Freight from China to Europe

How this lane works

Europe is where the choice of mode matters most, because all three realistic options are genuinely viable and they price very differently. Ocean carries the bulk of committed volume. Rail sits between ocean and air on both cost and transit and has become the default for goods too valuable to sit on the water for five weeks. Air handles launches, replenishment of fast sellers and anything where being late costs more than the freight.

The ocean picture has shifted. A large share of Asia–Europe and Asia–Mediterranean services are routing around the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal, which adds roughly one to two weeks against the historic schedule. The practical consequence is not simply "slower" — it is that procurement calendars built on pre-diversion transit times are now structurally late, and the fix is to re-baseline the reorder point rather than to chase the carrier.

On the rail side, capacity is the constraint rather than price. A train cannot be made longer the way a vessel can be filled, so space is allocated in advance and tightens sharply before Chinese New Year and through the pre-Christmas peak. The two gauge changes — onto the 1520mm network and off it again at the European border — are where schedule variance is introduced, not the distance.

For customs, the European Union operates as a single customs territory, so the entry point and the destination member state can differ. Import VAT is levied on the duty-inclusive value, and which Incoterm governs the shipment decides who pays it and when it can be recovered — a detail that changes the landed cost more than most freight negotiations do.

Destinations we run to

Ports, airports and inland terminals on this lane with published route guides. If your destination isn't listed, we almost certainly still serve it — ask.