How many moving boxes do I need?

Plan on 45 to 60 boxes for a two bedroom apartment, or 40 to 50 totes if you’re renting instead of buying. The kitchen is usually 15 to 20 of them, each bedroom is 6 to 12, and the living room is 8 to 12. If you have a storage unit, a full closet in the hallway, or a balcony with anything on it, count those separately. Two bedroom apartments vary more than houses do because storage space varies so much between buildings.

A three bedroom house usually takes 55 to 75 boxes, or 45 to 55 totes. That assumes an average household where dressers move loaded and a couple of rooms are lighter than the rest. If all three bedrooms are fully used, you have a home office, and the garage is packed, add the rooms up individually instead. A fully loaded three bedroom can reach 100 boxes, and at that point you want the next package size up.

Figure 75 to 100 boxes for a four bedroom house, or 60 to 75 totes. Four bedroom homes usually come with a bigger kitchen, more closets, and a garage or basement that has been filling up for years, and those three are what separate a 75 box move from a 120 box move. If a finished lower level is involved, size up rather than down.

A studio is usually under 40 boxes, and often closer to 30. Most of it is the kitchen and the closet. If you’ve lived there a while and the closet has been doing double duty as storage, plan on the higher end. A studio move is small enough that a couple of extra containers won’t change the cost much, so there’s no reason to cut it close.

Small boxes are about 1.5 cubic feet, mediums run 3 to 3.1, and larges are around 4.5. Buy more mediums than anything else. Small boxes are for books, dishes, and anything dense enough to get heavy fast. Larges are for bedding, pillows, and lamp shades, meaning things that take up room without weighing much. A common mistake is buying mostly large boxes because they hold more, then filling them with heavy things and being unable to lift them.

Keep boxes under 50 pounds, and under 40 if you’ll be carrying them down stairs or loading them yourself all day. Weight is the reason box counts run higher than people expect. You almost never fill a box until it’s full. You fill it until it’s heavy, and with books, dishes, tools, or canned goods that happens well before the top.

Slightly fewer than the box count, but not one for one. A ReadyCrate tote holds 2.5 cubic feet, which puts it between a small cardboard box and a medium. Totes are all one size and you fill every inch of them, and none of your things end up in a dish pack that’s half packing paper, so the total lands a little under a mixed set of boxes. For most two and three bedroom homes that works out to around 50 totes.

Treat any of them as a starting point, not a promise. A calculator only knows how many rooms you have, not how full they are, and two identical three bedroom houses on the same street can differ by twenty boxes depending on the garage and the bookshelves. Ours is built around a typical household, where dressers move loaded and bedding goes in bags, and it tells you when your count is close to the edge of a package rather than quietly rounding you up. Use it to get within a size, then adjust for what you actually own.

More, and it isn’t close. A packing crew boxes everything, including things you would have thrown in the back seat, and they use dish packs and wardrobe cartons that are partly packing paper by volume. Professional estimates for a single family home run near 100 boxes and go past 150 for larger houses. If you’re packing yourself, use the lower numbers on this page. If a crew is packing for you, ask them for their own count, since they’re the ones supplying the boxes.