Moving to London From Abroad: Your First Month

The first month in London is a run of small, dated jobs that depend on each other. A landlord wants proof of your right to rent before you sign. An employer wants a National Insurance number before your first payslip. The council wants to know you live there before it sends a bill. Most of it is free and online, but the order matters, and a few deadlines start running the day you become resident.

This guide puts those jobs into weeks, with the official page for each one. It covers what you do after you land. Shipping your furniture into the country, customs and Transfer of Residence relief are covered separately in moving your belongings to the UK. Every official fact here was checked on the linked page on 5 November 2026, and the rules apply to England unless we say otherwise.

The timeline below is a planning order, not an official schedule. Nothing on it has a legal deadline in the first month except where the text says so. It is ordered so that each step gives you what the next one needs: a GP needs nothing, a landlord needs your right to rent, an employer needs your National Insurance number and bank details, and the council needs an address.

This is the same month as a table, one row per task, with the official page to use. The "what you need" column is what the official page asks for, not what a provider might add. Banks set their own checks, so that row tells you to ask.

This is the easiest job on the list and the one people leave longest. The NHS says everyone in England can register with a GP surgery, and it is free. Most surgeries take registrations online: you search by postcode, pick a surgery that offers online registration, and fill in a form that takes about 15 minutes for each person. You should hear back, usually within 5 days of the surgery getting your details.

Three points matter most for someone who has just arrived:

• You do not need ID, proof of address or proof of immigration status. The NHS lists only basic details: your name, date of birth and address, plus an emergency contact. A surgery may sometimes ask for more to trace your records or, for a child, to show you are the parent or guardian
• You do not need a permanent address. You can register with a temporary address, such as a short let or a friend's flat, or with the address of the surgery itself
• You do not need an NHS number. Having one helps the surgery find your records, but it is not required

Register near where you are staying now, not where you hope to live. You can change surgery later: the NHS says your old surgery is told automatically once your new one registers you. If you are staying somewhere for only a few weeks, the NHS also allows registration as a temporary patient for up to 3 months. If a surgery refuses you, it must write to you within 14 days to explain why, and you can try another.

Children under 16 are usually registered by a parent or guardian on a separate form, and the surgery may ask for the child's ID and address, such as a birth certificate. Bring those documents in your hand luggage, not in the shipment.

If you plan to work, start this on your first day. GOV.UK says you can apply if you live in the UK, have the right to work here, and are working, looking for work or have a job offer. You can only apply once you are in the UK, so it cannot be done before you travel.

Check first whether you already have one. If you have a biometric residence permit or an eVisa, GOV.UK says you might: it can be on the back of the BRP, or in your UK Visas and Immigration account. A National Insurance number stays the same for life, so anyone who has lived and worked in the UK before should look for their old one rather than apply again.

The application is online. Have a passport from any country, or a national identity card from an EU country, Norway, Liechtenstein or Switzerland, ready to type details from. You will be asked to take and upload a photo of yourself holding your passport, and photos of other identity documents. If you cannot upload photos you can still apply, but it takes longer and you may need an appointment. After you apply you get an email with a reference number. It can take up to 4 weeks to get the number once your identity is proved.

You do not have to wait for it to start work. GOV.UK says you can begin before the number arrives if you can prove your right to work. When you start, your employer will ask for your National Insurance number, your bank details and proof of identity so it can pay you, which is why the number and the bank account sit in the same fortnight of this plan.

Before you can rent in England, you must prove your right to rent to the landlord. GOV.UK says how you do it depends on your nationality and immigration status. The rule is England's only: it does not apply in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

What to show

• British or Irish citizens show a British or Irish passport (current or expired), an Irish passport card, or a certificate of registration or naturalisation
• Everyone else uses either a share code or their original immigration documents. You choose which. GOV.UK says a landlord cannot reject your application because you gave them an eligible immigration document instead of a share code
• Share codes come from your UKVI account or BRP. You will have a UKVI account if you applied to the EU Settlement Scheme, used the ID Check app for a visa, or set one up to see an eVisa

The check falls on the landlord, and the landlord guidance says it must cover every tenant aged 18 and over, British or not. A landlord who only checks people they think are not British is breaking the law. If your permission to stay is time-limited, the landlord has to do the check in the 28 days before the tenancy starts, so do not expect it to be done weeks ahead.

What a landlord can and cannot ask you to pay

Arrivals are often asked for months of rent upfront because they have no UK credit history. Since 1 May 2026 that has a ceiling. The Renters' Rights Act overview for tenants says a landlord cannot ask for, encourage or accept rent before you sign the tenancy agreement, and after you sign can ask for at most 1 month's rent in advance. Landlords must also put a specific price in any written advert and cannot accept or encourage offers above it, so you should not be drawn into a bidding war.

Deposits are capped too. The Tenant Fees Act guidance puts the holding deposit, which reserves a flat while checks are done, at no more than 1 week's rent. If the landlord keeps it, they must tell you why in writing within 7 days. The tenancy deposit itself is capped at 5 weeks' rent where the annual rent is below £50,000, and 6 weeks' rent from £50,000 to £100,000.

Once you have paid it, the landlord must put the deposit in one of three government-approved schemes within 30 days, GOV.UK says: the Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. Put a reminder in your phone for day 30 and ask for the certificate if nothing has arrived.

New private tenancies agreed from 1 May 2026 are assured periodic tenancies. They roll on monthly or weekly with no end date, which suits a newcomer who is not yet sure which part of London fits. When you later move on, moving out of a rented home in London covers giving notice and getting the deposit back.

There is little official guidance on what a bank must accept from a newcomer, so this section stays short. What is official is the basic bank account. HM Treasury's page says the nine largest personal current account providers are legally required to offer basic bank accounts that are free for standard operations, including a failed payment, so you cannot run up an unplanned overdraft. Basic account customers use the same cash machines and Post Office counters as other customers.

The nine named providers are Barclays UK, the Co-operative Bank, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group (including Halifax and Bank of Scotland), Nationwide Building Society, NatWest Group (including Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank), Santander UK, TSB and Virgin Money.

Each bank sets its own identity and address checks. Ask the bank which documents it accepts before you go, and say if you have only just arrived. A signed tenancy agreement is often the first document with your London address on it, which is one more reason the flat comes before the bank in this plan.

Each London council runs its own council tax. Use GOV.UK's council finder with your new postcode to find yours, then tell it you have moved in. GOV.UK says you usually have to pay council tax if you are 18 or over, and what you pay depends on three things: the valuation band of your home, what your council charges for that band, and any discount or exemption.

You can look up the band of any home in England on GOV.UK's band checker, which is worth doing before you sign, because it tells you the size of a bill that the rent does not include.

• Living alone? A full bill assumes at least 2 adults. If you are the only adult, or everyone else in the home is "disregarded", you get 25% off
• Discounts are not automatic. GOV.UK says you must apply, even if you qualify
• Students. A household where everyone is a full-time student does not have to pay. If a bill arrives anyway, you apply for an exemption
• Some people are not counted. GOV.UK lists, among others, under-18s, many full-time students, student nurses, foreign language assistants registered with the British Council and diplomats

Each London council has its own window for telling it about a move, and some only take notice once you have arrived. Council tax when you move house explains the general process, and our London moving checklist shows how three boroughs handle the timing.

Energy

Ask your landlord who supplies the gas and electricity, and who pays. Ofgem says that if you pay the bills yourself, you can choose a new tariff or supplier after you move in, and switch at any time. If the landlord pays, the cost should be in your rent and the landlord deals with the supplier. If your building is on a heat network, Ofgem says you cannot switch supplier, because the supplier runs the heating for the whole building.

If you do switch, Ofgem says suppliers must complete it within 5 working days or the new supplier pays you £40, and you can cancel within 14 days. Take meter readings on the day you get the keys, with a dated photo. Meter readings and utilities covers the rest.

TV licence

GOV.UK says you need a TV licence to watch or record live TV on any channel or service, on any device, and to use BBC iPlayer. You do not need one for streaming services like Netflix or Disney Plus, on-demand services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, or DVDs. A licence costs £180. In a flatshare, you need your own if you have a separate tenancy agreement and watch TV in your own room; one licence covers the household if you have a joint tenancy or only watch in a shared area. Watching live TV without one can bring a fine of up to £1,000.

Registering to vote

Registration takes about 5 minutes online. In England you can register from 16. Whether you can register depends on your nationality: British and Irish citizens can, and so can people with permission to be in the UK (or who do not need it) who are Commonwealth citizens, including citizens of Cyprus and Malta, or citizens of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal or Spain. Citizens of other EU countries can register if they had permission to be in the UK on or before 31 December 2020 and it has continued without a break. You will be asked for your National Insurance number, but you can register without one.

GOV.UK says you normally register once, but must register again when you change your name, address or nationality, so do it again after any later move.

How long you can drive on your licence depends on where you passed your test, and the clock starts when you become resident, not when you first visited. GOV.UK's non-GB licence checker gives these answers for a resident with a full car licence:

GOV.UK's designated countries and territories are Andorra, Australia, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Republic of North Macedonia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe. There are extra rules for Ukrainian licences held under a Ukraine visa scheme, which the checker explains.

If you are in the third row, the 12 months are the most important date in this guide: after that you cannot drive on your old licence at all until you pass the tests. Start the exchange tool or book the tests well before then. Bringing your car into the country is a separate matter, covered in moving your belongings to the UK.

Very few people land in London with their furniture. Usually the goods follow by sea, road or air, clear customs, and are released some days or weeks later, often before or after the tenancy starts rather than on the day. That gap is where most first-month moving problems come from.

The customs side has its own guide. Moving your belongings to the UK covers Transfer of Residence relief, the ToR1 application, inventories and restricted items, and we do not repeat it here. What matters for this month is the practical question: where do the goods go between release and the flat being ready, and who brings them in?

What we do, and what we do not

We do not handle customs declarations or ToR applications, and we do not ship from outside Europe: for that you need a specialist international shipper. What we do is the move inside the UK. Once your goods are released and ready to collect, we can bring them from wherever they are: the shipper's depot or warehouse, a storage unit, a short let or temporary flat, or a friend's spare room. That is priced like any other UK move, on the same rate card, with the clock starting when the team arrives at the collection address.

If you are moving from mainland Europe, our European removals service covers Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Gran Canaria, in both directions. The crew that loads abroad is the crew that unloads in London, so nothing is handed between companies on the way. Customs paperwork for that move stays with you or your agent, as the customs guide explains.

If the flat is not ready

Storage fills the gap. We arrange it through a storage partner, not a facility of our own. A one-bedroom load typically costs £250–£350 a month, VAT included, and small loads such as a few boxes or a student's room are from £100 a month. The first month is paid upfront, then it is billed monthly. Access is by appointment with 2 working days' notice, redelivery is charged at our normal van rates, and any partner fees are passed on at cost. Insurance while stored is quoted as its own line, on the value you declare. Storage costs in London compares this with self-storage.

These are earlier jobs from our booking records that involved storage. The prices are what customers paid at the time, under our earlier pricing, and the miles are straight-line distances between postcodes. Read them for the shape of the job, not as today's rates.

The table below prices four typical last-leg moves with the same arithmetic our quote form uses: the suggested van and crew for the load, loading and unloading time, driving time for the distance, the total rounded up to the half hour and never below the van's minimum, then mileage. The distances are our assumptions for illustration. Stairs, dismantling, packing and evening or Sunday surcharges are not included, because they depend on your addresses.

Two things drive the price more than the distance. First, the load: a studio flat fits a Small Transit (SWB), while a 1-bedroom home needs a Luton Box Van. Second, the access at the flat. Mileage on the Luton Box Van is £1.80 a mile, so collecting from a depot 20 miles out instead of 8 adds £71.60: £21.60 in mileage and 30 min more charged time for the longer drive. A third-floor flat with no lift can add more than that in stair time. Moving a flat in London explains stairs, lifts and building rules.

Some London lines appear on their own: if either address is inside the Congestion Charge zone during charging hours, the charge is a separate line in the quote; our vans meet the ULEZ standard, so no ULEZ charge is ever added; and a toll on the route is passed on at cost. If the van needs a parking bay suspended, you apply to the council and pay its fee, and we plan the day around it.

Timing is usually the hard part with released goods, because a depot can give little notice. Homes of up to two bedrooms can often be moved the same day if booked by 2pm, subject to a free van, and there is no extra charge for short notice. If the crew is kept waiting for keys or for a depot to release the goods, waiting time is £40 per crew member per hour, so confirm the release slot before the van sets off.

• Packing the documents in the shipment. Passports, visa papers, children's birth certificates and the tenancy documents travel with you. Everything in this guide needs one of them, and the shipment may be weeks behind
• Paying months of rent upfront. In England, the most a landlord can take in advance is 1 month's rent, and only after you sign. If an agent insists on more, ask them to point to the rule
• Booking the delivery before the release date is confirmed. A van that arrives at a depot before the goods are released is paid waiting time. Book the move once the shipper or agent confirms the goods are ready
• Leaving the driving licence until it expires. For most non-EU licences the limit is 12 months from becoming resident, and there is no grace period after it
• Not checking the council tax band before signing. The rent does not include council tax, and the band, which you can look up for free, tells you roughly what the bill will be

Most of these come down to the same thing: the first month runs on documents, and the documents need to be with you, not in a crate.

When your goods have a release date, or your storage end date is known, send us the details. You get an itemised written quote within 24 hours, built from our published rates, and a 20% deposit secures the date. The team confirms the final price in writing before the move.

• Where the goods are now. The depot, store or flat address, any booking slot or access rules there, and whether a loading bay is available
• What there is. The shipper's inventory is ideal; a room-by-room list or photos work too, with anything large or fragile pointed out
• The new flat. The floor, whether there is a lift and what fits in it, and where a van can stop
• The date. The earliest the goods can be collected and the first day you have the keys

Every move with us includes the same basics, whether it is a studio's worth of boxes or a full container:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

If you are moving a whole home once you are settled, start from our house removals in London page, which covers every borough on the same rate card. And if your first London flat turns out to be a stepping stone, as it often is, the London house removals team can move you again when you find the place you want to stay.