Tokyo to China: Sea Freight Process for Clearing Out a Rental Home

Most Tokyo leases expire at the end of the month, and the move-out inspection, key return, and restoration to original condition all pile up in the same week. If you wait until those few days to ship sofas, wardrobes, and an entire kitchen's worth of pots and dishes back to China, time will definitely not be enough. The more reliable approach is to treat moving out as a project with a fixed deadline and work backward: first lock in the pickup date, then work backward to packing, booking, and document preparation.

The following is based on a two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo, with the lease expiring at the end of March, and the client returning to China in early April and settling in Shanghai. The shipment is about 9 cubic meters, including one sofa, one dining table, one double-door wardrobe, and one bed frame, with the rest being boxed luggage.

Working backward from the lease expiration date

The key milestone is not the sailing date, but the pickup date. Local pickups are not arranged on weekends in Japan, so the pickup date must fall on a weekday and leave a buffer before the move-out date—emptying the apartment and loading the goods are the same event, and someone must be present on pickup day. The overseas driver only handles door-to-door pickup and does not provide on-site packing services.

Based on experience, the pickup date should be set 5 to 7 days before move-out. Working backward:

• 3 to 4 weeks before move-out: confirm the volume, choose the plan, and book the shipment. International ocean freight quotes fluctuate with fuel, space, and geopolitical conditions; booking early can lock in capacity. Specific freight rates are subject to real-time quotes.
• 2 weeks before move-out: finish disposing of items not being taken (book bulky waste collection, sell secondhand items), and start sorting boxes. Bulky waste in Japan requires a reservation and the purchase of disposal tickets, and this step is the easiest to leave until the last moment.
• 1 week before move-out: on-site packing and pickup. Japanese warehouses can store goods free of charge for one to two weeks, so picking up earlier than the sailing date will not incur extra storage fees. This buffer is exactly what you need to handle unexpected issues on move-out day.

One reminder: foreign currency payments take about 1 to 2 weeks to arrive. If the deposit is paid in USD, you need to allow extra time. The deposit must be remitted by bank transfer, and overseas QR code payments are not supported. This step must be factored in before scheduling; otherwise, it will affect the pickup arrangement.

How to pack large items like sofas and wardrobes

The packaging requirements on the Japan export side are stricter than most people expect. Japanese customs requires clean outer packaging and prohibits writing on boxes. Raw wood crates and packaging bearing manufacturer logos cannot be exported and may also be taxed; non-compliant packaging incurs a repacking fee of 300 yuan per cubic meter. Therefore, cabinets just bought from a furniture store with the original cartons still printed with trademarks must be repacked in the warehouse: the original boxes are removed and replaced with unmarked plywood crates or five-layer corrugated cartons, declared as used personal belongings. During repacking, items are also checked for rust and moisture. Furniture manuals should be kept, while manuals for small loose items can be discarded directly. Before LCL cargo enters the supervised warehouse, the outer boxes must also bear a unified shipping mark.

Large items are handled according to three categories. Detachable panel furniture (bed frames, dining table legs) should be disassembled before packing, and the removed screws and fittings should be bagged and secured inside the box to avoid being unable to reassemble them after arrival. Non-detachable sofas and wardrobes should be wrapped whole in bubble wrap and then fitted with five-layer corrugated corner protectors; corners are high-risk areas for damage. Valuable or irregularly shaped single items should use custom wooden crates, charged by cubic meter, with less than 1 cubic meter counted as 1 cubic meter. Crates must be made of fumigation-free plywood or three-ply board, with hinges and 10 to 12 cm forklift feet; items over 30 kg per piece must also have space reserved for forklift feet.

Appliances with built-in batteries cannot be shipped by sea. Dyson vacuum cleaners, cordless floor washers, and similar items must have their batteries removed or be carried with you. Solid wood, rattan, and bamboo products require fumigation for export. For the part you pack yourself, number each box and list the contents in Chinese; vague descriptions like "daily necessities" will require supplementary explanation during customs clearance.

The practical boundary between LCL and FCL

The boundary between LCL (less than container load, i.e., sharing a container with other shippers) and FCL (full container load, i.e., a container used by one household) is actually determined by volume.

A 20GP container holds about 25 to 26 cubic meters, and a 40HQ about 58 to 67 cubic meters. For a whole-house furniture shipment of 9 cubic meters, LCL is the only economically viable option; only when the shipment approaches 25 cubic meters (for example, a whole detached house move) does FCL begin to make sense for comparison. Below 2 cubic meters, the minimum door-to-door ocean freight volume is not cost-effective, and it is more reasonable to switch to luggage express charged per box: Japan routes accept shipments from 2 boxes, arrive door-to-door in 10 to 25 days, and are priced per box, which is more flexible than a full ocean freight shipment.

Local road conditions in Japan do not support delivering containers directly to the foot of apartment buildings. After the goods arrive at the port, they must first be devanned from the container and brought into a warehouse, then delivered by local truck. When choosing a service provider, confirm that it has warehouses and delivery capability in Japan, rather than just quoting an ocean freight unit price.

Identity documents required for China customs clearance

Clearance documents fall into two sets depending on identity, and Chinese nationality and foreign nationality cannot be mixed.

Chinese consignee

• Original passport. Starting May 22, 2026, Beijing Customs requires the original passport for clearance of personal postal articles and luggage, and no longer accepts copies or scans; other ports should also prepare originals.
• Scanned copies of both sides of the ID card
• Both sides of the residence card
• Most recent entry record
• Return flight itinerary
• Original stamped "Declaration Form for Inbound and Outbound Passenger Luggage and Articles" (commonly known as the luggage separation form or little yellow card)
• Students also need a graduation certificate or proof of graduation

Foreign nationals or Japanese passport holders

• Original passport and Chinese long-term visa (single-entry visas allowing stays of one year or more can usually be used for clearance)
• Other materials are the same as the table above; the tax-free book allowance for Japanese passport holders differs from that for Chinese passports (about 700 books for Japanese passports and about 250 for Chinese passports; over 50 books are taxable), and the CD limit is 100, with more than 20 taxable

The luggage separation form must be declared proactively and stamped at customs on the day of entry, through the manual channel at the first airport of entry. Electronic gates neither add entry stamps nor provide declaration forms. It is recommended to photograph the original on the spot for records, then send it by SF Express next-day delivery to the address designated by the clearance team. Customs does not accept same-city courier or postal delivery. If the residence card is valid for less than one year, supplementary evidence of residence duration, such as a Japanese housing lease or purchase contract, is required.

How to use China customs duty-free eligibility

The duty-free allowance for personal used belongings of Chinese resident returnees is 5,000 RMB, and for foreign travelers it is 2,000 RMB. This allowance applies only to used personal belongings, not new goods; the excess is declared at depreciated value, with personal postal article tax rates between 13% and 20%. Customs conducts 100% physical inspection of inbound items and does not accept zero declarations; item values must be truthfully stated.

Whether this allowance can be used depends on three identity conditions being met simultaneously: holding a valid passport and long-term visa, having continuously resided overseas for at least one year, and completing clearance within six months from the date of entry. If any one is missing, the shipment can usually only be handled as ordinary imported goods. If the quantity of a single category clearly exceeds a reasonable personal-use scope (for example, dozens of identical clothing items), customs may determine that the items are not for personal use and refuse clearance, and it does not accept splitting the same batch of items into multiple shipments. Late declaration also incurs fines, with amounts according to customs regulations and unrelated to freight quotes.

Door delivery and unpacking placement

After customs release, the shipment enters final delivery. Door-to-door service includes delivery to the door, unpacking, debris removal, and simple assembly of up to 8 screws (bed frames, dining table legs, sofa feet, etc.); anything beyond that is charged separately. Carrying goods upstairs is usually not included in the base freight: in Japanese apartments, floors above the second are charged about 200 yuan per cubic meter per floor, and elevator protection fees may also apply; floor carrying in mainland China for buildings without elevators is likewise charged separately. For single items over 80 kg or over 150 kg, additional handling fees and domestic forklift fees will apply during loading and unloading, so these circumstances should be explained at the time of booking.

Storage fees begin on the 4th working day after the goods arrive at the port, at 1 yuan per kg per working day. If the sailing schedule is arranged to match the return date, this cost is usually only a few dozen yuan; but if clearance documents are delayed, storage fees accumulate by the day. Wooden crates may not be restorable after opening due to structural misalignment, and the cost of dismantling and recycling custom wooden crates cannot be waived; this should be confirmed clearly at the quotation stage.

For a 9-cubic-meter two-bedroom Tokyo apartment, the entire process from pickup to final placement in a Shanghai home generally takes about 1 to 2 months; the Japan route is one of the faster options in ocean shipping overall, with the sea voyage itself taking about 2 to 3 weeks. What really determines whether things go smoothly is often not the sailing date, but whether, during those three weeks before move-out, the pickup date was locked in, the boxes were numbered, and the manual channel was used on the day of entry.