If you are relocating to Antalya, Fethiye, Bodrum, Izmir or Istanbul, the hardest part of the move is rarely the flight — it is working out how to get your furniture, books, kitchen equipment and the things you actually care about from a European address to a Turkish one without them spending six weeks in a container yard. RouteEU Express moves household goods by dedicated van, collected at your door in Europe and delivered to your door in Türkiye, usually within 24 to 48 hours of departure.
Your belongings are loaded once and unloaded once. There is no depot, no transhipment, no repacking by a local agent you have never met. Two drivers share the wheel so the vehicle keeps moving, the van is not affected by the weekend driving bans that hold up heavy trucks, everything travels under transport insurance, and you can watch the vehicle's position on a live map for the whole journey.
| Route | Transit time |
|---|---|
| Vienna → Istanbul | 20-32 hours |
| Munich → Istanbul | 24-36 hours |
| Paris → Istanbul | 34-48 hours |
| Amsterdam → Istanbul | 30-46 hours |
| Route | Price range |
|---|---|
| Munich → Istanbul | €1,700 – €2,200 |
| Vienna → Istanbul | €1,600 – €2,100 |
| Amsterdam → Istanbul | €1,900 – €2,500 |
| Paris → Istanbul | €1,900 – €2,500 |
These are indicative ranges for a full van of roughly 1,300 kg / 5 euro pallets / 13.5 m³ and vary with season, fuel and demand. Onward delivery beyond Istanbul to the coast is quoted separately. If you are moving only part of a household, you pay for the volume you use — request a quotation in the app for a figure based on your own address and inventory.
Most of the people we move fall into one of four groups. Retirees buying or renting on the Turkish coast, who want their own bed, their own armchair and their own kitchen rather than starting again from a furniture showroom. Remote workers and digital nomads settling in Istanbul or Izmir, whose priority is a desk setup, monitors, an instrument or a bicycle arriving intact. Families relocating for a partner's job, moving a full household. And people going the other way — professionals finishing a posting in Türkiye and moving back to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium or France.
The common thread is scale. A full 40-foot container is far more space than most of these moves need, and an international parcel service becomes absurdly expensive once a wardrobe or a sofa is involved. A single van of about 13.5 m³ and 1,300 kg covers a studio or a one-bedroom flat when wardrobes are dismantled; larger homes usually need two vans or a second trip. Weight can bind before volume does — books, tools and white goods fill the payload quickly — so tell us roughly what is in the load and we will say honestly whether one van is enough. For anything smaller you can book part of a van and pay for the volume you actually occupy.
A short list settles this before the van arrives rather than on the doorstep. We cannot load dangerous goods of any kind: gas bottles from the barbecue, petrol and diesel cans, paint, solvents, thinners, aerosols, fireworks or batteries shipped loose rather than fitted inside a device. Please drain the tank of any mower or scooter completely before collection. We also cannot carry medicines, food of animal origin, live plants or pets, and you should keep cash, jewellery, passports and original documents with you personally rather than in the load space.
Everything else — furniture, appliances, electronics, books, bicycles, tools, kitchenware — travels normally, provided it is packed and secured properly. If an item is borderline, mention it when you request the quotation and we will tell you plainly whether it can go.
Before you book anything, it is worth being honest about what deserves a place in the van, because moving everything is rarely the cheapest or the smartest option. Türkiye runs on 220-240 V at 50 Hz with Europlug and Schuko-type sockets, so appliances from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and France generally work without conversion — but UK equipment needs adapters, and anything designed for a different voltage or fitted to a specific kitchen carcass is often more trouble than it is worth. Bulky flat-pack furniture is another common regret: a wardrobe that cost a few hundred euros new can easily take up a quarter of the load space, and the same money buys a replacement locally.
The other half of that decision is the part that removal companies rarely volunteer. Cheap flat-pack shelving, a three-year-old sofa, garden furniture and the contents of the loft cost real money to move and almost nothing to replace in Türkiye, where furniture, white goods and household basics are widely available and often cheaper than in Northern Europe. Paint, solvents and gas bottles are a separate matter — they cannot travel at all, so plan to use them up or dispose of them before the van arrives. Selling or donating those items before you go usually saves more than it costs you in replacements. A simple rule works well: for each large item, ask what it would cost to buy the equivalent locally, and compare that with the share of the van it will occupy.
What is genuinely worth shipping, in our experience, is everything that fails that test in the opposite direction — the pieces that are expensive to replace, impossible to replace, or that make an unfamiliar flat feel like home:
The traditional route for an international move is a shipping container, and for very large households it can still be the right answer. Once you are moving the contents of a four or five-bedroom house, a car, or a workshop full of machinery, the cost per cubic metre in a 20 or 40-foot container is hard to beat, and it is worth getting a sea freight quotation alongside ours.
For everything below that threshold, road transport usually wins on the two things people care about most. Time: a van leaves your address and arrives at the Turkish address in one to two days, whereas a container move from Northern Europe to a Turkish port typically runs to four to eight weeks door to door once you count collection, stuffing, sailing, port clearance and onward delivery. Handling: a container is loaded at your home, unloaded at the port of origin, restowed, unloaded again at destination and transferred to a local truck — five or six touch points, each one a chance for something to be dropped, scuffed or mislaid. Our van is loaded at your old address and opened again at your new one.
Used household goods and personal effects are treated differently from commercial cargo when they enter Türkiye. In general terms, the framework covers people transferring their normal residence to Türkiye, with the claim typically supported by a residence permit or the appropriate visa, a detailed inventory of the goods with approximate values, a passport copy and the transport documents; the goods themselves must have been in your use rather than newly purchased for the move. Certain categories, notably vehicles, alcohol, tobacco, firearms and some electronics, sit outside the normal personal-effects treatment and follow their own rules.
We prepare the inventory with you, coordinate the file with a customs broker at the Turkish border and keep the vehicle moving while the declaration is processed. What we will not do is quote you a duty figure or promise an exemption, because the thresholds, time limits and documentary requirements change and they depend on your personal status. Please confirm the current rules for your own situation with a licensed customs broker or the relevant customs authority before you pack — this page describes the general framework and is not a substitute for professional advice.
A typical relocation runs in four stages, and you can follow each one from the app:
Every move is carried out under a written transport contract with a CMR consignment note and an itemised inventory, so what left the house is documented before the doors close. All goods travel under transport insurance; for higher-value items — artwork, instruments, professional equipment — we agree the declared value and the scope of cover in writing at the quotation stage rather than leaving it to be argued about later.
Tracking is live rather than a daily status message. You see the vehicle on a map at any hour, which matters more than you would think when you are waiting in an empty flat in Antalya trying to decide whether the delivery lands today or tomorrow. One company handles the whole movement, so there is one phone number to call and one invoice at the end.
The service is symmetrical. If your contract in Istanbul has ended, or you are returning to Europe after several years on the coast, we run the same door-to-door removals from Turkish addresses to Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Poland and Scandinavia, with the same transit times, the same insurance and the same live tracking.
Return legs are frequently cheaper than one-way movements, because a vehicle that has already delivered in Türkiye would otherwise travel back empty. If your dates are even slightly flexible, say so when you request the quotation — it can make a noticeable difference to the price. Customs formalities in the export direction follow the rules of the destination country, and the same advice applies: confirm the current requirements with a customs broker before you pack.
The road leg is fast: Vienna to Istanbul is typically 20 to 32 hours, Munich 24 to 36, Amsterdam 30 to 46 and Paris 34 to 48 hours door to door. Add a little time for customs clearance at the border and for onward delivery if your new address is on the coast rather than in Istanbul. A container move over the same route normally takes four to eight weeks.
A full van from Amsterdam to Istanbul falls in the range of €1,900 – €2,500, with other departure cities shown in the rate table above. If you are moving less than a full load, you pay for the volume you occupy instead of the whole vehicle. Send us the addresses and a rough inventory in the app and you will get an indicative figure within seconds.
Used household goods brought in by someone transferring their residence to Türkiye are handled under a personal-effects regime rather than as commercial imports, normally on the basis of a residence permit or appropriate visa, a detailed inventory and proof that the items were in your use. Vehicles, alcohol, tobacco and some other categories are excluded from that treatment. The thresholds and paperwork change, so confirm your own position with a licensed customs broker or the customs authority before shipping; this answer describes the general framework and is not formal advice.
Yes. Part-load space is available on scheduled departures, so a dozen boxes, a bicycle and a desk can travel without you hiring a whole vehicle. You pay for the volume and weight you use, and the goods still go door to door without being transhipped along the way.
Our drivers dismantle standard items such as beds, wardrobes and tables at collection and reassemble them on delivery, and everything is blanket-wrapped and secured in the van. Full packing of crockery, glassware and small items is available as a priced extra on request — mention it when you ask for the quotation so we can allow the time and include it in the price.
Every move travels under a written contract with a CMR consignment note, which sets the carrier's liability at 8.33 SDR per kilogram of gross weight — a legal cap that rarely matches what a household of furniture and electronics is actually worth. For that reason we arrange additional cargo insurance on request, based on the declared values in your inventory. Tell us about artwork, instruments, professional equipment or anything else of unusual value before the van is loaded, so the cover is agreed in writing rather than argued about after a claim.
Yes. Each vehicle carries live GPS tracking and you can see its position on a map at any time of day or night, right up to the moment it reaches your new address. You also have a single point of contact for the whole move rather than being passed between agents in two countries.