Plot No. 75 · Everyday & Shopping
Moving Cost Calculator
Estimate what a house move will cost from movers' labour, a truck rental, packing materials and other extras, plus a long-distance surcharge for moves over 50 miles. Enter your own local quotes for the closest estimate, or use the defaults for a rough starting figure.
A surcharge of £1.50 per mile applies only beyond the first 50 miles. Get local quotes for labour and truck rental for a more accurate estimate.
The link saves your inputs so you can bookmark or share this exact result.
What a move costs by property size
The calculator does not carry average prices, because averages are what you replace as soon as you have a real quote. It builds a total out of your own inputs instead. The table below runs that same arithmetic on a set of typical inputs for each property size, so you can see which numbers to type in before you have spoken to anyone. The per-mover rate is held at £30 an hour on every row, which puts a two person crew at £60 an hour, mid-range for the £50 to £80 crew rate UK price guides quote for 2026. Distance is held at 25 miles so no row carries a surcharge, and the last column is what published 2026 guides quote for the same local move, for a sanity check.
| Property | Movers | Hours | Labour | Van and materials | Calculator total | 2026 guide range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bed flat | 2 | 4 | £240 | £160 | £400 | £320 to £470 |
| 2 bed house | 2 | 6 | £360 | £200 | £560 | £520 to £715 |
| 3 bed house | 3 | 7 | £630 | £250 | £880 | £800 to £1,020 |
| 4 bed house | 3 | 9 | £810 | £300 | £1,110 | £1,000 to £1,325 |
| 5 bed house | 4 | 10 | £1,200 | £350 | £1,550 | £1,300 to £1,630 |
Guide ranges are the published 2026 local-move bands from Sirelo and MyJobQuote, whose figures bracket each other on every size. reallymoving reported an average UK household spend of £709 on removals across all property sizes, which sits between the £560 and £880 rows here. Every band moves up in London and the South East, and August is the most expensive month to book.
Labour cost by crew size, rate and hours
Labour is the line that decides the quote. On the 3 bed row above it is £630 out of the £880 total, so everything else is rounding by comparison. It is also the only line that scales with time, which is why an underestimated hours figure is the usual reason a real invoice beats the estimate. The grid below is labour only, for a two person crew, at the four per-mover rates that cover the UK market. Read down to the hours you expect and across to the rate you were quoted.
| Hours | £25/mover/hr | £30/mover/hr | £35/mover/hr | £40/mover/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | £150 | £180 | £210 | £240 |
| 4 | £200 | £240 | £280 | £320 |
| 5 | £250 | £300 | £350 | £400 |
| 6 | £300 | £360 | £420 | £480 |
| 7 | £350 | £420 | £490 | £560 |
| 8 | £400 | £480 | £560 | £640 |
| 9 | £450 | £540 | £630 | £720 |
| 10 | £500 | £600 | £700 | £800 |
The per-mover rates map onto crew rates of £50, £60, £70 and £80 an hour for two people, which is the range UK price guides quote for a crew and a van in 2026. Note that a quoted crew rate usually includes the van, while this calculator separates the two, so if your quote is all in, put the whole rate in the hourly field and leave truck rental at zero. Adding a third mover raises the hourly cost by half but rarely cuts the hours by half, because stairs, doorways and the van itself are the bottleneck rather than the number of hands.
How the long-distance surcharge scales
The surcharge is a flat £1.50 per mile that applies only to the miles past 50, so a local move is unaffected and a long one carries a linear addition. The last column measures that addition against the £560 two bed local total from the first table, which makes the model's honest limitation visible: it understates a genuine long-distance quote.
| Distance | Chargeable miles | Surcharge | 2 bed total with surcharge | Uplift on the local total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 mi | 0 | £0 | £560 | 0% |
| 25 mi | 0 | £0 | £560 | 0% |
| 50 mi | 0 | £0 | £560 | 0% |
| 75 mi | 25 | £38 | £598 | 7% |
| 100 mi | 50 | £75 | £635 | 13% |
| 150 mi | 100 | £150 | £710 | 27% |
| 200 mi | 150 | £225 | £785 | 40% |
| 300 mi | 250 | £375 | £935 | 67% |
| 500 mi | 450 | £675 | £1,235 | 121% |
Published 2026 guides put a move over 100 to 125 miles at roughly 50 to 80 percent more than the same property moved locally, and Sirelo prices a 3 bed at £1,020 locally against £1,770 beyond 125 miles, a 74 percent uplift. The table above only reaches that kind of uplift at the very bottom, so on anything past about 150 miles treat the surcharge as a floor rather than an estimate, and put the real difference into the other costs field once a removal firm has quoted you. The reason the gap opens up is that distance stops being fuel and starts being a second driver day, an overnight, or a shared load that waits for other customers.
Costs a removal quote does not cover
A removal quote covers moving your possessions from one door to another. Most of what makes moving day expensive sits outside it, and those items belong in the other costs field. The 2026 figures below are the ones published UK cost guides quote most consistently. They are ranges, not prices, and several of them only apply to some moves.
| Cost | Typical 2026 figure | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Full packing service | £250 (1 bed) to £600 (4 bed) | You want the crew to box everything up, usually the day before |
| Fragile-only packing | About £190 on a 3 bed | You pack the rest yourself but want glass and china done properly |
| Packing materials | £120 to £600 | Always, unless you source free boxes yourself |
| Storage | £50 to £150 per week | Completion dates do not line up, or the new place is not ready |
| Parking permits or suspensions | £20 to £50 | Controlled parking at either end, booked with the council in advance |
| End of tenancy cleaning | £80 (1 bed) to £500 (4 to 5 bed) | Leaving a rental, usually a deposit condition |
| Flat pack dismantle and rebuild | £20 to £60 per hour | Wardrobes and beds that will not go through a doorway assembled |
| Self-drive van hire | £50 to £120 per day plus £30 to £100 fuel | You are moving yourself rather than hiring a crew |
Buying or selling adds a separate layer this calculator does not model at all: conveyancing, searches, a survey, mortgage arrangement fees, estate agent commission and any stamp duty. Those are transaction costs rather than moving costs, and they dwarf the removal bill. For the deposit and purchase side, the down payment calculator and the mortgage affordability calculator cover the two figures that decide what you can actually offer.
How to get the estimate close
The estimate is only as good as the hours figure, so spend your effort there. Removal firms price a job by how long a crew is tied up, and the thing that stretches that is access rather than volume. A third floor flat with no lift, a shared stairwell, a long carry from the van to the door, or a street where the van cannot park outside can each add an hour or more at both ends. A ground floor flat with a driveway can come in under the estimate. If you are between two figures, take the higher one, because a move that finishes early is billed for the hours used while a move that overruns is billed for the overrun.
Volume matters second, and it is easier to judge than people expect. Count the rooms of furniture rather than the boxes: a room of furniture plus its boxes is roughly an hour of crew time to load and about the same to unload, which is where the four hours on the 1 bed row and the ten on the 5 bed come from. The £400 and £880 totals in the first table both fall inside the published bands for their size, which is the check worth repeating on your own numbers before you trust them.
Three things move the price that have nothing to do with your possessions. Timing is the largest: August is the busiest month for UK removal firms and prices peak with demand, while a Tuesday or Wednesday move is usually cheaper than a Friday or a weekend, since Friday is when most completions land. Location is next, with London and the South East at the top of every published band. Notice is third, and a booking made weeks ahead beats one made in the days after an exchange date is confirmed.
If you are driving a hired van yourself, the fuel is not a rounding error on a long move, and it has to be counted both ways because the van goes back. Work it out properly with the fuel cost calculator, which takes the mileage, the vehicle's economy and the pump price, then put the result in the other costs field here. If the move is part of a decision rather than a done deal, the rent vs buy calculator treats moving costs as one input among several. The rest of the household and day-to-day tools sit in the everyday calculators category.
One last note on quotes. A written quote after a video or in-person survey is a price. A number given over the phone from a room count is an estimate, and it can move once a crew sees the property. Ask whether the figure includes VAT, whether it includes goods in transit and public liability cover, what the excess is on that cover, and what happens if completion slips and the booking has to move. Those four answers explain most of the gap between two quotes that look like they are for the same job.
Frequently asked questions
What does this moving cost estimate include?
Labour from your number of movers, hourly rate and estimated hours, a truck rental fee, packing materials, any other costs such as insurance or storage, and a distance surcharge that only applies once a move passes 50 miles.
How many hours should I estimate?
A typical local move takes 4 to 8 hours depending on how much furniture and how many boxes you have, plus how easy access is at both properties, such as stairs or long carry distances. Get a rough quote from a local mover for a more accurate hours figure.
Why is there a surcharge over 50 miles?
Long-distance moves add fuel and travel time that a purely local, hourly-rate quote does not capture. This calculator adds a small per-mile charge only for the miles beyond 50, as a rough stand-in for that extra cost.
How much does it cost to move house in the UK?
For a local move in 2026, published price guides put a 1 bed flat at roughly 320 to 470 pounds, a 2 bed house at 520 to 715 pounds, a 3 bed house at 800 to 1,020 pounds and a 4 bed house at 1,000 to 1,325 pounds. Sirelo and MyJobQuote both publish figures in those bands for 2026, and reallymoving put the average UK household spend at 709 pounds. London and the South East sit at the top of every band.
How do I estimate moving costs before getting quotes?
Work out the labour first, because it is the largest line and the only one that scales with time. Multiply the number of movers by their hourly rate by the hours you expect the job to take, then add the van or truck, packing materials and anything else such as storage or parking permits. A two person crew with a van is quoted at 50 to 80 pounds an hour in the UK in 2026, which is 25 to 40 pounds per mover per hour in this calculator's inputs.
How much does a 3 bedroom house move cost?
Around 800 to 1,020 pounds for a local move in 2026 if you pack your own boxes. A three person crew at 30 pounds each per hour for seven hours is 630 pounds of labour, and adding a van and materials lands near 880 pounds. Having the movers pack for you adds roughly 400 to 480 pounds on a 3 bed, and a move over 125 miles pushes the same job towards 1,300 to 1,770 pounds.
Why is a long-distance or cross country move so much more expensive?
Distance adds fuel, driver hours and often a second day or an overnight, and it can turn a job that a crew would otherwise fit two of into a day into a single booking. Published 2026 guides show moves over 100 to 125 miles costing roughly 50 to 80 percent more than the same property moved locally. This calculator's flat per-mile surcharge is deliberately conservative and will understate a genuine cross country quote, so treat it as a floor and enter a real quote once you have one.
Is it cheaper to hire movers or rent a van and do it yourself?
A self-drive van is 50 to 120 pounds a day in 2026 plus 30 to 100 pounds of fuel, so a DIY move on a small flat can come in under 250 pounds against 320 to 470 pounds for a removal firm. The saving shrinks fast with property size, because the work is measured in crew hours rather than van days, and a 3 bed move you load yourself can take two days rather than one. Set the movers field to the number of people actually carrying boxes, paid or not, to compare honestly.
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