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Organize your move to Belgium

Last activity 27 October 2011 by hannahhadman

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Julie

Hi all,

we invite you to share your experience about moving to Belgium.

Here is a list of questions which might help the ones preparing their move to Belgium:

What would you bring and what would you leave behind?

Is it a good idea to bring furniture or domestic appliances?

Any foodstuffs that are banned in Belgium?

Is it better to bring a car or to buy one once settled in Belgium?

Any advice for the ones who are moving to Belgium?

Thank you in advance for your participation :)

hannahhadman

When i moved i basically packed my car and drove. As for food stuffs from UK as far as i know nothing is banned. I even gotton on a flight with a home baked cake and small fondant filled easter eggs. However they did have to scane these seprately but have had no problems. As for cars from the expirence of sorting mine out and the price of things like insureance and how you need different paper work to get it. You also cant even change your car to Belguim plates before u have a full id cards. I would suggest just bye one here. There are always good deals on new cars to be found you just have to be paceant. Example lastest one ive seen is a citreon C3 for under 9thouseand euros. However i was looking at a difference of a 1000 euros more to insure my car here than UK.

Melby

Most of these questions are very difficult to answer in a general way. The answers would vary quite a bit depending where one is coming from (say, next door in the Netherlands or France, vs overseas say, in the Americas or Africa, etc), what things they do own, and so forth. But okaaaay I will attempt to provide insight.

What would you bring and what would you leave behind?
This reeeeally depends on the person in question and how far they are coming from. But essentially, bring what you need, bring what you couldn't bear to part with, bring what you couldn't replace. Leave behind the rest.

Is it a good idea to bring furniture or domestic appliances?
Probably not. But again, where are you coming from? If you live somewhere with the same voltage & plugs, then sure you can bring your appliances. If not? No, they're worthless here. Furniture is large and normally very very costly to ship/transport. It is likely cheaper to simply buy new here.

Any foodstuffs that are banned in Belgium?
Not that I am aware of.

Is it better to bring a car or to buy one once settled in Belgium?
Probably best to buy one, unless you have recently purchased a new car and couldn't get your money's worth out of it.

hannahhadman

Yeah melby I think if i had come by plane it would of been a lot harder to work out what to bring and what to take

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