How to import a prefab home

How the house types differ at a glance

Six families cover almost everything on the market, and the choice between them is mostly a trade between looks, floor area per shipping slot and price.

• Capsule & pod.The curved, aluminum-clad “spaceship” shell. The premium glamping hero. Beautiful and high-margin per night, but the curved body is wide: small capsules ship two-per-container, larger ones are oversize and need a flat-rack or trailer.
• Expandable & foldable. A unit that travels folded as a flat box and unfolds on site into a full home in a couple of hours. This is the volume product: the best floor area per shipping dollar, ideal for ADUs, staff housing and residential at scale.
• Container & modular. Flat-pack panel units and stacked modules, including two-story builds. Cheap, fast, structural; the workhorse for site offices and no-frills housing.
• A-frame & cabin. Pitched-roof tiny cabins, wood-led and warm. Often a flat-pack kit a small crew assembles in a day. Great for backyards and glamping.
• Dome & bubble. Transparent PC-panel domes for panoramic, stargazing stays. Ship flat-packed and cluster together; a glamping statement piece.
• Mobile & specialty.Office pods, container pools, washrooms, kiosks and garden modules: the “everything else” category for operators who need a specific module rather than a house.

As a rule of thumb: choose capsule when the building is the experience you’re selling, expandable when you need the most livable space for the least freight, and container/A-frame/dome when speed, budget or a specific look leads.

Container-fit, explained

Ocean freight is priced per container, so “how does it ship” is often the single biggest driver of your landed cost. The same square meter is far cheaper to import folded than as a finished curved shell. Four cases cover nearly everything you’ll see in the model specs:

• Standard container (20ft / 40ft). The smallest capsules and the larger single-story cabins are engineered to slide into a standard box. For example, an 88 m² apple cabin that still ships in one 40 ft. One unit per container, but no special equipment and the simplest, cheapest ocean leg.
• 40HQ, multiple per container. This is where expandables win. Folded flat, you can load four small expandables per 40HQ, two of the popular mid-size, and a two-story expandable still fits one to a box, dramatically cutting freight-per-home. Compact capsules likewise ship two per container.
• Flat-pack (knock-down).A-frame kits and PC domes break down into panels and ribs and ship as a flat bundle: two to three A-frames per 40HQ, domes loose-packed. Lowest freight, but you’re assembling on site (a crew of four, a day for an A-frame).
• Oversize: flat-rack or trailer. Big capsules and two-story pods exceed standard container width or height. They move on an open-top flat-rack or, for short hauls, a trailer. This carries an oversize/out-of-gauge surcharge and needs route checks (bridge and road clearances at the destination), so price it in early.

Every model page in the index states its container-fit explicitly. When you’re costing a project, read that line first. A stunning capsule that needs a flat-rack can land at a very different number than an expandable that ships four to a box.

Certifications by market

A unit that’s perfectly legal in one country can be stuck at the port of another. Confirm the certifications match your destination before production, and ask for the actual certificate documents, not just a claim on a spec sheet.

• European Union: CE. The baseline mark for the EU; expect supporting standards for structure and for the electrical and glazing components. Most export-oriented factories here carry CE.
• Australia and New Zealand: AS/NZS, SAA. Electrical work must meet AS/NZS wiring rules with SAA approval; structures are checked against AS/NZS wind and (where relevant) bushfire requirements. Several factories list SAA explicitly.
• North America: CSA / UL, local codes. Electrical components want CSA (Canada) or UL (US) listing, and siting a dwelling is governed by local/state codes. The import clears more easily than the on-site permit, so plan for both.
• China domestic: 3C / CCC. China’s compulsory certification; useful as a quality signal and required for some components, but it is nota substitute for your destination market’s mark.
• Third-party testing: SGS, Intertek, TÜV.Independent inspection and test reports (materials, load, electrical safety). Strong factories volunteer these; they’re your best objective proof the build is what’s claimed.

What “good build” actually means

Photos sell; the structure is what lasts. The better units in this directory share a recognizable build, and these are the specs to read line by line:

• Galvanized steel structure.A hot-dip galvanized welded-steel frame is the marker of a unit built to last. The best are laser-cut and robot-welded to a national structural standard (e.g. China’s GB50017), rated to a 50-year design life. Thinner cold-formed steel is fine for short-life site housing but say so.
• Insulation build-up.Ask for the wall and roof section: PU foam, XPS, EPS or rock-wool sandwich panels, and the thickness (e.g. 50 mm PU). This decides whether the unit is comfortable, and whether you need the cold-climate variant many factories offer.
• Glazing. Double-layer Low-E (often argon-filled) glass with thermal-break aluminum frames is the standard for the better capsules and expandables; it drives both comfort and the panoramic look.
• Wind & seismic rating. Premium capsules cite figures like seismic level 9 and typhoon level 12. Match the rating to your site. A coastal or earthquake-prone location makes this non-negotiable, not marketing.
• Included systems.“Smart home,” fresh-air, water purification, SPC flooring and turnkey fine decoration are often bundled on the design-led lines. Get the exact inclusion list in writing. It’s the difference between a finished unit and a shell.

Lead times & what drives them

Plan in three blocks: production, ocean transit and on-site assembly. Production is the variable one. What stretches it:

• Order quantity & factory queue. A factory running 100–200 units a month moves fast on stock models; a large or custom order joins a production schedule.
• Customization. Stock layout and finish ship soonest. Custom layouts, exterior finishes, cold-climate or flat-roof variants, and special glazing all add engineering and build time.
• Certification & documentation. If your market needs specific certs or test reports for this exact configuration, build that into the timeline.
• Shipping mode. Standard-container units book easily; oversize flat-rack loads depend on equipment and sailing availability and can add weeks.

Then add ocean transit (commonly several weeks to a couple of months depending on lane) and on-site work, which can be as little as a two-hour unfold for an expandable, a four-hour install for a container house, or a day’s assembly for a flat-pack A-frame.

Incoterms basics: FOB vs CIF

Incoterms define exactly where the seller’s responsibility ends and yours begins. Two cover most prefab deals:

• FOB (Free On Board). The factory delivers the unit loaded onto the vessel at the origin port. You arrange and pay ocean freight, insurance and everything after. More work, but full control and usually the cleanest price to compare across factories. Ask for FOB quotes when shopping.
• CIF (Cost, Insurance & Freight). The seller pays freight and insurance to your destination port. Simpler for first-time importers, but the freight is bundled (and marked up) into one number, so it’s harder to benchmark.

Neither covers import duties, port fees, local trucking or on-site assembly. Those are always yours. Whichever you choose, confirm the named port and get the payment terms in writing (a deposit with the balance against shipping documents is typical).

The checklist: what to ask a factory

Before any deposit, get clear written answers to all of these. A good factory answers fast and in detail; hesitation here is the warning sign.

• ✓Exact structure spec: steel gauge, galvanizing, weld method, design-life years, and the standard it's built to.
• ✓Insulation build-up and thickness for walls and roof; is a cold-climate variant available?
• ✓Wind and seismic rating, and the glazing spec (Low-E? argon? thermal break?).
• ✓A complete inclusion list: what exactly ships in the unit vs. what's extra (smart home, fresh air, water systems, furniture, finishes).
• ✓Container-fit: how many units per container, or does it need a flat-rack? Crated weight and dimensions.
• ✓Certifications for MY market, plus copies of the actual certificates and any third-party (SGS / Intertek) test reports.
• ✓Lead time for my quantity and configuration, broken into production and shipping.
• ✓Incoterms (FOB vs CIF), named port, payment schedule, and what's NOT included.
• ✓Warranty terms and how spare parts / service work after delivery.
• ✓Real reference projects and export experience in my region: photos, locations, and ideally a contact.