Moving box calculator
Tell us your rooms and we'll work out how many boxes to order and which van the load needs.
How many of each room?
You'll need about
12 boxes
4 small · 5 medium · 3 large
Recommended van
Short-wheelbase (SWB) van
Studio flat or a light 1-bed · ~4.5 m³ of goods
Estimate only — actual boxes and van depend on how much you own. We confirm the right van from your item list.
How many boxes do I need?
Count rooms, not bedrooms. Each room type carries a different packing load: a kitchen fills more boxes than a bathroom, and a garage or home office adds a load that a "3-bed house" label hides completely. The calculator adds a per-room allowance for every room you select, then splits the total across three box sizes so no single box ends up too heavy to carry safely.
| Room | Boxes | Small / medium / large | Packed volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bedroom | 12 | 4 / 5 / 3 | 4.5 m³ |
| Living room | 12 | 3 / 5 / 4 | 5.5 m³ |
| Kitchen | 9 | 4 / 3 / 2 | 3.0 m³ |
| Bathroom | 3 | 1 / 2 / 0 | 0.5 m³ |
| Dining room | 8 | 2 / 3 / 3 | 3.5 m³ |
| Home office | 7 | 2 / 3 / 2 | 2.0 m³ |
| Garage / shed | 10 | 2 / 4 / 4 | 5.0 m³ |
Add roughly ten per cent on top of whatever number you land on. Nearly every move turns up a cupboard or a loft nobody counted, and a spare flat-packed box is cheaper than a second trip for one.
Which van fits the load?
Once the calculator has your packed volume it picks the smallest vehicle in the fleet that covers it. These are the load spaces and payloads it chooses between, read from the same fleet record our pricing engine quotes from.
| Vehicle | Load space | Payload | Typical fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small van | 2.9 m³ | 800 kg | A few items or a part load |
| Short-wheelbase (SWB) van | 5.5 m³ | 1,000 kg | Studio flat or a light 1-bed |
| Long-wheelbase (LWB) van | 13 m³ | 1,100 kg | 1-bed to a lightly furnished 2-bed |
| Luton van | 19 m³ | 1,100 kg | 2-3 bed home, walk-in load space |
| 7.5-tonne lorry | 36 m³ | 3,000 kg | 4-bed and up, or bulky commercial loads |
Dimensions, access and stair carries matter as much as raw volume, so treat this as a planning aid. For a full breakdown of each vehicle read the van size guide, or describe your items on a quote and we pick the vehicle for you.
Packing and box questions
It depends on rooms, not bedrooms. Bedroom counts are the usual shorthand, but a kitchen packs more boxes than a bathroom, and a home office or a garage adds a load that a bedroom count misses entirely.
The calculator above works room by room and shows the per-room allowance it uses, so you can see where your total comes from instead of trusting a single headline number.
Small boxes are for dense, heavy things: books, tins, tools, records. Medium boxes take the bulk of a move — kitchenware, toys, small appliances. Large boxes are for light and bulky items such as bedding, cushions and lampshades. The calculator splits your total across all three so no single box ends up too heavy to lift safely.
It adds up a typical packed volume for each room you select, then picks the smallest van in our fleet whose load space covers that volume. The van table on this page shows the load space and payload for every class, read straight from the same fleet data our pricing engine uses.
Order about ten per cent more than the estimate. Almost everyone finds items they forgot — the loft, the airing cupboard, the shed — and a spare flat-packed box costs far less than a second trip to buy one mid-pack. Unused boxes are easy to pass on or recycle.
It counts boxable belongings only. Furniture, mattresses, white goods, bikes, garden equipment and anything already crated are handled separately, and large loose items can push you up a van class on their own. Tell us your item list when you get a quote and we confirm the vehicle for you.
You can order boxes and packing materials from our packing shop and have them delivered before moving day, or add them to a removal booking so they arrive with your crew. If you would rather not pack at all, our packing service covers full or fragile-only packing.
No. The recommendation here is a planning aid so you know roughly what to expect. When you book, you describe what is moving and we assign the vehicle and crew, so you are never charged for guessing wrong.
Plan your packing
Got your numbers?
Get a fixed quote with the right van for your move — in 60 seconds.