Removals to Bordeaux from the UK
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Transport and customs documentation for a one-bedroom part load from the UK to Bordeaux cost £2,089 – £2,836, and for a three-bedroom house £4,639 – £6,384. Packing, transit cover and stairs or parking at either end are priced on top, from your own answers. Transit is 2–6 days door to door via Eurotunnel Folkestone–Calais.
Bordeaux does something many French cities do not: it reserves the kerb for a move and puts the no-parking boards out itself. The city asks for that request at least eleven days ahead. The centre is the harder half — a bollarded pedestrian sector with an access card that is handed over in person, on a weekday, before the move.
- Transit
- 2–6 days
- Departures
- Weekly
- From Calais
- about 540 miles
- Free survey, then a fixed price
- Customs paperwork handled
- Transit cover priced on the value you declare
- Secure your date online with a 25% deposit
From quote to keys
How your quote and booking work
The price you see online is an estimate worked out from your own list. A free survey turns it into a fixed price, and a deposit holds your date. How the price is worked out
Start my Bordeaux quoteGet your estimate — about three minutes
Pick your home size or list what is moving item by item, and watch the vehicle fill as you go. Choose a shared load or a vehicle of your own, tell us about stairs and parking at both ends, and your price appears with every line shown. We ask for your name, email and phone number before we show it, and email you a copy.
Have a free survey, and the price is fixed
Pick a weekday slot online for a video call and walk us round your rooms, or send photos on WhatsApp; near our depots we can visit instead. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Once we have surveyed, we do not revise the price upward on moving day.
Secure your date with a 25% deposit
Before the survey or after it, whichever suits you — online, by card. The deposit holds the vehicle and the date. If the survey changes the price and you would rather not go ahead, you get the full deposit back. Otherwise our terms and conditions set out what we charge if you postpone or cancel.
Sort the paperwork in your own portal
You get a private page for your move: the customs checklist for France and somewhere to upload each document. If you listed your items one by one, that list is already there — add a rough value to each line and it becomes the valued inventory customs ask for.
Collection in the UK, delivery in Bordeaux
On a shared load you choose the collection day and we give you a delivery window, confirming the day itself once the vehicle has cleared customs. With a vehicle of your own, both dates are yours. The balance is due on the day we collect.
Part-load prices from the UK to Bordeaux
Bordeaux is priced in Zone 3 — central France & Germany. These are indicative part-load bands for the transport and the £180 customs documentation fee. Collection beyond 30 miles of our depots adds a mileage contribution, and packing, access and cover are priced from your own answers — each shows as its own line on your quote.
| Property size | Volume | UK to Bordeaux, part load | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 8 m³283 ft³ | £1,284 – £1,716 | Price mine — studio to Bordeaux → |
| 1 bedroom | 16 m³565 ft³ | £2,089 – £2,836 | Price mine — 1 bedroom to Bordeaux → |
| 2 bedrooms | 28 m³989 ft³ | £3,179 – £4,353 | Price mine — 2 bedrooms to Bordeaux → |
| 3 bedrooms | 45 m³1,589 ft³ | £4,639 – £6,384 | Price mine — 3 bedrooms to Bordeaux → |
| 4 bedrooms | 62 m³2,190 ft³ | £6,047 – £8,343 | Price mine — 4 bedrooms to Bordeaux → |
| 5+ bedrooms | 85 m³3,002 ft³ | £7,925 – £10,956 | Price mine — 5+ bedrooms to Bordeaux → |
Bands are estimates worked out by our pricing engine from the rate card in force today. They are not a quotation. Your price is fixed after a free survey. How the price is worked out
Bordeaux
Getting a removal vehicle to your door in Bordeaux
The city holds the space, and boards it
Bordeaux runs a named procedure for this, réserver une place de stationnement pour un déménagement. The request goes in at least eleven days before the date, and the boards themselves appear on the reserved length twenty-four to forty-eight hours ahead. Where the street is metered, the parking still has to be paid for the hours you occupy it.
Behind the bollards
The centre, the Chartrons and Bordeaux Sud lie inside one bollard-controlled pedestrian sector, 259 hectares and 43 kilometres of street. Deliveries may enter between 6am and 11am, up to 12 tonnes, at under 15 km/h, stopping a metre clear of the façades. An ordinary stop there is capped at 20 minutes, far short of a house move.
The access card is handed over, not posted
If your address is inside that sector, the same request covers getting in, but the card is not posted. It is handed over at the Cité municipale, 4 rue Claude Bonnier, Monday to Friday between nine and five. Someone has to be in Bordeaux on a working day before the move. Say early if your street is bollarded, because that errand has to be planned around.
Monte-meubles and the three-metre rule
A monte-meuble, an external furniture lift, is often the only way into an upper floor of an eighteenth-century stone immeuble, and Bordeaux's own rules assume one. The condition is space: it may be set up only where a traffic lane at least three metres wide stays open. In the tightest old-town lanes it cannot, so the job becomes a carry or a shuttle from a smaller vehicle.
The low-emission zone stops at the rocade
Bordeaux Métropole's Zone à Faibles Émissions covers everything inside the rocade, around the clock. The rocade itself lies outside the perimeter and stays open to all, so a vehicle can circle the city without entering the zone. The boundary is a road rather than a town line, which is why communes such as Mérignac and Pessac sit only partly inside it: check the perimeter map against your address.
How this shows up in your quote. The quote asks about each end of the move. Tick “parking suspension or permit required” or “narrow street” for the Bordeaux end and each is priced as its own line, along with the floor and whether there is a lift. A furniture hoist is not part of the online price: show us the stairs and windows at your survey and, where one is needed, it is priced then.
Where we deliver in and around Bordeaux
Saint-Pierre, Saint-Paul and Saint-Michel
The historic core, inside the bollards. Residents hold one access right per dwelling, renewable every two years; a move needs the separate authorisation.
Les Chartrons
The old wine-merchants' quarter, settled by English, Irish and Flemish traders. Part of it sits inside the bollard sector; converted chais and stone walk-ups behind.
Cauderan and rue Judaïque
Bordeaux International School is at 252 rue Judaïque, teaching three to eighteen. Outside the bollard sector, so the ordinary city reservation applies.
The échoppe faubourgs
Single-storey stone terraces over a cellar, ringing the city between the cours and the boulevards. Everything goes through one street door and a long corridor.
Mérignac
The airport commune. Its removal order is Bordeaux Métropole's, not the city's, and the rocade cuts it in two — zone on one side, not the other.
Talence
Its own voirie service, and handling on site is confined to the middle of the day, between nine in the morning and half past four.
Le Bouscat
Wants the request at least fifteen days before anything is set up, and work on the avenue de la Libération or the route du Médoc needs Keolis-TBM's agreement.
La Bastide and Bacalan
Two districts defined by their bridges: La Bastide cannot be reached across the Pont de pierre, and Bacalan sits at the foot of the Chaban-Delmas lift.
The road from the UK to Bordeaux
Route: Eurotunnel from Folkestone or a Dover ferry, then the A16 to Abbeville, the A28 by Rouen and Le Mans, and the A10 from Tours past Poitiers — about 540 miles from Calais.
The run skirts Paris altogether and ends on the rocade, the ring road every approach into Bordeaux feeds into. Which junction a vehicle leaves it at decides whether it ever enters the low-emission zone, so the address matters more here than the mileage does.
We collect anywhere in the UK. Collection is free within 30 miles of our Coulsdon depot; beyond that a mileage contribution applies and is shown in your quote.
When to move
Bordeaux Fête le Vin, July 2027
The next Bordeaux Fête le Vin runs from 7 to 11 July 2027 on the city-centre quays, sharing its dates with the Tall Ships Races under the name Voiles et Vignobles. The festival is biennial, not annual. Expect quayside access and parking to be restricted in the Chartrons, Saint-Pierre and riverside Bastide, and the Chaban-Delmas bridge to lift repeatedly for the ships.
The two bridges to check
The Pont de pierre has been closed to cars since July 2018 and is part-way through a long consolidation that shuts it altogether for a stretch of each summer, so check the current phase. The Pont Jacques-Chaban-Delmas is a lift bridge: it closes completely, typically for about an hour and a half, every time a ship passes. Bordeaux Métropole publishes that schedule live.
Zone A holidays, and the A10
Bordeaux is in school-holiday Zone A, whose breaks fall from 17 October, 19 December, 13 February, 10 April and 3 July. Those dates fill the removal calendar and load the A10 with it, since it is the Paris–Bordeaux–Spain axis and carries the holiday traffic as well.
Paperwork once you arrive in Bordeaux
The Gironde prefecture, and your visa
Residence permits for a Bordeaux address are the Gironde prefecture's business, and it publishes a page of its own for British nationals: anyone who settled in France from January 2021 onwards falls under ordinary immigration law and has had to hold a residence permit since January 2022. We do not advise on immigration; the prefecture is the one to ask.
Getting back in once you live there
Living inside the bollarded sector needs its own access right, separate from the one the move used. Each dwelling in the sector carries one, renewed every two years, and it is applied for from the city rather than through us. Allow for that before you next need to bring a vehicle in.
Customs when moving to France
France applies EU transfer-of-residence relief. You will need a detailed valued inventory, proof of at least twelve months' UK residence, and evidence of a French address. Goods must have been owned and used for six months or more.
Check every document you’ll need for France →Official pages worth bookmarking
- Ville de Bordeaux — reserving kerb space for a move, and the pedestrian-sector access card ↗
- Ville de Bordeaux — how the retractable bollards work and who may pass them ↗
- Bordeaux Métropole — the low-emission zone: perimeter map, Crit'Air and passes ↗
- Bordeaux Métropole — live schedule of total closures on the Pont Chaban-Delmas ↗
- Ville de Mérignac — the separate removal authorisation for Mérignac addresses ↗
Local rules change. We checked these in September 2026 and confirm the current position for your street when we plan your delivery.
Moving from Bordeaux back to the UK
Moving out of an échoppe starts below street level: the cellar under it opens to the pavement through a soupirail, a vent, and everything down there has to come back up the single corridor the house is built around. The street side is unchanged — the city still holds the kerb, and still wants the request eleven days out.
In the quote box, switch to “to the UK” and Bordeaux moves to the collection end.
Moving to Bordeaux — your questions
How much does a removal from the UK to Bordeaux cost?
Transport and customs documentation for a one-bedroom part load from the UK to Bordeaux cost £2,089 – £2,836, and for a three-bedroom house £4,639 – £6,384. Packing, transit cover and stairs or parking at either end are priced on top, from your own answers. Transit is 2–6 days door to door via Eurotunnel Folkestone–Calais. Small consignments travel as part loads from around £956 for roughly 5 m³. Your own price depends on volume, the packing and cover you choose, access at both ends and how flexible your dates are — the online quote works it out in about three minutes.
How long does a removal to Bordeaux take?
Transit to Bordeaux is typically 2–6 days door to door. We run weekly, both directions. A part load waits for its scheduled run and is given a delivery window; a dedicated vehicle travels direct on the date you choose.
Do I file the Bordeaux parking reservation myself, or does the remover?
Expect to file it yourself. The city's page sets out the procedure and the eleven-day deadline but says nothing about who may apply, and we hold no French establishment, so the safe assumption is that the occupier lodges it. Changes and cancellations go by email to demenagements@mairie-bordeaux.fr. Tell us the reference and the reserved length once you have them.
My flat is inside the pedestrian sector. How does the lorry get to the door?
Through a retractable bollard, with the removal authorisation and the access card obtained beforehand. The sector reads number plates or a contactless card and lowers one bollard for one authorised vehicle at a time; inside, it is under fifteen kilometres an hour, pedestrians first, and a metre clear of the façades. A twelve-tonne ceiling applies, so anything larger waits outside and the load is shuttled in.
We are moving to Mérignac, not Bordeaux itself. Same paperwork?
No. Mérignac's removal order is a separate application, on a form emailed to Bordeaux Métropole's Centre voirie Secteur Territorial, and the council asks for it fifteen working days ahead — count three calendar weeks. The applicant, not the council, posts the arrêté on site at least twenty-four hours before. Le Bouscat and Talence each run their own procedure again, with their own deadlines, charges and permitted hours.
What should the survey look at in an échoppe?
The corridor and the street door. An échoppe is a single-storey stone terrace over a cellar, laid out in depth: a side door opens onto a corridor that runs the length of the house to a garden behind, so every piece travels that line. A simple one is five to seven metres wide; a double has the corridor down the middle. Show us the corridor turns, the street vent to the cellar and the width of the front door.
Is an older vehicle barred from driving inside the rocade?
Only an unclassified one, and even then there is a way in. Bordeaux Métropole issues a pass that lets an unclassified vehicle inside the rocade on a set number of days a year, and a three-year derogation covers a list of other situations. The conditions are not spelled out on the city's page, so ask the Métropole rather than assuming. Every vehicle in the zone shows a Crit'Air disc, whatever country the plate is from.
How do I book my move to Bordeaux?
Get your estimate online in about three minutes. You can secure your date straight away with a 25% deposit — refunded in full if the survey changes the price and you would rather not go ahead — or have the free survey first. Either way the survey fixes the price, and the balance is due on the day we collect. Your customs documents, inventory and dates are then handled in your own online portal.
Other cities we deliver to in France
- Removals to Paris
- Removals to Nice
- Removals to Toulouse
- Removals to Lyon
- Removals to Marseille
- All of France →
Other European destinations
Price your move to Bordeaux
- About three minutes
- No card needed for a price
- Fixed after a free survey
Bordeaux, France · page reviewed September 2026