The Hidden Costs of Moving House in London (and Who Pays Each One)

Most people budget for a removal as one number. In London it rarely is. Stairs, waiting for keys, a Sunday date, a bay suspension, a day of packing, a Congestion Charge line and a week of storage can each add their own amount, and some of them are paid to us while others go straight to TfL, the council or HMRC. Then there are the costs of moving home that have nothing to do with the van at all.

This guide puts every one of those lines in one ledger, with a column that most cost guides leave out: who pays, and to whom. It then prices one 2-bedroom London move three ways, so you can see how far the extras move the total, and which ones you can avoid.

These are all the extra lines a London removal from us can carry. Each one appears separately on the written quote, or is named in it as something you pay elsewhere, so nothing is folded into the hourly rate. Where a line has its own guide, the link is in the last column. This table is about the lines; the base price of the move itself is explained in London house removal costs.

Three columns matter when you read any quote, ours or anyone else's. The first is when it appears, because most of these lines only exist on some moves. The second is who it is paid to: a line that goes to a council or to TfL is not the mover's profit, and a mover that quotes it should be passing it on at the published price. The third is how much, and whether it is a fixed amount, a rate per hour or a percentage, because a percentage grows with the job.

And these are the costs of moving home that are not removal costs at all. We do not collect any of them, but they land in the same weeks and the same budget, and some of them are larger than the move.

To see how the lines add up, take one move and price it three ways. The base is our rate card's suggestion for a 2-bedroom home: the 5.5 Tonne Lorry with 3 movers, 6 hours of loading and unloading, 8 miles across London, ground floor at both ends, on a weekday. That comes to £1,056: £1,040 for 6.5 hours and £16 in mileage.

The second version is the same move from a second-floor flat with no lift, with the new address inside the Congestion Charge zone and one bay suspended outside the old one. The third adds the extras people most often book with a 2-bedroom move: three pieces of furniture taken apart and rebuilt, our 2-bedroom packing package the day before, and an hour's wait at the new address while the keys are released.

Look at the shape of it. The access lines add £524.15, which is close to half the base move, and almost all of that is the stairs and the suspension. The service lines add another £1,030, but those are choices: you can pack yourself, take the beds apart yourself and ask for the keys before the van arrives. In London, the extras you cannot choose are the ones decided by the building and the street.

If the same move fell on a Sunday, the 20% surcharge would add £208 on the removal labour and £62 on the dismantling. It is not charged on the mileage, the stairs, the packing materials or the Congestion Charge. An evening slot would add 15% instead, £156 on the labour.

The building decides more of a London move's price than the distance does. These lines are set by what the crew finds at each door, which is why the quote asks about floors, lifts and the carry from the van.

• Stairs. £10 per person, per flight, per hour at that address; a floor is 2 flights. Two movers on a second floor cost £120 an hour of loading. How removal companies price stairs works through every floor and crew size
• A lift that takes the furniture. Removes the stair charge. A lift that takes boxes but not the sofa still saves most of it
• Waiting time. £40 per crew member per hour, so £120 an hour for a crew of 3. It covers time the crew cannot work: keys not released, a goods lift booked by someone else, a chain that has not completed
• Dismantling. Priced per item from our list, with a minimum booking of £90. A single bed taken apart costs £50 on its own but is charged at the minimum. Do removal companies dismantle furniture? has the full price list

Waiting is the line people do not see coming. On a sale, keys are often released around lunchtime, and a chain delay can hold a loaded van for an hour or more. Completion day removals explains how to time the booking so the crew is not standing still.

The date is the second thing that moves the price. Our rate card has no surcharge for Monday to Saturday daytime, and no rate changes with the time of the month or the season. Two things do change it:

• Evenings: +15% on removal labour, dismantling and TV work
• Sundays and bank holidays: +20% on the same lines, instead of the evening rate, not on top of it

Packing labour is surcharged too, but only when the packing itself falls on that evening or Sunday. Packing materials, mileage and stairs never are. If your date is flexible, the cheapest day to move house in London prices every day of the week.

What does not change the price is notice. We do not charge a premium for booking at short notice, and a move of up to two bedrooms booked by 2pm can often be done the same day, if a van and crew are free. A 20% deposit secures the date either way.

Boxes, tape, bubble wrap and wardrobe cartons arrive with the crew and are itemised in your quote, so there is nothing to buy or collect first. They are not included in the hourly rate, and they are not free, so they appear as their own line. On our 2-bedroom package, £250 of the £600 is materials: 25 small and 25 large boxes, 3 wardrobe boxes, tape, bubble wrap, paper and mattress covers. The other £350 is 2 packers / up to 4 hrs.

Packing is only booked with a removal. If you pack yourself, you can still have the crew bring the materials, itemised on the quote. TV cartons, picture and mirror cartons and crates are specialist materials, quoted separately. Do removal companies supply boxes? covers what each home size needs and what happens to the boxes afterwards.

London adds three road-related lines that other cities mostly do not. Only one of them is ours to set, and it is the one we never charge.

• ULEZ. Our vans meet the standard, so no ULEZ charge is added. Ask any other mover whether their van meets it
• Congestion Charge. If either address is inside the zone during charging hours, it is its own line at TfL's price: £18 a day paid on the day or in advance, £21 if paid by midnight of the third day after. Charging hours are 07:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and 12:00 to 18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays
• Tolls. Added at cost when the route crosses one. The Dartford Crossing one-off charge is £4.20 for a vehicle with 2 axles and £3.50 for a car
• Parking suspension. You apply to the council and pay its fee directly. We plan the van and crew around the bay. It never passes through our quote unless agreed in writing

Suspension fees are the most variable line in the ledger. In Southwark, it was £93 admin plus £53.15 per space per day when checked, so one bay for one day was £146.15. Some councils waive part of the fee for a home move, and some need weeks of notice. Our parking suspension finder lists the fee and notice for each London council, and parking suspensions for moving day explains how to apply. The full detail on road charges, including red routes, is in London road charges for moving day.

When the old home has to be empty before the new one is ready, storage becomes its own set of lines. We arrange it through a storage partner, wherever the move is going, and the quote shows each part:

• The storage itself: from £100 a month for a small load, and £250–£350 a month for a 1-bedroom flat's contents, VAT included. The first month is paid upfront
• Partner fees: any handling fee the partner charges is passed on at cost
• Insurance while stored: a separate line, quoted on the value you declare. Goods in Transit cover is for the journeys
• The two journeys: into storage and out again, each priced as a move at our normal van and crew rates
• Access: by appointment, with 2 working days' notice

Storage turns one move into two, so the move-out and the redelivery are both on the bill. If completion slips on the day, ask us about storage that same day; it depends on availability. Storage costs in London compares the options and what the market charges.

If you are buying in London, Stamp Duty Land Tax is likely to be the biggest single cost of the move, and it is paid by the buyer to HMRC. It applies in England and Northern Ireland, so it covers every London borough. GOV.UK sets the rates: nothing on the first £125,000, 2% on the next £125,000, 5% from £250,001 to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million and 12% above that.

First-time buyers pay nothing up to £300,000 and 5% on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000. Above £500,000 the relief is lost altogether, and the normal rates apply to the whole price. If buying the new home means you own more than one residential property, you usually pay 5% on top. That includes a home mover whose old home has not sold by the day the new purchase completes; GOV.UK says the extra 5% does not apply when the home you are replacing is sold within 36 months, and points to a refund route for the higher rates.

Here is what those rules give at three prices. These are our arithmetic on GOV.UK's bands, checked against GOV.UK's own worked examples, not a quote from HMRC. Use HMRC's calculator for your own purchase.

The right-hand column is the one to watch in a London chain. If your sale falls through or is delayed past your purchase, the extra 5% on a £550,000 home is £27,500, more than ten times the cost of the 2-bedroom move above. It can be reclaimed later, but it has to be paid first.

Conveyancing fees, searches and Land Registry fees are paid by buyers and sellers to their own conveyancer. We do not quote them, and the amounts vary, so ask for a written quote from the firm you instruct.

A move often means two addresses for a while, and both can carry bills. GOV.UK says you usually have to pay council tax on an empty home, and that the council decides whether to give a discount and how much. A furnished home nobody lives in as their main home counts as a second home, and councils can charge up to twice the normal bill on those.

So if you buy before you sell, or your tenancy runs on after you move, budget for council tax at both addresses for the overlap and tell both councils your dates. If you will live alone at the new address, GOV.UK says you get 25% off, but you have to apply. Council tax when you move house explains who to tell and when.

The TV licence is simpler. GOV.UK puts it at £180 a year, and you need one for live TV on any channel and for BBC iPlayer. A move does not need a new licence: you update the address on the TV Licensing website.

For renters, the hidden cost is usually not a bill but a deduction. If the landlord claims for cleaning or damage, the money comes out of your deposit. GOV.UK says a landlord must protect the deposit within 30 days of receiving it, return it within 10 days of you both agreeing the amount, and that it stays protected in the scheme while any dispute is sorted out.

The cheapest defence is to leave the flat in the condition the check-in inventory describes and to be there for the check-out. The other cost to plan for is overlap rent: if the new tenancy starts before the old one ends, you pay both for those days, so match the move date to the notice dates. Getting your tenancy deposit back covers what landlords can and cannot claim and how the dispute services work.

Two small fees catch people at the end. A mail redirection is paid by you to Royal Mail. When we checked, the Post Office's redirection page listed £45 for up to 3 months, £66.50 for up to 6 months and £95 for up to 12 months for the person applying, with a smaller fee for each extra person, and said you can apply up to six months before or after the move. Prices change, so check before you pay. Redirecting your mail explains how to set it up.

Anything you are not taking has to be gone before the crew arrives, because we do not take rubbish or clear waste. Councils collect bulky items for a fee you pay them. On 5 November 2026, Hackney charged £24 for 1 to 5 items and £48 for 6 to 10, and Wandsworth £24.90 for up to four items and £11.10 for each extra one. Book it before moving day: every item you get rid of is also an item nobody has to carry.

Part of reading a quote is knowing what should not be on it. On ours, these never appear as charges:

• ULEZ: our vans meet the standard
• Booking at short notice: no premium, however close the date
• The drive to your door: the clock starts when the crew arrives at your collection address
• Floor and doorway protection: part of the standard service
• Saturdays: no weekend surcharge; only Sundays and bank holidays carry one

And these are included on every move, whatever the size:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

If you are planning a whole-home move, start from our house removals in London page, which uses the same rate card as every figure here. Once you know the building, the street and the date, the ledger above tells you which lines your move will carry, and the London house removals team can price them for you in one quote.