Moving Your Belongings: Long but Surprisingly Easy Process

 

Moving to Armenia has multiple facets and having your belongings shipped over is only one small part of it. Or so it seems. My family newly moved to the homeland, arriving on August 15 with multiple luggage and handbags, the rest of their personal items having been put on the road as of July 29 from the city of Toronto in Canada.

The shipping company was a Canadian one that works internationally and knew what they were doing, at least on the Canadian side. It appears that the Armenian world is a bit of a mystery to many, since some of the information provided initially either omitted certain facts or they were left in the dark about the procedures of customs here. Since we are Armenians moving to the homeland, we qualify for the tax-free regime of bringing our belongings over. There are, however, certain rules connected with that, including making sure that the car you are driving has been in your possession for over 6 months. 

As of November 12, 2015, those who move to Armenia may bring with them`
- 3 maximum of each electronic piece used for personal and daily purposes, so long as it’s not new and in original boxes. It must show some wear and tear
- 1 complete set of each type of furniture only for personal use
- 1 car for personal use
- Personal items outside of those mentioned can be brought in without limit. 

The law can be found here.

Originally, we were told that the amount paid for the shipping would include bringing it right to your door. We were told that once everything arrived, it would be brought to wherever we wanted it within the first two days, after which it would no longer be their responsibility. Unfortunately, what was not told is that the procedure of applying for the special permission to have the belongings released, including the car and about 100 boxes in our case, would take a minimum of 10 and up to 30 working days. They had mentioned changing rules in Armenia as an excuse when confronted about this. This was certainly stressful and included a lot of running around.

The container arrived in Armenia by September 5th, within the 40-50 day mark we had expected. It had taken exactly 30 days. That was great, especially since we got updates on exactly where the shipment was, from the port in Turkey to Poti, and then a final email stating that it would be in Armenia on September 5. We were told to be at a certain place that turned out to be the storage warehouse for cars in customs that have not yet been released at 9:30 in the morning. The truck took the container to the wrong place however and only arrived around an hour and half later, at which point the unloading was quick enough and he took the rest of the container back to the Abaven warehouse that the company from Canada was working with.

As expected, information got lost in the mix and we were told to go to our broker at this point, which was in the heart of the city, while the customs area for cars and the Abaven warehouse were up around the borders of Yerevan, very close to one another. Once down, the broker told us that we did not need to be there but instead would have to wait now until 2 pm (because it was already around 12:15) in order to go back up to the warehouse, since 1-2 pm is lunch break for all government workers; customs workers there would not be around to get our paperwork done.

That was a waste of a few hours that could have been more productively used should the ones in charge of taking care of our shipment been more clearly in touch. We waited and then headed back up to Abaven, where the truck was brought in, weighed, the boxes stored in our section of the warehouse, weighed again and locked away. At this point it was all about the paperwork and boy was it great that my husband is a lawyer and has a team that could help. While you certainly can do this all on your own, having someone who speaks the local dialect and knows the rules of the country well helps immensely to prevent miscommunication.

The customs workers have a very inconvenient system, where each document had to be stamped and signed by too many different people sitting in too many different rooms and buildings. The staff were kind enough and no one gave us a problem, but the whole process was drawn out and exhausting. It just seemed like there were too many people working and reducing productivity overall, with 5-6 people doing the same work one can do him or herself. Plus, if one person forgot to stamp or sign, you had to run around and redo the process, waiting in line again and again. The whole of the document work took about 3-4 hours. Finally we got to go home and wait out the long process of getting our request for a tax-free release from customs approved. That would take a while. In the meantime, warehouse fees were piling up…

The second and third time we went to the warehouse was to simply weigh every single box and/or similar style item. What we did not know is that we might need to open many of them to show exactly what it was we were bringing in and that everything was for personal use. This is something I’ll stress below in the tips section. Everything was weighed based on material more than anything else, with glassware separate from the metals and plastics, the clothes separate from the bedding and the porcelain. It was exhausting and extremely time consuming. It was a good thing there was nothing edible in there. That would have caused problems.

It was the broker’s assistant taking notes of all weights. It was actually quite easy for us and the customs workers though, because all boxes had been numbered and lists made about what exactly was included in each. Now if we only knew to keep it to one type of personal good per box. Only plastics from the kitchen in one for example, or bedroom bedding in the other. Even glassware and porcelain should be separately boxed. No payments were made throughout this process and no problems given other than the exhaustion of opening and weighing box after box. However, we were told that we might need to come in a third time to make sure the information was correct and offer an explanation for any items that were unclear as personal belongings. Thank goodness that was not required. 

The biggest annoyance was the time it took to have the paperwork processed proving that we were bringing in personal belongings as repatriates. It took about 3 weeks for the initial approval to be received to bring the car and belongings out of customs, but it was only another 1.5 weeks later that the second approval to be received for the electronics in our boxes. The broker told us we can grab the car first, followed by the belongings, but that would require the second approval as well. As such, we had the car in our possession by September 28. For the rest of our belongings, as soon as the electronics approval arrived, we went to Abaven to finalize documents, pay for the warehouse, and find a truck to get the boxes home.

We ended up paying extra for the laborers and truck, along with the warehouse fees. Otherwise, everything was smooth sailing at this point. 
As for getting the car released from customs; that was a very long process, with long lines to wait in and an inadequate system that sent us all over the property. There did not seem to be a proper network meaning that the same information was constantly given over and over again. For a car park, it was interesting that the road leading to the property was completely unpaved.

The whole process took another 4-4.5 hours. Once we arrived at 2 pm, it was the car checkup and CO checkup we went through. Documents were provided by our broker that was once again taken room to room in order to get all stamps and signatures. It was a good thing they had a car broker on the spot as our customs broker did not deal with that aspect of the move. The broker went to have the documents approved, after which the warehouse fees were paid for. A second checkup was performed before we got the license plate approval, after which we stood in line for an hour to receive the plate. The system was not very efficient and there was no real lineup, with each cutting before the other. There seemed to be a lack of rules and regulations here. The quickest aspects were the payment systems. 

Overall costs:
Car-
• Customs paperwork fee: 8,500 AMD
• Broker fee: 35,000 AMD
• Warehouse fees: 1600/day leading to 38,400 AMD overall
• CO checkup: 2,000 AMD
• License plate state fee (for regular plate): 36000 AMD
Personal belongings-
• Customs paperwork fee: 11,000 AMD
• Broker fee: 180,000 AMD
• Warehouse fee: 200 per sqm/day leading to 160000 AMD, discounted to 141,000 AMD overall
• Truck delivery: 40,000 AMD
• Laborer fee: 60,000 AMD for group of 5 loading and unloading truck at 3 destinations

At the end of the day, all staff members were very positive and very helpful, despite the legalities that annoyed us in the process. It is certainly worth noting that the people were very good to work with in general and we had no problems in communication. That might have been due to having a lawyer helping us out. In our case, he was free due to being a family member. The whole process was certainly smoother, albeit much longer, than we imagined it would be, with most people involved hoping to be as helpful as possible.