PCS Tasks

PCS=Permanent Change of Station

This is the military term for what we’re doing, even though we’re both civilians. It’s a military job, in a military community, so most of the process and terminology is military.

This page contains a list of necessary tasks involved in a PCS from CONUS (CONtinental United States) to an OCONUS posting (Outside the CONtinental United States).

• First off, you may want to check out Military Homefront’s Moving and Relocation page. It contains many tools to help plan and execute a successful PCS move, including information about your new installation.
• Get married, if you aren’t already. This is something we unfortunately left until George got the offer, so we had to rush through the whole process of marriage license, marriage, and name change so that we could proceed to the next bullet point.
• Obtain blue tourist and red official passports – If you don’t currently have a passport, you’ll need a certified copy of your birth certificate and a driver’s license or other photo ID with your signature on it. If you have an expired passport, it’s infinitely easier, because you just have to send them your expired passport with the form and fees. You’ll need the official passport to travel on orders, but you’ll want the tourist passport for all those weekend trips around Europe, off the government’s time.
• If you know you will be driving in Europe, and will want to drive outside of your host country, you will need an international driving permit. This can be obtained through your local AAA office. You can do it by mail after you arrive in Europe, but it would be easier and faster to do it before you leave. Unfortunately, this permit is only good for one year. If you wait until you have permanent housing in your host country, you can go to a local office and get a multi-year international driving permit. In Europe, you’ll need this form filled out and stamped by the military driver’s license office, then they should be able to tell you which local district driver’s license office to go to for the actual license. You’ll need a passport-sized photo and cash for the fee in addition to this form, your military ID, your military driving certificate, and your state-side driver’s license.
• Decide if you’ll take your car with you. If you do, you’ll have to locate the nearest shipping port, and arrange to get the car there yourself. In our case, the nearest port is 6.5 hours away (about 400 miles). https://www.whereismypov.com/
• If you are taking your car, get it thoroughly inspected, including making sure the tires are in good shape. The website above includes additional guidelines to prepare your car for shipping.
• Make a list of all of your accounts, and note whether you’ll cancel them (utilities, local stuff) or need to change the address. In my case, my list also included which accounts would need a name change.
• Make sure you’re up to date on regular medical visits (dentist, general practitioner, eye doctor, etc.)
• If you have pets, and decide to take them with you, start your research early. You’ll want to find out from the country to which you’re moving exactly what their requirements are to import an animal. Often there are very strict time lines involved, including when they must have rabies shots, microchips implanted, and health certificates. If you will need a health certificate (obtained from the vet), chances are that it will have to then be certified by the nearest USDA office.
• Once you receive the official PCS travel orders, contact your nearest military Transportation Office. They will handle the packing, storing, and shipping of your household goods, and arrange your travel.
• Once the Transportation Office makes your flight reservations, call the airline to confirm and to verify baggage limits. If you will be taking pets with you, verify the airline’s pet container specifications to ensure that yours meets them, and reserve space in the  hold for your pets. The pets are your sole responsibility in this trip, so you must make the flight reservation for them yourself, and you will have to pay a fee for them.
• Obtain a sponsor at your PCS location. Your contact there should assign a sponsor and provide you their contact information. Your sponsor is a good resource for questions about your new post (the job and the geographical area), and is responsible for obtaining your forwarding APO address, booking your hotel in the PCS location, and ensuring that you are picked up from the airport.
• Determine which of your belongings will go on the plane with you, in the advanced shipment, in the main shipment, and into non-temporary storage. It’s a good idea to allocate separate spaces for each in your house and organize your belongings in these groups to the extent possible.
• Supervise the packing of your household goods. The moving crew must pack each container themselves, or they can not be held responsible for any damage to the contents, so don’t try to help out by packing anything ahead of time.
• Supervise the loading of your household goods into the wooden shipping crates. Include a complete copy of your travel orders just inside each crate before the crew seals it, just in case the crate must be opened at any time during transit. Be sure to black out your Social Security Number on these copies.
• Once you begin to officially travel on orders (check into a hotel not more than 10 days prior to your flight), be sure to save all food and hotel receipts so that you can be reimbursed for these expenses later.
• Once you arrive at your new station, be sure to keep your official passport and a copy of your orders on you any time you’ll need to go on base with your sponsor. We got in the habit of keeping all of our important documents in a backpack, and taking the backpack with us any time we went on base prior to obtaining our military IDs.
• In Germany, at least, you need to study for the driving certificate examination. Germany has 178 separate traffic signs, and some of them are very similar, but mean quite different things. If you do not study, you will not pass.
• If you shipped a POV, call the destination office several days before it’s scheduled to arrive, as it may arrive early. You will need to have auto insurance set up before you pick it up. GEICO has offices in several European countries. You will need to take your shipping document, title, and US registration to the installation registration office to obtain license plates, then you can pick up the vehicle.
• Once you find off-base housing that meets your  needs, you need to have the landlord complete the Housing Referral Office Rental Agreement document. This is a one-page, double-sided document that lays out the tems of the rental. Do not sign this contract until you’ve returned it to the Housing Office for their review. After you sign it, they’ll make several copies for you, and then you return the original signed contract to the landlord. Always keep a copy for yourself, and you’ll need copies for other things, like enrolling in the Utility Tax Avoidance Program (UTAP).
• When you set up your utilities, you get a welcome letter (in Germany, at least) from each company with the amount you’ll pay each month. They do not send monthly bills, so this is the only correspondence you receive. You need to take a copy of each welcome letter to the VAT office for them to file with your UTAP application. You’ll also need to set up automatic bill payment for the utilities (and your rent) through your bank. Most people in Europe do not use written checks to pay bills, so automatic payment through your bank is the easiest way to go.
• When it’s time to receive your Household Goods shipment at your new home, be sure to have the inventory list you got when they packed it on hand, and check off each box or item as it’s unloaded or brought into the house. We learned this the hard way, because one box of our shipment seems to be missing, but we don’t know what inventory item number it was because we weren’t marking them off as the crew brought them in. If anything does turn up missing or damaged, you will need to know the inventory number for your claim paperwork.