Removals to Lyon from the UK
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Transport and customs documentation for a one-bedroom part load from the UK to Lyon 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.
Lyon stacks three access problems on top of each other. The Presqu'île is a limited-traffic zone entered through bollards. The Croix-Rousse slopes carry tall silk-weavers' blocks with no lift. And the kerb outside your door belongs to whichever commune you land in, each with its own form and its own notice.
- Transit
- 2–6 days
- Departures
- Weekly
- From Calais
- about 470 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 Lyon 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 Lyon
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 Lyon
Lyon 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 Lyon, part load | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 8 m³283 ft³ | £1,284 – £1,716 | Price mine — studio to Lyon → |
| 1 bedroom | 16 m³565 ft³ | £2,089 – £2,836 | Price mine — 1 bedroom to Lyon → |
| 2 bedrooms | 28 m³989 ft³ | £3,179 – £4,353 | Price mine — 2 bedrooms to Lyon → |
| 3 bedrooms | 45 m³1,589 ft³ | £4,639 – £6,384 | Price mine — 3 bedrooms to Lyon → |
| 4 bedrooms | 62 m³2,190 ft³ | £6,047 – £8,343 | Price mine — 4 bedrooms to Lyon → |
| 5+ bedrooms | 85 m³3,002 ft³ | £7,925 – £10,956 | Price mine — 5+ bedrooms to Lyon → |
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
Lyon
Getting a removal vehicle to your door in Lyon
The OTEP booking, and what it holds
Lyon reserves kerb space for a removal through its own service, the OTEP, which issues a temporary parking arrêté for a stretch of about twenty metres. It has to be booked at least a week before the date. The City puts out the no-parking sign itself and emails a link the day before for the registration numbers allowed to stand there. Keep the arrêté visible behind the windscreen.
One commune, one procedure
The Lyon arrêté stops at the city boundary, and the neighbours are not alike. Villeurbanne wants at least seven working days, and registers your plates separately where the space sits in a paid-parking street. Caluire-et-Cuire asks for fifteen days, and there it is the applicant who stands the signs up seventy-two hours ahead and has the police municipale verify them, or nothing can be towed away.
The Presqu'île is a limited-traffic zone
From the foot of the Croix-Rousse slopes to Bellecour, the Presqu'île is entered through five retractable-bollard accesses and runs day and night; the Saône and Rhône quays are outside it. Between six in the morning and one the bollards are down, no registration is needed, and only proof of the job is wanted if you are stopped. After one, the plate goes on the LPA site forty-eight hours ahead.
Stairs, traboules and the monte-meubles
The Croix-Rousse slopes are lined with canut tenements, built tall for silk looms, with ceilings of four to five metres; Vieux-Lyon is Renaissance and the Presqu'île classical. Lifts are rare in all three and the stairs are often stone spirals. A monte-meubles, the external lift that reaches a window, is the common answer on these streets, and what decides it is the ground outside, not the flat.
The Zone à Faibles Émissions
The Métropole de Lyon's Zone à Faibles Émissions covers every Lyon arrondissement, all of Caluire-et-Cuire, and the parts of Villeurbanne, Bron and Vénissieux inside the Laurent Bonnevay ring road. It bites round the clock, on a parked vehicle as much as a moving one, and has shut out the most polluting goods vehicles since 2021. A foreign plate sits inside it like any other.
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 Lyon 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 Lyon
Presqu'île, Lyon 1er and 2e
Inside the limited-traffic zone from Bellecour northwards; rue de la République and rue Serlin are fully pedestrian, so morning work and a booked kerb.
Pentes de la Croix-Rousse and the 4e plateau
Canut blocks with very high ceilings and few lifts, reached by steep montées; the boulevard market takes the plateau's main artery most mornings.
Vieux-Lyon, Lyon 5e
Renaissance streets behind bollards, with traboules and spiral stone stairs. Deliveries are admitted in the morning only, so an early start matters.
Lyon 6e, Brotteaux and the Cité Internationale
INTERPOL's General Secretariat on quai Charles de Gaulle draws arrivals of some 140 nationalities. Wide nineteenth-century streets, but the kerb is all resident parking.
Gerland and the rest of the 7e
The state Cité Scolaire Internationale on place de Montréal brings English-speaking families here. Modern blocks with lifts, wide avenues, emission zone still applies.
Villeurbanne
A commune in its own right. Charpennes, Gratte-Ciel and Tonkin sit inside the ring road, so its own authorisation and the emission zone both apply.
Caluire-et-Cuire
North bank, home to the bilingual Ombrosa campus on quai Clemenceau. Its arrêté leaves the signs and the police check to whoever applies for it.
Écully and Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon
Western hillsides outside the emission zone, though the road in from the north crosses it. The International School of Lyon is on chemin du Grand Roule.
The road from the UK to Lyon
Route: Eurotunnel or the Dover ferry to Calais, then motorway throughout: the A26 by Reims and Troyes, the A5 to Langres, the A31 to Beaune and the A6 south — about 470 miles from Calais.
The last few miles are the awkward part. The A6 becomes the M6 and runs straight at the Fourvière tunnel, which is closed to goods vehicles above 7.5 tonnes and to anything over 4.5 metres high, so a large lorry is signed round the east side of the city instead.
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
The Croix-Rousse market mornings
The boulevard de la Croix-Rousse carries a food market every day except Monday, opening at six in the morning and running to the middle of the day, public holidays included. That is the plateau's main artery, so a delivery there is a Monday job, or an afternoon one once the stalls have gone.
Fête des Lumières, 5 to 8 December 2026
The festival runs from Saturday 5 to Tuesday 8 December 2026 and draws several million people into the centre. Each evening the Presqu'île and Vieux-Lyon become a pedestrian perimeter, with parking suspended on streets named by arrêté nearer the time. Work in the centre on those dates has to finish early, or move to either side of them.
Paperwork once you arrive in Lyon
The préfecture du Rhône, and the ANEF portal
A carte de séjour for a Lyon address is asked of the préfecture du Rhône once a long-stay visa runs out, and the whole file goes through the national ANEF portal. Anyone already holding a permit valid for more than a year has to declare a change of address there within three months, and an attestation comes back to keep.
If the new address is inside the zone
Living inside the limited-traffic zone makes you a permanent ayant droit, but only once you have registered. The LPA portal takes up to two registrations per household, against a proof of address under three months old in your own name and the vehicle's carte grise; the access it grants opens forty-eight hours later and lasts two years.
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 Lyon — reserving a temporary parking space for a removal (OTEP) ↗
- Métropole de Lyon — getting into the Presqu'île limited-traffic zone ↗
- Métropole de Lyon — low-emission zone rules for goods vehicles ↗
- Villeurbanne — removal and delivery parking authorisation ↗
Local rules change. We checked these in September 2026 and confirm the current position for your street when we plan your delivery.
Moving from Lyon back to the UK
Going the other way, the Presqu'île is the same obstacle in reverse. The OTEP request still has to be in a week ahead, the bollards still decide which hour a vehicle may stand there, and a flat on the slopes is emptied through the same window it was filled through. Only the direction of the carry changes.
In the quote box, switch to “to the UK” and Lyon moves to the collection end.
Collecting from anywhere in the UK
Moving to Lyon — your questions
How much does a removal from the UK to Lyon cost?
Transport and customs documentation for a one-bedroom part load from the UK to Lyon 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 Lyon take?
Transit to Lyon 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.
Our new flat is on the Presqu'île — how does a lorry get in?
Through one of five bollarded accesses, and the hour decides how. Before one in the afternoon the bollards are down, nothing has to be registered first, and written proof of the job is enough if you are stopped. After that, the plate must be entered on the LPA site forty-eight hours ahead. The official guide names a house move among the reasons for occasional access — and is blunt that this lets a vehicle drive in, not stand still: the OTEP request is separate.
Is there a loading bay we could use instead?
Not for a household move. Lyon and Villeurbanne share around 1,500 delivery bays, usable from seven o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening with a delivery disc and limited to half an hour. Inside the bollarded pedestrian streets it is stricter again: deliveries between six and half past eleven only, no parking at all, and a stop of thirty minutes on a time-stamped ticket. That is why the kerb is reserved in advance instead.
Does a Lyon arrêté cover an address in Villeurbanne or Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon?
No. Each commune round Lyon grants its own, on its own notice and by its own route. Villeurbanne takes an online request; Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon a form emailed to its Service Cadre de vie; Écully works by email to its police municipale. Give us the exact address early, because the boundary, not the postal town, decides which office is asked and how long it needs.
We are on the Croix-Rousse slopes with no lift. What should the survey see?
The stairwell and the street. Canut flats were built for looms, so ceilings are high, windows are tall and the stone stairs often turn in a spiral that defeats a wardrobe. Show us the landing turns, say which floor you are on, and photograph the ground in front of the building: on a montée, what stands outside decides more than what is inside.
Is Lyon's low-emission zone actually still running?
Yes. Parliament voted to abolish the French low-emission zones and the Conseil constitutionnel struck the article out in May 2026, on the ground that it had no place in the bill carrying it, so the 2021 law behind the zones stands. The Métropole de Lyon published a note that August saying its own zone remains in force. Officers enforce it by stopping vehicles or ticketing parked ones rather than by camera.
How do I book my move to Lyon?
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 Bordeaux
- Removals to Marseille
- All of France →
Other European destinations
Price your move to Lyon
- About three minutes
- No card needed for a price
- Fixed after a free survey
Lyon, France · page reviewed September 2026