Home Moving Cost Calculator

Moving house in the UK involves a long list of costs that are easy to underestimate. Professional removal companies typically charge £500-£1,500 for a local move and £1,000-£3,000 for a long-distance one, depending on the volume of belongings and whether you want packing services. DIY van hire is cheaper at £100-£300 but takes considerably more effort. Size drives the quote more than anything else: a 1-bed flat moving within 20 miles runs £500-£800, a 2-bed £700-£1,200, a 3-bed £900-£1,500 and a 4-bed £1,500-£2,500, with journeys over 200 miles adding 30-60%.

Around the removal van sit the smaller items. Royal Mail redirection costs £45 for up to 3 months, £66.50 for 6 months or £95 for 12 months for one person (prices from April 2026). Storage between moves costs £50-£200 a month, or £15-£50 per cubic metre per month if you are quoted that way. A professional clean of the old property is £100-£400, and there is usually new furniture or a replacement appliance to buy. Utility connection and disconnection fees may apply, although many providers waive them. A packing service adds 20-40% to a removals quote, while a man-and-van, useful for smaller homes, runs £40-£60 an hour.

This calculator lists the main costs of buying and moving: conveyancing, searches, a survey, the Land Registry fee, Stamp Duty, a mortgage arrangement fee, removals, mail redirection and, if you are selling, the estate agent's fee with VAT. Each estimate can be replaced with a real quote, and an other-costs line takes anything specific to your own move. The output is a total moving budget that sits alongside the home buying cost calculator to give you the complete picture. Collecting 3-5 removal quotes before committing is the most useful thing you can do with the figures it produces.

For someone selling one home and buying another, the main costs add up quickly. Estate agent fees on the sale account for £2,000-£4,000, normally 1.0-1.5% plus VAT. Conveyancing costs £1,200-£2,000, a survey £400-£1,000, a mortgage arrangement fee £999-£1,500, removals £700-£1,800, and an EPC, where one is needed, £45-£120, which comes to roughly £5,300-£10,400 in all. Stamp duty sits on top and varies with the price and your circumstances. London moves frequently reach £15-£25k or more, driven by higher property values and a larger stamp duty bill.

Stamp Duty Land Tax is the item that moves most. First-time buyers pay nothing up to £300,000, then 5% between £300,001 and £500,000, with no relief at all if the property costs more than £500,000. Standard buyers pay nothing to £125,000, 2% from £125,001 to £250,000, 5% from £250,001 to £925,000, 10% from £925,001 to £1.5M and 12% above that. An additional property, whether a second home or a buy-to-let, carries a 5% surcharge on top of the standard rates, raised from 3% in October 2024, and non-UK residents pay a further 2%. Neither surcharge applies below £40,000. On a £300,000 purchase the additional-property surcharge lifts Stamp Duty from £5,000 to £20,000. Scotland charges LBTT and Wales charges LTT, both with their own bands.

Conveyancing is the part that decides how long everything takes. A solicitor or licensed conveyancer checks the title at the Land Registry, runs local authority, environmental, water and planning searches, calculates and submits the stamp duty, handles exchange of contracts, and then completion, when the money transfers and the keys change hands. The average timeline is 12-16 weeks from accepted offer to completion. Delays usually come from lender approval, a break in the chain, or leasehold queries with a management company. Choosing by recommendation is worth the trouble, because a poor conveyancer costs months and extra fees.

There is real money to be saved with a little planning, £2,000-£5,000 against a casual approach. Decluttering first cuts the number of boxes and therefore the removals quote, and selling what you no longer want on Vinted, eBay or Facebook Marketplace offsets part of the bill. Packing yourself saves 20-40% on removals. Moving mid-week and mid-month is cheaper than a Friday at the end of the month. Estate agent fees are negotiable, particularly on higher-value properties. Online conveyancers can come in 30-50% below high-street solicitors, and comparing mortgage APRs rather than headline rates, while watching for early repayment charges, protects the largest number on the whole list.