This page used to name DHL, FedEx and UPS and put a price per kilogram against each of them. Every one of those figures has been removed, because we could not read a published tariff from any of the three for Suriname. What is left is narrower and more useful: the prices that are genuinely printed on a company's own list for a shipment to Paramaribo, who prints them, when we read them, and what the law says about bringing used household goods in.
What we measured, and what it means for the old prices
A price attributed to a named company has to come from that company. On 24 October 2026, from two separate networks, we tried to read the rate pages of all three couriers for Suriname:
- DHL: the Suriname zones and rates guide returned HTTP 404, and the Suriname country site did not complete a connection at all.
- FedEx: the 2026 Suriname rate document and the Suriname rates page both returned a 1,770-byte error page rather than a tariff, from both networks.
- UPS: the Suriname zones and rates pages returned a 213-byte response that is not a document.
So none of the three gave us a readable kilo price, and the previous version's figures for all three are gone. That includes the ones a guide attributes to them. A guide's number in a courier's name is not that courier's price, and repeating it does the reader active harm, because they will budget on it and then be quoted something else.
What to do instead. Each of the three runs its own quoting tool. Put in your real weight and your real dimensions, get the figure with the surcharges itemized, and keep the printout. That is a price for your parcel. Nothing on this page can be.
What is published: the box trade, and you have to search in Dutch
There is a whole trade shipping standard boxes by sea to Paramaribo for a Dutch-speaking diaspora, and unlike the couriers it prints its prices. We took the median of what four Dutch forwarders publish on their own price lists, read on 6 October 2026:
- 60 liters: EUR 21.25 per box, over 4 publishers
- 80 liters: EUR 25.00, over 4 publishers
- 120 liters: EUR 33.75, over 4 publishers
- 160 liters: EUR 38.75, over 4 publishers
- 240 liters: EUR 60.00, over 3 publishers
The four are Surivracht Ophaalservice, Freight Solution, Direct Freight Services and Guman Pakketdiensten, each priced from its own published list. Because the trade sells a standard article in standard sizes, the same box really can be priced at four companies at once, and the spread between them is real rather than an artifact of comparing unlike things.
Three cautions that belong with these numbers. First, this is not a door-to-door price: collection in the Netherlands, import duties and collection in Paramaribo are charged separately. Second, three of the four print the price of buying the empty box beside the freight price, which is a far smaller amount and reads exactly like a freight price, so the lower of two numbers on such a page is the box and not the shipping. Third, only one of the four publishes a modification date, so 6 October 2026 is the day we read the lists, not the day they were set.
Removals by the cubic meter, and the honest width of the figure
For a household rather than a few boxes, the trade prices by volume. Direct Freight Services publishes EUR 250 per cubic meter for Suriname in the row marked Verhuizingen on its own price list, read on 5 October 2026. Its own list also prices storage at EUR 50 per cubic meter per month in the row marked Opslag.
One list is not a market, so here is the width. JySeas quotes EUR 210 per cubic meter for the same sea freight on its own published removal price list, also read on 5 October 2026. That is roughly a sixteen per cent spread between two published lists for the same service, and that spread is the honest accuracy of any single figure here. Neither page states what the rate includes -- destination handling and customs clearance may or may not be inside it -- so we do not assume port fees are covered, and neither should you.
The itemized charges one forwarder actually prints
JySeas is the one publisher that breaks the destination costs out as separate lines, all read on 5 October 2026 from its own removal price list:
- EUR 85 per shipment for customs clearance, the line marked Inklaringskosten.
- EUR 30 per shipment for lodging the removal-goods exemption, the line marked Vrijstelling.
- EUR 40 per cubic meter for port handling at Paramaribo, the line marked Afhandelingskosten per kubieke meter.
Why a forwarder and not the port. Havenbeheer Suriname publishes no tariff of its own, which is precisely why one company's itemized list is the available source. Read these as that company's list prices, not as what the port charges, and expect another forwarder to be different. The one thing worth taking from them regardless is the structure: freight, handling and clearance are three separate charges, and a quote that shows only one of them is incomplete.
By air, the one published per-kilo and per-piece price
Surinam Airways publishes its excess baggage rates for Amsterdam to Paramaribo in Economy, in force since 29 October 2023 by the page's own statement:
- The first checked piece costs nothing, because one piece of 25 kg is already inside the Economy fare.
- The second checked piece is EUR 100 at the airport, or EUR 75 prepaid -- the discount the page promises, confirmed on both of its tables.
- Per person and per direction. The page states the rates apply to a single flight only, and that the euro prices apply to departures from Amsterdam, with the reverse direction priced in dollars.
Again: baggage, not freight. Different contract, different limits, and it travels with you. But it is dated and it is the airline's own, which is more than can be said for any courier kilo price we could reach.
Import duty: the exemption is in the law, the percentages were not
The Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996 grants, in article 29, paragraph 1, under (a), a full exemption from import duty for verhuisboedels, voor zover zij uit gebruikte goederen bestaan -- removal goods, so far as they consist of used goods -- under conditions and limits to be set by the Minister. Customs' own supplementary work instruction on importing removal goods fills in who qualifies and how:
- Only non-residents can qualify, by the nature of the exemption. The instruction describes a holder of a Surinamese or foreign passport who had their main residence abroad for more than 185 days per calendar year, who transfers that main residence to Suriname, and who produces a registration from the Centraal Bureau voor Burgerzaken showing the change.
- Release under deposit, if the formalities are not yet complete, is possible only on a single document carrying Declaration Procedure Code C404 in box 3, with a written request to the Inspector on the reverse.
- The deposit is at least 40 per cent of the customs value of the removal goods. It is valid for two months, extendable each time to a maximum of six months, and refunded once the outstanding formalities are met.
And what is not here. The previous version gave a band for import duty by commodity and a value added tax percentage on all imports. Neither figure is in either source we could read -- the text of the Act we have does not mention value added tax at all -- so both are out. Ask the Inspecteur der Invoerrechten and the Belastingdienst, in writing, for the duty classification of your goods and the current turnover tax position, and get the answer before the container sails rather than after.
What expats should know
- No courier kilo price appears on this page, because none of the three publishes one we could read on 24 October 2026.
- Use the couriers' own quoting tools with your real weight and dimensions, and keep the itemized printout.
- The box trade does publish. Median published sea freight runs from EUR 21.25 for 60 liters to EUR 60.00 for 240 liters, read on 6 October 2026.
- Search in Dutch. English queries return firms that quote; the Dutch-language trade prints its prices.
- A household move is priced by volume, at EUR 250 or EUR 210 per cubic meter on the two lists we read.
- Freight, handling and clearance are three charges, roughly EUR 85, EUR 30 and EUR 40 per cubic meter on one forwarder's list.
- The port publishes nothing, so every destination figure you see comes from a forwarder.
- Used removal goods are exempt from import duty under article 29 -- but only for non-residents, and the deposit route costs at least 40 per cent of the customs value up front.
Where to check
The exemption is in the Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996, article 29, and the procedure in Customs' work instruction on importing removal goods, both read on 24 October 2026. The baggage figures are Surinam Airways' published excess baggage rates, in force since 29 October 2023. The sea freight medians and the itemized destination charges are aggregated from the published price lists of Surivracht Ophaalservice, Freight Solution, Direct Freight Services, Guman Pakketdiensten and JySeas, held in our own reference data with the measurement dates and publisher counts given above. For a price for your own shipment, go to the carrier.
AI-Generated Content: This article was created with AI assistance and may contain inaccuracies. Please verify important information with official sources.
