Best way to send household Items to Brazil

09/12/23 I want to start sending some household and personal items ahead of my move to Brazil. What is the best option? What do you recommend?
Thank you
Denise


    -@Kat2202

Hi, Denise.  When will you be moving?  Are you moving to Brazil permanently or temporarily?  How much will you be sending?  Will you be sending new or used things?  To whom will you be sending the items?  Do you have a CPF, a Brazilian taxpayer ID?

Generally speaking, if you want to bring personal property that will fit in suitcases, your best bet is probably to pay excess baggage charges and bring it all with you.  If that's not possible or desirable, the right answer will depend on the answers to the questions above.

Sell everything first. Save $$$ and brain damage with container freight.

Buy it all locally when you arrive, with the exception of the seriously smaller items you are really attached to that fit in checked bags.

Your needs will change dramatically in Brasil.

    Hello all,
I want to start sending some household and personal items ahead of my move to Brazil. What is the best option? What do you recommend?
Thank you
Denise
   

    -@Kat2202

Regardless of country, don't.

Sell the lot and buy locally except for a hard drive or two with your data, and maybe some electronic toys ...... if the power adapters are 110/240v.

What to send through a container, or LTL ( Less than truck load parcel )....

And make sure you file the paperwork as personal items you are moving on the account of your relocation!!!! Get help there.

Appliances. 

Food Processor. Specially if you have that Kitchen Aid all purpose food processor. They are sold here for a little fortune. 

Oven - Unless you get a Viking, dump yours Stateside.Viking is cool, gives you a better product and bragging rights ( Brazzers haven't seen any yet , so you will be the first one on the Tribe to own it ). And a better resale price, once you are back to motherland.

Fridge - I know,you get supplied appliances Stateside, but not in Brazil.  But again, unless you are hauling a Sub Zero fridge, and a Miele washer, dump your Knemore/GE stuff. You can get reasonably priced and reliable stuff here ( Samsung, Brastemp, European Brands ).

Kitchen Cabinets. They've gotten expensive and poorly made here, even if you tasked a millwright+cabinet

maker to fit your kitchen .Everything here is about MDF.  Antiquariums exist here, and there are places outside the City of Sao Paulo where rustic stuff is made available.

Heirloom Pieces.  Unless you can trust your ones left behind with your safe keeps ( it never pans out ) , bring em all here.  And keep it to yourself, do not go about bragging on your earthly possessions. 

Furniture. Our equivalent to IKEA is Tok & Stock. Those yankee style kitchen chairs would be impossible to source around here. Unless you can scoop from another American Family on their way out.  Fat chance.

Sports gear. Short of golf clubs, everythinjg you can get Stateside, you can here. Paying a little more. Unless you plan to venture out to Argentina, those skys and gear will take up place on your tiny apartment. 

Consumer electronics.  If you must, get unlocked cell phones, quad band, Anything less is paper weight. Laptops fine, You will end up getting it replaced, if you live on a large metro area. Cell phone and laptop theft is a thing here.

Power Issues. Pretty close, not enough to warrant damage.

09/15/23  For a ROM (rough order of magnitude), I moved 4000 pounds in a 20 foot seaborne container from Chicago to Manaus in 2018.  I had disposed of about 3/4 of my household, and what came was pretty much what @sprealestatebroker suggested:  heirlooms, irreplaceable furniture, items that I knew from long experience I couldn't obtain in Brazil at a reasonable price, if at all.  I also brought dishes, flatware, and utensils, because I wanted to be up and running fast. 

I brought my computers and selected 110V appliances, because current in Manaus is 127V; if current were 220V, I would have brought the computers, transformers for them, and nothing else electrical.

Total cost was US $22,000.  $2000 of that was special packing that most people won't require.  You can apply five years of US inflation rates to get to an approximation of those numbers in 2023.  $5000 was port charges at the Brazil end, in part because of the chronic labor slowdowns by Customs officers which still go on, causing delays that run up the storage charges. 

It was worth it to me, because I don't maintain a home in the US, and I plan to spend the rest of my life here.  But it's a long move, and an expensive one:  whether it's worth it to you depends totally on your life plans.

    09/15/23  For a ROM (rough order of magnitude), I moved 4000 pounds in a 20 foot seaborne container from Chicago to Manaus in 2018...

Total cost was US $22,000...

It was worth it to me...
    -@abthree

Holy cow wow 😮, wow!. I know this is something all of us have considered. I too have things I am having a difficult time parting with as I get close to my final move, multi-generational items my family brought from Iceland when we moved to the USA. But wow, maybe I need to simplify, and minimize my thinking.

As you might remember, when my family initially used a shipping container from Iceland to the USA, it arrived very empty, everything was stolen. So, in the end, after many years, only a few additional family heirlooms ever made it to us, items I still have 63 years later. 

Thank you for that information

        09/15/23  As you might remember, when my family initially used a shipping container from Iceland to the USA, it arrived very empty, everything was stolen. So, in the end, after many years, only a few additional family heirlooms ever made it to us, items I still have 63 years later. 

Thank you for that information
   

    -@rraypo

How heartbreaking that must have been!  Things have improved significantly since then, or I got very lucky.  Maybe both:  nothing missing, and total breakage was one cup!

I can't overstate the importance of using a mover with Brazil experience.  I knew I'd found the right people when I was getting quotes, said I was moving to Brazil, and the guy on the other end of the line started to laugh.  He said, "I used to think that a move to China was the hardest one to do, then I moved someone to Brazil!"  The paperwork alone is unbelievable.  If a company is good enough to get that right, they're probably good enough to get everything else right, too, but they won't be cheap.

I am very much in the court of "do not ship it unless it is absolutely vital, valuable or has sentimental value". 16 years I shipped a bunch of teachests from the UK to Brazil, firstly they got lost in Germany, then in Rio, but finally arrived in Recife. Although I had already paid for a door-to-door service, it costs me more to get them to my house.

Once they arrived I received one box more than I had shipped. I tried to tell the driver, but he simply said it had my name on it so it must be mine and refused to take it back. So I sat on it for 12 months waiting for someone to come and claim it, then one day I gave in and opened it.

It was full of tools that were very useful to me, but I still would not do it again. You can get everything in Brazil now, and more suited to the climate, conditions, etc here.

The level of bureaucracy, fees, etc. In Brazil will never stop impressing me. During my last trip to DETRAN, the same clerk sent me out three different times to the lottery store next door just to make her photocopies of the same document page.

Hi everyone,

I really apologize for the late reply as I lost the link to the thread.

Thank you so much for your insights.

Just so you know I am a Brazilian returning to  next year after over 40 years in the US. Yikes!

I no longer have family there, so I'm a bit confused about the process.

I learned of a place that charges $400  for 50 pounds (specific measurements) and can deliver at any brazilian chosen address, but it seems a bit high since I just want to send small items such as my Egyptian cotton bedding, towels, air purifiers and my must have 5x8 rug (lol..yeah..it is a must for me).  Again, I appreciate your responses and advise.

Thank you,

Denise

    Hi everyone,
I really apologize for the late reply as I lost the link to the thread.
Thank you so much for your insights.
Just so you know I am a Brazilian returning to  next year after over 40 years in the US. Yikes!
I no longer have family there, so I'm a bit confused about the process.
I learned of a place that charges $400  for 50 pounds (specific measurements) and can deliver at any brazilian chosen address, but it seems a bit high since I just want to send small items such as my Egyptian cotton bedding, towels, air purifiers and my must have 5x8 rug (lol..yeah..it is a must for me).  Again, I appreciate your responses and advise.
Thank you,
Denise
   

    -@Kat2202

Most of us wish there was a better, less expensive way. I go back and forth a couple of times a year and always carry all I can. Air Canada still allows 70 pounds per suitcase, the first one is free, and the second is $100. I have a few pieces of family stuff that will not fit into a suitcase that I would sure love to bring to Brazil