Professional Packing Services
Packing for an international move is not the same as packing for a move across town. Your belongings will spend weeks at sea, pass through customs in Spain, and change hands multiple times before they reach your door. What survives that journey without damage is largely determined by how well it was packed before it left your home.
SDC’s professional packing service is built specifically for international shipments. We use export-grade materials, build custom crates for items that need them, create the itemized inventory that Spanish customs requires, and prepare everything for container loading. If you’re planning a move to Spain, packing is where the process either gets set up for success or starts accumulating problems.
How the Packing Process Works
Pre-Move Assessment
Before packing day, a relocation specialist reviews your inventory with you. We identify items that need custom crating, flag anything that may require special handling or documentation, and build a packing plan that accounts for the specific demands of your shipment. This conversation also covers the customs inventory requirement, since Spain requires a detailed, itemized list of everything in your container before it can clear.
Packing Day
Our crew arrives with all materials. Furniture is wrapped in heavy-duty pads. Fragile items, glassware, ceramics, and electronics, are packed with appropriate cushioning and anti-static barriers. Every box is labeled with its contents, destination room, and a reference number that corresponds to the customs inventory. Items that require custom crates are built and loaded on the same day.
Inventory and Documentation
The inventory we create isn’t just for your reference. It’s the document that goes to Spanish customs as part of your Transfer of Residence claim. Every item needs a description, category, and estimated value. We prepare this to meet Spanish import standards and review it with you before the shipment leaves. A well-prepared inventory is one of the most effective ways to avoid delays at the port. Our Spain customs forms page covers what the documentation process involves.
Final Walkthrough and Load Prep
Once packing is complete, we walk through the home with you to confirm nothing has been missed. All packed goods are then prepared for container loading, either a full container load or a shared container depending on your shipment volume, secured to withstand the conditions of an ocean voyage.
Full-Service or Partial Packing
You can choose how much of the packing SDC handles. Full-service means our crew packs everything, including disassembling and wrapping large furniture, and unpacking at your Spanish address if you want that service. It’s the most hands-off option and ensures every item is packed to professional export standards, which matters for insurance coverage. If any item is damaged in transit, professionally packed shipments are covered under our international moving insurance in ways that self-packed boxes typically are not.
Partial packing is available for clients who prefer to handle standard items themselves and have SDC manage the fragile, oversized, or high-value pieces. A common split is clothing, books, and linens packed by the client, with dishes, artwork, electronics, and specialty items handled by our crew. We’ll give you guidance on what to pack yourself and what to leave for us, and we supply professional-grade materials for anything we pack.
The right choice depends on your timeline, budget, and what you’re shipping. We can talk through the tradeoffs during the planning consultation. Our international moving insurance page covers how coverage works in relation to packing method.
Custom Crating for High-Value and Fragile Items
Standard boxes are appropriate for most household items. For anything that’s irreplaceable, exceptionally fragile, or unusually shaped, we build custom wooden crates. Each crate is constructed to the specific dimensions of the item, lined with shock-absorbent foam, and sealed against moisture. The wood is ISPM-15 certified, which is required for wooden packaging entering Spain and the EU, ensuring the crate clears port inspection without issue.
Items that typically need custom crating include fine art and framed paintings, antique furniture, sculptures and ceramics, large mirrors and glass surfaces, musical instruments including pianos, and oversized or irregularly shaped pieces. If you’re not certain whether something needs a crate, raise it during the pre-move assessment and we’ll make the call based on size, value, and fragility.
For clients shipping significant artwork or collections, we coordinate closely with our artwork shipping to Spain specialists, who handle the documentation and customs requirements specific to fine art imports.
Materials We Use
International packing materials are held to a different standard than domestic moving supplies. Your shipment will spend weeks in a container, subjected to humidity, vibration, and stacking pressure. We use double and triple-walled boxes that hold their shape under load, anti-static padding for electronics, moisture-barrier wrap for items sensitive to the humidity in ocean freight containers, and custom-fit foam inserts for fragile or irregular items. Furniture is wrapped in heavy-duty moving blankets and shrink wrap. Every box is reinforced with heavy-duty tape and edge guards.
The materials we bring to packing day are included in the service. You don’t need to source boxes or supplies.
Why Packing Method Affects More Than Just Damage Risk
There are three downstream consequences of packing that go beyond whether items arrive intact. First, your customs inventory has to match your shipment. If boxes are vaguely packed and poorly labeled, reconciling the physical contents with the declared inventory becomes a problem at the port. Second, insurance coverage for an international shipment is typically contingent on professional packing. Self-packed boxes are often excluded or subject to reduced coverage limits. Third, the condition of your items matters for the Transfer of Residence exemption: goods that appear new or commercially packaged raise questions about whether they qualify as used personal effects. Professionally packed, clearly inventoried household goods present fewer of those questions.
Ready to Get Started?
Packing is one of the first things we coordinate after your initial consultation, and getting it right from the start makes every step that follows easier. For context on how packing fits into the full move, our overview of international moving to Spain covers the complete process. When you’re ready to talk through your shipment specifically, call us at (844) 651-7050 or fill out the quote form on this page.
