"best" way to ship some furniture from US to CR

Hello there Howard,

welcome on board 

A new thread has been created from your post on the Costa Rica forum so that you may get some feedbacks.

In the meantime, you can request a free quote from our moving partner here : Moving to Costa Rica

All the best,
Bhavna

DO NOT SHIP IT BECAUSE YOU WILL BE TAXED TO THE HILT. MANY EXPATS FIND THIS OUT AFTER SHIPPING IN CONTAINERS ON SHIPS AND MANY END UP BEING CONFISCATED AFTER A PERIOD OF TIME AND SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER WHO THEN RESELLS FOR A PROFIT. YOU CAN AND SHOULD SIMPLY BE PREPARED TO BUY SOME EXCELLENT HARDWOOD PRODECTS MADE HERE IN COSTA RICA AND I WOULD SUGGEST GO TO PRICESMART TO BUY AN AMERICAN MADE MATTRESS . YOU CAN ALSO SERCH ON CRAIGS LIST COSTA RICA FOR NEARLY NEW AMERICAN MADE SOFAS ETC. IF YOU GO TO SARCHI YOU CAN GET CUSTOM MADE HARDWOOD FURNITURE MADE IN GUANACASTE AT A FRACTION OF THE PRICE IN THE USA MY EMAIL IS **. send me a messege and I will send you some photos of my furniture especially my custom made bar which would have cost over $3000 in the states but I paid $625 for it.

Used furniture is not heavily taxed.

We brought everything down in a 40 foot container and are pleased with our decision.  If you scroll to the bottom of this page there is a list of duties and tariffs.

First, you WILL NOT pay additional tax on used/new furniture if you ship through Michale with shippingcr.com.  The price he gives you is the price you pay - every single time.  YES, I have shipped with him many, many times with no problems.  Many Gringos use him.  You can ship partial loads.  I shipped some furniture on pallets and it was a lot cheaper.  I bought a new couch and shipped it on end after it was crated.  It cannot exceed 7' in height.  The price quote he gives you is the full price.  This may not be the case with other shippers.  This lesson I learned the hard way. 

They ship packages, pallets and full containers.  They are not the cheapest but I assure you that you get what you pay for with shippers here.

With that said, I would not recommend shipping furniture unless you have antiques or something of substantial value.  It will not be cost effective.  When I shipped some down years ago there was no "Gringo style" furniture available.  Now you can get nice leather couches, etc. at Pricesmart or Ashley's for a reasonable price.

- Expat Dave

Howard, we just shipped 3 pallets from the States using ShippingCR.com guy named Michael Baird 1 (786) 245-5165 easy guy to work with and had good references, so far so good. Price seem good also.

People in our development use Michael all the time.  We pool pick-ups we have so many people using him.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for participating in this thread. I would like to invite you to recommend your best moving company in our business directory  here > Moving company in Costa Rica click on "add a moving company" button.

Thank you 

We shipped five shrink-wrapped pallets out of the port of Miami. Each a pallet weighed between 600-750 pounds (my husband's tools were packed as well as household items). The cost from Miami to Costa Rica (Limon) and then overland by truck all the way up our mountain near Samara? $1.50 per pound, plus $150 for the overland truck (and I believe that included a tip -- don't hold me to that). Zero issues with Customs. Zero tax (and my husband shipped some new, in-the-box tools such as a welding thing and an air compressor).  Bear in mind that this $1.50 per pound did not include the overland trucking from our North Texas home to Miami.

We had all of our stuff unpacked and in our home less than four weeks after we landed in Costa Rica . . . and a portion of that time the pallets were still at sea.

I don't believe that this forum allows me to give you the name/link to our shipper. But feel free to email me directly. Our shipper is a great guy and we've even become good friends. We've had other items (small things purchased in the U.S., delivered free using Amazon Prime directly to the port in Miami, and then shipped here). Easy, honest, no false promises. I am in love with our shipper. Good luck.

Kathy,

Who did you use?  I was quoted $2 per pound with shppingcr.com.  .50¢ difference per pound on a pallet would make a big difference.  Thanks.

- Expat Dave

I used ShippingCR. We shipped in May of this year. Surely the price hasn't increased by 50-cents per pound in six months. Did Michael describe how to load and shrink-wrap the pallets? Tell him that Kathy paid $1.50.

Just FYI, I tried to do this. Kept getting a message in red about some field being incorrectly completed, though each field was completed correctly. I tried for 15 minutes then gave up.

kathybrowndavis wrote:

I used ShippingCR. We shipped in May of this year. Surely the price hasn't increased by 50-cents per pound in six months. Did Michael describe how to load and shrink-wrap the pallets? Tell him that Kathy paid $1.50.

Thanks, I will ask him about it.

Normally by ship in a container but be preparedto pay excessive import taxes unless you are a permanent resident. The port of Limon on the Gulf side has a lot of containers which have been abandoned due to the high tax.  Better to search Craigslist costa rica or buy locally . The prices will pleasantly surprise you especially for hardwood dressors etc.  Do not buy Costa Rican sofas or lazy chair as the padding is usually hard and will not be comfortable. BUY GOOD QUALITY AMERICAN  FURNITURE LIKE THIS ON Craigslist costarica

We shipped a portion of our USA furniture to CR (items that we really liked and wanted) and had a significant amount of custom made wood furniture made in CR.  Yes you will pay some customs fees but I do not feel that ours were "excessive" for the used furniture that we brought.  We also brought a used TV and stereo equipment - they are taxed more heavily, but they are also very expensive in CR for high quality equipment.

Hi Howard! Hooray, you’re moving to Costa Rica. That’s incredible. We moved down a year and a half ago with Pablo Arias’ company, International Relocation Partners. He is amazing. We shipped from Virginia and Pablo’s company handled everything so well, we used them again when we moved internally. Taxes are what they say. The most important thing is that on that end, you create a solid inventory list. Paperwork is KEY. And organization. Check to see what’s allowed and what’s not. A box of our shoes got held up because it wasn’t supposed to come in but Pablo managed to find it and deliver it. I’m happy to answer your questions about this. Good luck!

Hello Jill Reed,

Thank you for replying, but I doubt that the topic initiator will get to read your message as it is an old thread.

Cheers,

Cheryl
Expat.com team

Hi Cheryl,
You’re welcome and thanks for letting me know. Thie request to respond showed up in my email yesterday so it appeared current  I won’t respond to those emails anymore.

Did anyone ship a mattress?  I have the most comfortable one here that cost about $3500 from Mattress Firm and is so good I cannot bear living without it.

Jeff

It might (might) be cheaper to sell your beloved Mattress Firm mattress in the States and buy one here. Tempur Pedic, at least, is available herel