fine. Check the label; if it says 100 to 240V, it travels.
What customs will not let in
Every country differs, but some categories are restricted nearly everywhere:
- Food: most fresh and many packaged items, including seeds, spices and meat products
- Plants and soil: almost universally prohibited
- Alcohol: usually allowed but heavily taxed, often making it cheaper to rebuy
- Firearms and ammunition: separate permit process, months of lead time
- Medications: quantity limits and prescription documentation; some common US prescriptions are controlled elsewhere
- Anything hazardous: paint, aerosols, fuel, chemicals. Movers cannot legally carry these on any move, domestic or international.
Also consider wooden furniture: Australia and New Zealand in particular have strict biosecurity rules and may require fumigation or inspection at your expense.
Check your destination’s customs authority directly rather than relying on a forum post, and start early, some clearances take weeks. The US Customs and Border Protection guidance on moving goods abroad is a useful starting point for the outbound side.
Documents come with you, always
Not in the container. In your carry-on.
- Passports, visas and work permits
- Birth, marriage and divorce certificates
- Academic transcripts and professional credentials, often needed for visa or licensing applications, and slow to replace from abroad
- Medical and vaccination records, including for pets
- Tax records
- The container inventory itself
Scan everything and store the copies somewhere you can reach from any country.
Pets change the timeline, not just the packing
If a pet is coming, start earlier than you think. Rabies titer tests, microchip standards, quarantine windows and import permits vary widely, and some destinations require a blood test months before travel. This is often the single longest lead time in an international move, so confirm the requirements before you fix a moving date.
The sell-and-donate plan
Give yourself eight to twelve weeks. International moves have more fixed deadlines than domestic ones, and you can’t extend the ship date.
- Sell the valuable things first: furniture, vehicles, appliances. These take longest to move and are worth the effort of listing.
- Donate the rest. In Miami, Goodwill South Florida, Habitat for Humanity ReStore and The Salvation Army all take furniture, several with free pickup.
- Hazardous materials go to Miami-Dade’s Home Chemical Collection Centers.
- Whatever’s left is a junk removal job rather than a moving one, our junk removal and donation removal services handle both ends of that.
Our general room-by-room decluttering guide covers the sorting method itself; this page is about what survives the shipping-cost test.
The middle category: store it
Not everything has to be shipped or sold. If you’re moving abroad for a defined period, a two-year posting, a contract, a graduate program, storing a core set of belongings in Miami is often cheaper than shipping them both ways, and it means you come home to a furnished life rather than an empty one.
The requirement in South Florida is climate control. An uncooled unit here sits hot and humid enough for months at a time to damage wood, leather, electronics and photographs, and you won’t be around to check on it. Our storage services are set up for long-term holds, and Florida’s storage rules and regulations explains what to verify in the contract.
Pack an air-freight box and a first-month bag
Sea freight typically takes four to eight weeks depending on destination and clearance. You need to live during that window.
- First-month bag (travels with you): clothes, medication, chargers, documents, laptop, anything you genuinely cannot buy on arrival.
- Air freight box (optional, arrives in days): professional tools, a small set of kitchen basics, work equipment. Expensive per pound, so keep it to one or two boxes of things that matter.
Then assume the container will be late, because it often is.
The short version
Ship what’s valuable per cubic foot or genuinely irreplaceable. Sell the furniture. Leave the appliances. Store what you’ll want when you come back. Carry the documents.
The Miami end of the job, packing, crating, storage and the hand-off to your freight forwarder, is the piece a licensed Miami moving company handles for you. Get a free estimate with your dates, and if you’re shipping artwork or antiques, fine art moving covers the custom crating those need for an ocean crossing.