Partial load UK to Spain
Shared route, full service

Who a shared load suits, and who it does not

A partial load is the right shape when your goods would rattle around in a lorry of their own: a one-bedroom flat, a student room, the first phase of a move that will finish later, or a few pieces of furniture for a property in Spain you already live in. You pay for the space your goods take up rather than for the whole vehicle.

It is the wrong shape in two situations. The first is a firm handover date at both ends, because a shared vehicle runs to the route rather than to your diary. The second is a load dominated by fragile antiques that should be handled as little as possible, where a dedicated vehicle avoids the extra handling a shared run can involve. If either applies, ask us to quote both; the survey usually settles it.

How a shared load runs, step by step

1. You send us the details through the quote form. For smaller loads we work from a room-by-room list or a video walk-round; for anything larger, a surveyor visits.
2. We measure the load in cubic metres and give you a written quote for the space, the customs work and the cover. Nothing is estimated from a guess at the number of boxes.
3. We offer the collection windows the route has open for your part of Spain, and you choose the one that suits you.
4. Our UK crew collects, wraps each item and labels it with your consignment reference, then loads it into its own section of the vehicle. Your goods are inventoried separately from everyone else's, never pooled.
5. Where the route needs it, your goods wait at our UK depot while the load for that region is assembled. They stay on your inventory the whole time.
6. We file the UK export declaration and prepare the Spanish import declaration and relief claim against your inventory.
7. In Spain, our destination team delivers your consignment to the door, checks each item off the inventory with you and places furniture in the rooms you choose.

What changes a part-load quote

The measured volume comes first. After that, access at both ends: stairs without a lift, a long carry from the nearest legal parking, or a building that only allows deliveries at certain times all add handling. Date flexibility matters too, because a load that can ride on whichever run suits the route is easier to place than one that must arrive in a narrow window. Packing by our crew, crates for anything delicate and a sea leg to the Balearics or the Canaries are itemised separately.

Our guide to the cost of moving from the UK to Spain explains how a part-load figure is built and how to compare quotes that are not laid out the same way.

Spain-specific points for a small move

A small consignment still crosses a customs frontier. If you are moving your residence, the transfer-of-residence relief applies to a few boxes just as it does to a full house, and Spanish customs want the same itemised inventory to support it. The customs declarations guide covers what the claim needs from you.

Not every small move is a change of residence. Furniture for a second home you do not live in, belongings for a student year and goods you are sending ahead of a move that has not happened yet are each assessed under different conditions. Students' belongings have their own relief category, for example. Tell us which situation you are in when you ask for a quote, so the declaration matches.

Flats are the usual delivery point for a part load, and Spanish apartment buildings are run by a comunidad de propietarios with its own rules. Many limit removals to certain hours, ask for the lift to be protected and want notice through the administrador de fincas. Our destination team asks for those rules before the delivery is booked rather than finding them out at the door.