Cost of Moving Household Goods to Mexico
The cost to legitimately (i.e., safely and legally) move your household goods to Mexico will depend on several factors, including:
- The size or weight of your shipment of household goods to Mexico.
- Who does the packing and loading of your international household goods shipment to Mexico.
- What insurance is offered or available.
- Where you’re moving your household goods from.
- Where you’re moving your household goods to in Mexico.
- How you move your household goods to Mexico (i.e., if you do it, you get your friend to help you, you use a traditional international moving company, or you use an innovative moving company.)
Let’s consider each factor.
The Size or Weight of Your Shipment to Mexico.
Many traditional movers who move used household goods to Mexico via land on trucks and most shippers who move used household goods to Mexico via sea will charge via weight. This can be a bit of a challenge for you as the customer for several reasons, including that very few people know the weight of the household goods they want to move to Mexico. For this reason, very few people have a good understanding of the validity or even relevance of their estimate from the moving company to move their household goods to Mexico when that estimate is calculated based on weight. For example, you can get a quote via weight, agree, have your used household goods loaded into the truck at your home, have that truck leave, later on get weighed and (surprise!) your household goods weigh more than your quote and you owe the moving company several thousand dollars. (Good luck negotiating that, with your items already packed and loaded and gone on a truck.)
Other legitimate international movers of used household goods to Mexico will charge via volume (sometimes referred to as “size” or, more specifically, “cubic feet”). Most people moving their household goods to Mexico prefer this method because at least they can see with their own eyes how much room their shipment occupies on the truck or trailer and therefore, how the volume you’re moving will affect the cost to move their household goods to Mexico.
Who Does the Packing and Loading of your Items.
Loading your household goods is the process of placing your household goods into a truck or trailer. Packing is everything that happens prior to loading and usually consists of putting your items into boxes and wrapping furniture.
Here is a list of how this can be accomplished, from the least expensive to the most expensive.
Do all your packing and loading yourself.
By “yourself” you may include your friends, your cousin, etc.; people who you don’t have to pay, other than perhaps with a pizza afterwards and a promise to help them when they move. The advantages of doing your own packing and loading mainly revolve around cost. The disadvantages include generally less quality work and not being able to be insured for loss or damages. (More on that below, under “Insurance”.)
Have a professional independent packer and loader do the packing and loading.
Independent packers and loaders are those who are not part of a big network you’ve heard of before, like Allied or United or Bekins. These independent packers and loaders can range from a guy you meet outside the hardware store (bad idea) to professional packers and loaders who pack and load for a living. Lots of the independent packers and loaders do a better job than the packers and loaders from the traditional movers and cost much less.
You can either have these independent packers and loaders do all of your packing and loading, some of it, or none of it; it’s your choice. If you choose to do some of the packing yourself while still utilizing independent professional packers and loaders for other items in your shipment, the best way to do this is to divide your household goods into two groups: 1) less fragile, less expensive, easy to pack items that are less likely to be damaged, such as clothing, towels, linens, perhaps some books; and, 2) more fragile, more expensive, more difficult to pack items that are more likely to be damaged, like the fine crystal and expensive artwork. Then, you may want to pack your own items in the first group while having the professional packers and loaders pack the items in the second group. The result is less money spent on packing and loading with not that much of an additional risk. Most people who do this allow the professional packers and loaders to do all the loading into the truck or trailer.
Use a traditional moving and storage company’s packers and loaders.
Generally, these packers and loaders are just whichever Origin Agents are assigned to your area from a well-known network. Like the quality of any packing and loading, the quality of job they do can vary pretty dramatically. This is why, when you look at reviews of companies that are part of an international moving company network, they are not even—sometimes the Origin Agents did a good job and sometimes, they didn’t. And if they don’t do a good job of packing and loading, the result will not be good at delivery. Of all the options for packing and loading, Origin Agents from household name moving and storage companies charge the most.
What Insurance is Offered or Available.
We recommend strongly that you think about insurance when moving your household goods to Mexico. Lots can happen along the way and if you’re not insured or if you’re insured improperly, you could lose everything.
Also, the type of insurance your moving company offers you and even if they offer you any insurance at all tells you a lot about that company.
If the company that is moving your used household goods to Mexico does not offer insurance for your household goods, you should find out why not. Generally, the reason is that no insurance company would underwrite their insurance, which usually means that something very bad happened.
Many international moving companies will tell you that insurance is included. When they say this, it is because the insurance they offer is by weight, without regard to how much any of your items are worth. Generally, the insurance is for 60 cents per pound. Therefore, if your nine pound TV gets broken or lost, you may get around $5.40. When this is understood by the person moving their household goods, they generally aren’t too happy about it.
Other legitimate moving companies offer insurance for their clients’ household goods moving to Mexico via a legitimate, third-party insurance company that specializes in this type of insurance. Generally, there are various types of insurance available, with various deductibles and costs. When you’re figuring your budget for your household goods move to Mexico, don’t forget to consider the risk you’re taking with your precious household goods and the cost you’re spending to protect it.
Where You’re Moving your Household Goods from.
If you’re moving from a place other than Canada or the US and a few countries just to the south of Mexico, you’ll have to move via sea. Moving via sea can seem inexpensive at first, considering, for example, the distance traveled. (More on that below.). For the rest of us whose move originates in Canada or the US, the generally accepted best option is to move via land (or, as they say in the moving business, via “surface”), which means that you will move via truck or a trailer.
When you move via truck or trailer, where you’re moving from is a big portion of the overall cost of moving your used household goods to Mexico. But it’s not just about distance. There are lots of other factors to consider as well, including:
- If there a lot of competition to provide transportation services from where you’re moving from, all things being equal, the cost will be lower.
- If there is a lot of service from the place you’re moving from, that will also move costs down. For example, if the truck has to travel into the middle of Montana to a ranch to pick up your household goods, there will be fewer transportation companies willing to do that for a good price, which will put upwards pressure on your cost.
- Can the transportation company match up an offload just before they pick up your household goods. If they can, great, they can come right over with their newly emptied truck or trailer and very efficiently pick up your household goods. If they cannot get an offload just before they pick up your household goods, then they will have to travel further with an empty trailer or truck, which lowers their revenue and increases your costs.
- Time of year and other factors unrelated to your move can also affect the cost of transporting your household goods from your home. For example, if the transportation company has a lot of produce to pick up in Central California and you want to move from Central California, your shipment will need to compete with all the other shipments for trucks, which raises your price.
Where You’re Moving your Household Goods to in MX.
This factor is very similar to where you’re moving your household goods from, and the same sorts of factors apply.
Transportation companies like to deliver to places where they can as quickly as possible get a shipment coming to the next place. This means that, all other things being equal, it will be less expensive to ship to Mexico City per mile or kilometer than to a place in the mountains that is closer to the border but 30 miles from the nearest small town. As a result, distance is one factor in the cost of moving your used household goods within Mexico, but it is not the only factor.
How you Move your Household Goods.
The least expensive way to move used household goods to Mexico is via a non-legitimate source. This source will be missing one or all three of the requirements for a legitimate mover: making all submissions to Mexican customs using the menaje de casa, using licensed customs brokers, and mandating some form of insurance. Even though using a non-legitimate source is often the least expensive, it is also the most risky. The reasons moving this way is risky include that they are breaking the law in Mexico (and, less importantly but also worth mentioning), they are breaking the law in the US, which sometimes works, and sometimes, does not work. When it does not work, of course, you have no insurance, so you’re just out of luck.
Why don’t you hear more instances of these moves going bad? Most people who are the victim of using a non-legitimate source to try to move their used household goods to Mexico don’t usually brag about it to strangers on Facebook.
As a much better option than using a non-legitimate source would be to contract with one of the more innovative movers (like us), which many times have significantly lower prices. Each of these types of movers offer different levels of service and different levels of security and different processes that they would need to explain, because there are so many different alternatives. Any legitimate international mover to Mexico will use the menaje de casa, licensed customs brokers, and will mandate some form of insurance. If this isn’t the case, you don’t have a legitimate mover.
The most expensive way to move your household goods to Mexico would be to use one of the traditional van lines, such as United, Mayflower, or Allied. These companies will use the same process that has not changed for decades. The advantage to using an agent from one of these networks is that they all offer some form of insurance, and whatever satisfaction is gained by contracting with a company with a household name.
Click here to learn how Best Mexico Movers process compares to other movers that deliver to Mexico.
