Office Removals in London: How They're Priced

A London office move is priced on the same rate card as a house move, but the decisions that change the bill are different. A family chooses a date. A business chooses a window: the hours it can afford to stop working. That window decides the surcharge, whether the Congestion Charge applies, how long the building lets the van use its loading bay, and whether the team can finish before Monday.

This guide sets out every number that goes into an office removal quote from us, from the vehicle and crew to desks, stairs and road charges, and works one small office through four different time slots so you can see what each choice costs. Everything is computed from our published rates, so it matches the quote you would get.

Every office quote we write is built from the same handful of lines. Each appears separately, so you can see which choices are costing money and which are not.

• The vehicle and crew, by the hour. One hourly rate covers both. Time runs from the team's arrival at your collection address, it is rounded up to the next half hour, and it is never charged below the vehicle's minimum: 2 hours for the two smaller vans, 3 hours for the Luton Box Van and the lorries
• Mileage. Charged per mile between the two addresses, from £1.20 for the Small Transit (SWB) to £3.60 for the 18 Tonne Lorry. Across London it is usually the smallest line on the quote
• Dismantling and reassembly. Priced per item from our published list, with a £90 minimum booking. Desks are the line that grows fastest on an office move
• Out-of-hours surcharge. 15% for an evening, 20% for a Sunday or bank holiday, on the labour and the dismantling, shown as its own line
• Stairs. Only if there is no lift that takes the furniture. Charged per person, per flight, per hour at that address
• London lines. The Congestion Charge when either address is in the zone during charging hours, and any toll on the route at cost. There is never a ULEZ charge, because our vans meet the standard
• Packing materials. If we pack, the materials are itemised. Specialist wooden crating is not included unless agreed in writing

Our quotation terms also say how overtime works: extra hours are charged only where the job runs over because of additional items, work asked for on the day, waiting, access restrictions or delays outside the agreed scope. An office that is packed, labelled and cleared with building management in advance rarely meets any of those.

If you have already read what a London house move costs, the rate card will look familiar. The rest of this guide covers what is different about a business.

Our quote form does not ask how many desks you have and multiply. It works from the load: the volume decides the vehicle, and each vehicle has a default number of loading and unloading hours and a default crew. Those defaults are an estimate. They come from what that size of load usually takes, and you can change the crew in the form or tell us why your office is quicker or slower. The written quote is then built on your own inventory and access.

Here is every vehicle on the rate card with its defaults, priced for a move of 5 miles with nothing else added, on a weekday, an evening and a Sunday.

Read the table as a starting point, not a menu. The defaults run from 2 hours of handling with 2 movers in the Small Transit (SWB) to 9 hr 30 min with fivemen in the 18 Tonne Lorry. The smaller vehicles are often held at their minimum: the Small Transit (SWB) job does about 2 hr 15 min of work and is charged 2 hr 30 min.

An office bigger than our largest vehicle, the 18 Tonne Lorry at 2,200 cu ft, is planned by the team after a survey, often as more than one vehicle, and priced in the written quote.

To show how the time slot changes the price, here is one office priced four ways. It is a load that fits the Luton Box Van, moved 3 miles between two addresses inside the Congestion Charge zone, ground floor or goods lift at both ends, with 6 desks dismantled and reassembled. The crew and hours are the vehicle's defaults: 3 movers, 2 hours loading and 2 hours unloading, plus about 15 min of driving, charged as 4 hr 30 min. The 6 desks and the start times are our assumptions for the example.

What the four slots show

• A weekday daytime move is the base price. £585 of labour, from £420 for the desks and £5.40 of mileage, plus TfL's £18 Congestion Charge because the van is in the zone during charging hours. Total from £1,028.40
• An evening adds £150.75 but loses the Congestion Charge. The 15% falls on the labour and the desks, not the mileage. A start at 18:30 is after the charging hours, so the line disappears. Total from £1,161.15
• A Saturday with an early start is the cheapest slot of all. There is no Saturday surcharge, and a job that starts at 07:00 and finishes by about 11:30 is done before weekend charging starts at 12:00. Total from £1,010.40
• A Sunday costs the most. The 20% adds £201, even with the Congestion Charge avoided by the same early start. Total from £1,211.40

The gap between the cheapest and dearest slot for this office is £201. On a bigger office the gap grows in proportion, because the surcharge is a percentage of the labour and dismantling. If the job overruns the early start into the afternoon, the Congestion Charge comes back, which is one more reason to have everything packed before the team arrives.

Most London offices move outside working hours, and the reason is simple: the surcharge is usually smaller than a day of lost work. In the example above, an evening adds £150.75 to the labour and desks. The way to decide is to put that figure next to what a working day without desks, phones and files costs your own business, which only you can work out.

Why Saturday is often the answer

Our rate card has no Saturday surcharge. For an office that is closed at weekends, a Saturday move costs the same as a weekday one while losing no working time, and it leaves Sunday free for your IT people to reconnect and test before Monday. An early start also avoids the weekend Congestion Charge, which runs from 12:00 to 18:00.

When an evening suits better

An evening move suits a business that trades on Saturdays, a small office that can be cleared in one evening, or a building that does not allow weekend moves. It costs 15% more on the labour and dismantling, which on the Luton Box Van with 3 movers takes the hourly rate from £130 to £149.50. The weekday Congestion Charge ends at 18:00, so a later start means no charge. When an evening begins on our rate card is confirmed in your quote; the example above simply assumes 18:30.

Bank holidays

A bank holiday weekend gives an office an extra day, but the bank holiday itself carries the same 20% as a Sunday (£156 an hour on the same crew). The next bank holidays in England and Wales, from GOV.UK, are Christmas Day on 25 December 2026, the Boxing Day substitute on 28 December 2026, New Year's Day on 1 January 2027, and Good Friday and Easter Monday on 26 and 29 March 2027. TfL makes no Congestion Charge from Christmas Day to the New Year's Day bank holiday, inclusive, so a move in that week never pays it.

Desks, pedestal drawers on frames, meeting tables and storage units often have to come apart to leave the building and go back together at the other end. On our published list, a desk or piece of office furniture is £40 to dismantle only, or from £70 to dismantle and reassemble. Every dismantling booking has a £90 minimum, so a single desk costs the minimum either way, and the per-item price takes over from 2 desks with reassembly.

The reassembly figure is a "from" price because office furniture varies more than domestic furniture. Bench desking, sit-stand frames with motors, and anything glued, damaged or without its original fixings are priced after photographs. Our terms also exclude missing, damaged or unsuitable fixings, pre-existing defects and specialist joinery. Send a photo of each desk type, not each desk: one picture of a bench system tells the team what all twelve positions involve.

What you can do to cut this line

• Move desks whole where they fit. A desk that goes through the doors, into the lift and onto the van in one piece costs nothing to dismantle. Measure the doors and the lift car before deciding
• Count only what is moving. Furniture that is staying or being replaced should not be on the inventory at all
• Bag and tape the fixings. Each desk's bolts in a labelled bag taped to its frame saves time at the other end; how to label office furniture and equipment sets out a numbering system that works
• Clear the drawers. Pedestals full of paper are heavy, slow and liable to spill. Empty them into boxes during the week before

Dismantling is also inside the out-of-hours surcharge. On a Sunday, the 6 desks in our example cost £84 more than on a Saturday. The £90 minimum top-up itself carries no surcharge.

Office buildings control their own loading bays, goods lifts and moving hours far more tightly than residential blocks, and the rules at both ends shape the quote. Ask building management early, at both the old and the new office, and send us what they say.

• Permitted hours. Many buildings only allow moves at set times, often evenings or weekends. That can decide your slot before you weigh the surcharge
• Goods lift. Book it for the whole window at both ends, and check its car size against your largest item. A goods lift that takes the furniture means no stair charge. Booking a goods lift for moving day covers what to ask and how long a slot to book
• Loading bay. Find out where the vehicle can stand, its height limit and how long it can stay. If there is no bay, the street outside decides what you need; parking suspensions for moving day explains how to apply, and you arrange and pay for the suspension with the council
• Insurance certificate. Some buildings ask for the remover's insurance certificate before they will book the lift or bay. We send it on request. Ask the building what it needs to see, and tell us early so it is with them before the day
• Protection. Our crew protects floors, doorways and common areas along the carrying route as standard. If a building asks for anything more, such as protection for a newly laid floor, agree it with us in writing before the move

If the lift is out of action

A goods lift that is out of service on the day turns an easy office into a stair job. Stairs cost £10 per person, per flight, per hour at that address, and a floor is 2 flights. For our example office on the second floor, with 3 people and 2 hours of loading, that is £120 an hour and £240 in all, before the extra time the carrying takes. Ask building management when the lift was last serviced and who to call if it fails.

Waiting for access

If the team is ready but the bay is occupied or the keys to the new office have not arrived, waiting time is charged at £40 per crew member per hour. For 3 people that is £120 an hour. Confirm the access arrangements, and who holds the keys at the new office, the day before.

Offices in the City, the West End and other central areas are often inside the Congestion Charge zone. On our quotes, if either address is inside the zone during charging hours, the charge is its own line. It is TfL's charge, not ours: TfL charges £18 a day if paid on the day or in advance, or £21 if paid by midnight on the third day after travel.

The hours matter more than the amount. TfL charges between 07:00 and 18:00 on weekdays and between 12:00 and 18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays. That is why the evening and the early weekend slots in our example avoid it. A move that crosses the zone between two addresses outside it can also be caught, although a sensible route usually avoids that. There is no ULEZ charge on our vans, because they meet the standard.

For the zone map, the Low Emission Zone and red route loading rules, see London road charges for moving day.

Our crews pack, carry, load and place equipment: screens, base units, printers, phones, servers and their racks if they are movable. What we do not do is the technical side. Our quotation terms say plainly that we do not disconnect or reconnect plumbing, gas or electrical appliances, and the same applies to computers, networks and phone systems. Your own IT team or IT supplier should disconnect everything before the crew arrives and reconnect it at the new office.

That division of work affects the price in two ways. First, if equipment is still connected when the crew arrives, the team waits, and waiting is paid time. Second, if IT reconnection runs into Monday, the business loses the day that the out-of-hours slot was meant to save. Book your IT people for the same window as the move, or for the morning after.

• Before the move. IT disconnects, labels each cable and device, and backs up anything that matters. Laptops and anything holding sensitive data are best carried by staff or IT, not packed in the general load
• On the day. The crew wraps screens and base units, keeps each workstation's kit together, and loads the server equipment where IT asks
• At the new office. Equipment is placed at the desk positions on your floor plan, ready for IT to connect

Packing an office move covers what to pack last and unpack first, and how to keep server and network kit apart from the general furniture.

An office move is the cheapest moment to stop paying for things nobody uses, because every item on the van costs carrying time and every desk costs dismantling. But we do not take items away for disposal; disposal is excluded on every quotation. Whatever is not coming to the new office needs its own route, arranged by the business.

GOV.UK is clear that any waste from a commercial activity is business waste, and the business has duties for it. A waste transfer note is needed for each load that leaves the premises, kept for 2 years, and you should check that whoever takes the waste is a registered waste carrier. Old IT equipment needs particular care because of the data on it.

Plan the clear-out for the week before the move, not the day. Furniture left in the old office on moving day slows the crew, and items that were meant to be thrown away have a way of ending up on the van and in the new office.

It is tempting to cut the crew by asking staff to move their own boxes. Think twice before you do. The HSE says employers must protect workers from the risk of injury from hazardous manual handling, avoiding it so far as reasonably practicable. The law sets no specific weight limit, which means the judgement, and the responsibility, sit with you as the employer.

What staff can usefully do is pack and label their own desks to a deadline, carry their own laptops and personal items, and be on hand at the new office to say where things go. The lifting, the stairs and the furniture are what the crew is for. The crew on every one of our jobs is employed by us, and Goods in Transit and Public Liability cover come with every move.

A smaller crew is not always cheaper anyway. On the Luton Box Van, going from 2 movers to 3 movers adds £30 an hour, and the extra person usually shortens the job on a load of that size. That is why the default crew for that vehicle is 3 movers, and why it is a default you can change rather than a rule.

These are real office bookings from our records, anonymised to the area. The prices are what each business was quoted and booked at the time, under our earlier pricing, which sold a time slot rather than an hourly rate. The miles are straight-line distances between outward postcodes, not road miles. Read them for the vehicle, crew and time an office of that kind needed, not as today's prices.

Two of the three are London jobs, both on a Luton box van with two movers and a booking of five to six hours. The third, a larger office outside London, needed a lorry, three movers and a full day for a short distance. The pattern holds today: for an office, distance barely matters; the volume and the access set the hours.

Whatever the vehicle, crew or time slot, every office move with us includes the same basics:

• 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.

Packing materials are not in the hourly rate. If we pack, the crew brings what the job needs and it is itemised in your quote. For the planning that sits around all of this, from staff deadlines to the floor plan, use the office move checklist.

An office quote is only as good as the information behind it. The more the team can see before the day, the closer the written quote is to what you pay, and the less room there is for overtime.

The team will tell you if anything needs a survey before it can be priced, such as fitted or bespoke furniture. For the full service, including what the crew handles on the day, see office removals in London. If you are moving home as well as the business, our house removals in London page covers that move on the same rate card, and the London house removals team can plan both together.