Household goods to Ecuador: free of import duties with a visa, apply within six months
With a residence visa you may bring your household goods into Ecuador free of import duties, new or used. You apply to customs, the SENAE, from one month before to six months after your entry, and always through a licensed customs broker. A car may not come along. If you leave again within two years, or are away for more than 90 days a year, you may still have to pay the duties.
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If you have a visa for temporary or permanent residence, you may bring your household goods into Ecuador free of all import duties. The rules are in a 2024 resolution of customs, the SENAE. You apply for the exemption at the customs office where your goods arrive, from one month before to six months after your own entry, and always through a licensed customs broker. What arrives later becomes an ordinary import.
| What | The rule | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Who | foreigners with a visa for temporary or permanent residence | 1 and 4 |
| Visa still being processed | allowed, with a guarantee for all duties | 4 |
| What | items for daily use, new or used, bought abroad | 8 and 9 |
| Car or motorcycle | not for foreigners | 4 |
| Clothing | up to 200 kg extra per person, but then not exempt | 11 |
| Tools for your profession | exempt up to 160 basic wages: 77,120 dollars in 2026 | 14 |
| Applying | from one month before to six months after your entry | 22 |
| Shipments | one, exceptionally two within a month; only one is exempt | 16 |
| Selling | only after a year, with duties pro rata | 31 |
| Leaving | within two years, or away more than 90 days a year: duties after all | 35 |
What may come along?
Items that you or your family bought abroad and use daily, new or used (article 8). The resolution has a list, but what is not on it may also come, as long as it belongs to a household and is not a commercial quantity (article 9). Items belonging to someone outside your family are set aside.
Tools and equipment for your profession may come as equipo de trabajo, up to a value of 160 basic wages. Vehicles never count as such (article 14). A car may not come as household goods either; see car and driving licence.
Send everything at once. Exceptionally it may be in two shipments, but the second must arrive within a month of the first, and only one of the two is exempt (article 16).
How does the application work?
You submit an application to the customs district of arrival, with a numbered list of your items, a notarised copy of your family's passports and the certificate of your migration movements (article 22). If your application is incomplete, you get five working days to complete it.
Then comes a compulsory inspection, in which customs examines at least 15% of the shipment (article 23). After the report you have six months for the import declaration, with a sworn statement about your items. With that declaration you also attach your visa and the address where you will live. You confirm that address within three months with a gas, water or electricity bill (article 26). A foreigner must go through the procedure with an agente de aduana, a licensed customs broker.
Customs itself charges nothing for the procedure. You do pay for transport, storage and the broker.
What can the exemption still cost you?
With the exemption you declare that you are coming to live in Ecuador. If you interrupt that within two years of the release of your goods, the exemption lapses and you pay the duties after all (article 35).
In those first two years you may be outside Ecuador for at most 90 days a year. If you work abroad, a foreigner may be away up to 180 days, if you can prove it. Plan long trips to the Netherlands in the first two years with that limit in mind.
Selling is not simply allowed either. Customs must approve a sale, and that is only possible once you have lived in Ecuador for a year. You then pay the duties for the time still missing up to five years (article 31). A second exempt shipment of household goods is only possible after ten years (article 12).
What do you arrange in the Netherlands?
If you move to a country outside the EU, according to Dutch Customs you file an export declaration for your removal goods, with an inventory of what you take. Make that list properly once, because you need it on both sides. For deregistering and what you leave behind, see deregistering with the municipality.
Your visa must be in place or being processed before your goods arrive; see the residence routes. If you take a pet, that runs separately; see pet to Ecuador. Where the shipment falls between visa, departure and arrival is in the route to Ecuador.
In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.2: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Ecuador or go straight to step 4.2 in the open plan.
What this rests on
The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, not this article.
- SENAE — resolution SENAE-SENAE-2024-0083-RE on household goods, consolidated to May 2026 — aduana.gob.ec
- SENAE — resolution SENAE-SENAE-2026-0035-RE, the amendment of April 2026 (mainly for returning Ecuadorians) — aduana.gob.ec
- SENAE (gob.ec) — household goods, free of all import duties, and the cost of the customs procedure — gob.ec
- Ministerio del Interior (gob.ec) — the certificate of migration movements — gob.ec
- Dutch Customs — moving to a country outside the EU, export declaration with an inventory — douane.nl
- Ministerio del Trabajo — the basic wage of 482 dollars a month from 1 January 2026 — trabajo.gob.ec
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