What a 1-Bedroom Flat Move in London Costs: Worked Examples by Distance

If you live in a 1-bedroom flat in London, the question behind a removal quote is simple: what will it cost to get my flat from here to there? The answer has two parts. One is fixed by the flat itself: how much there is to carry, how many people carry it, and which van takes it. The other is the distance, which matters much less inside London than people expect, and much more once the van leaves it.

This guide keeps the flat the same and changes everything else, one thing at a time. It moves one typical 1-bedroom flat 2, 5, 10 and 20 miles in and around London, then 50, 100 and 200 miles out of it. Then it changes the crew, the van and the day of the week, and adds the extras one by one. Every figure is computed from our published rate card with the same arithmetic our quote form uses. If you want the cost of other flat sizes, or of the same flat on different floors, how much a flat removal costs in London covers that; this guide is about distance and scope.

Every removal on our rate card is priced from three numbers: an hourly rate for the vehicle and crew, the hours the job takes, and a charge for each mile of road between your two addresses. For a 1-bedroom flat our quote form suggests the Luton Box Van, which holds up to 700 cubic feet, with 2 movers. That combination costs £100 an hour, with a 3-hour minimum and £1.80 a mile.

The hours start when the team arrives at your collection address. The drive to your door is not counted. The estimate is the loading time (2 hours for a 1-bed), the drive between your two addresses, and the unloading time (2 hours). The total is rounded up to the next half hour and never charged below the vehicle's minimum. The mileage is added on top.

That is the whole formula. Everything in this guide is those three numbers changing: the hours grow with the distance, the rate changes with the crew and the van, and the mileage grows with every mile. The extras at the end are separate lines that sit on top of the move.

Here is one typical 1-bedroom flat, ground floor at both ends, on a weekday, moved further each time. The first four rows are moves within or around London; the last three leave it. The distances are round road miles chosen as examples, not measured routes.

Look at the first four rows. Going from 2 miles to 10 miles adds £14.40, and all of it is mileage: the hours charged stay at 4 hr 30 min. At 20 miles the driving time grows to 45 min, which pushes the job into the next half hour and adds £50 in time as well as the extra miles. Even so, a move from one side of London to its edge costs only £82.40 more than a move round the corner.

The reason is that the carrying dominates. A 1-bedroom flat takes 4 hours to load and unload with two movers. On a 5-mile move the drive is 15 min in our quote model, so the drive is about 6% of the time worked and the mileage 2% of the price. Inside London, what happens at each front door decides the bill, not the route between them.

Two rules turn a smooth distance into steps. The first is the half hour: the time worked is always rounded up to the next half hour. The second is the minimum: the Luton Box Van is never charged below 3 hours. For a 1-bed, the minimum never applies, because the carrying alone is 4 hours. The half-hour rounding does.

So the time cost of a 1-bedroom move sits on a staircase. Every move whose loading, driving and unloading come to just over 4 hours is charged 4 hr 30 min, which is why the 2, 5 and 10-mile moves all have the same time cost of £450. Once the drive takes the total past 4 hr 30 min, the next half hour is added, worth £50 on this crew. Between the steps, only the mileage changes, at £1.80 a mile.

Our quote form estimates driving time from the distance, at an average speed that starts at 25 mph for short urban moves and rises towards 63 mph on long motorway runs. It also shows you the travel time as a range, up to about 20% longer than the figure used here, because no estimate knows the traffic on your day. The written quote is built on your own two addresses, and our terms only add hours where the job grows beyond the agreed scope, such as extra items, waiting or access problems.

In practice this means two things for a London 1-bed. First, the exact route matters less than you might think: a few miles either way rarely changes the hours charged. Second, anything that saves time at the doors, such as being packed, having the parking sorted and keeping the lift free, saves more than a shorter route ever could.

Once the van leaves London, the drive stops being a rounding error. At 50 miles the drive is 1 hr 15 min and the mileage £90, and the move comes to £640. At 100 miles it is 2 hours of driving and £780 in all. At 200 miles, 3 hr 15 min of driving, 7 hr 30 min charged, and £1,110.

The mileage share climbs with the distance: 2% of the price on a 5-mile move, 14% at 50 miles, 23% at 100 and 32% at 200. The cost per mile falls the other way, because the carrying is paid once whatever the distance: about £26.80 for every mile of a 20-mile move, against £5.55 for every mile of a 200-mile one.

On a move out of London, also ask about the road. A toll on the route is added at cost, as its own line. As an example, GOV.UK lists the Dartford Crossing at £4.20 for a one-off crossing in a van or goods vehicle with two axles, charged between 6am and 10pm every day. Moving out of London covers the London end of a long move, from parking to timing the keys.

A 1-bedroom move within London fits comfortably into a morning or an afternoon: 4 hr 30 min charged on a 5-mile move. A long move is a full day. At 200 miles the estimate is 4 hours of carrying and 3 hr 15 min on the road, 7 hr 30 min charged, before any stops.

There is a legal limit on the road side too. GOV.UK's guidance on drivers' hours says that under the Great Britain domestic rules for goods vehicles, the most driving permitted in any working day is 10 hours. A long move is planned around that limit, which is why its start time is agreed carefully. If your route is very long, ask how the day is planned. Whatever the answer, it belongs in the written quote.

Three things keep a long 1-bed move to a single day:

• An early start at the collection. The carrying is the same as any 1-bed, so the earlier it starts, the more daylight is left for the road
• Keys ready at the far end. On a long move, a delay at the delivery cannot be made up by driving faster. Waiting time is charged per crew member per hour
• Everything packed before the team arrives. Packing on the day turns a long day into an overrun

How long a London house move takes has the timings for every home size and a moving day on the clock.

For a 1-bedroom flat our quote form suggests 2 movers. You can ask for a third. On the Luton Box Van, three movers cost £130 an hour against £100 for two, so the third person adds £30 for every hour charged. That is the part people miss: the hours charged include the drive, and a third mover in the cab carries nothing between your two addresses.

The table shows the same 1-bedroom flat with two movers and with three, if three took exactly as long, and how much sooner three would have to finish to cost no more than two. The break-even hours are rounded down to the half hour, as a quote would charge them, and the last column shows that saving as a share of the carrying time, the only part of the day a third person can shorten.

On a 5-mile move, three movers need to save 1 hr 30 min of the 4 hours of carrying to break even, 38% of it. That is possible when the access is hard: stairs with no lift, a long walk from the van, or heavy items that need two people while the third keeps the boxes moving. On a 200-mile move the same third mover is paid for 3 hr 15 min of driving as well, and has to save 2 hours of carrying, 50% of it, which a normal 1-bed rarely allows.

There is a second cost if your flat is upstairs. Stairs are charged per person, so a third mover also adds to any stair line. Our Luton van guide works through the two-or-three question for any length of job; for a 1-bed, the short version is that a third mover is worth asking about on a short, awkward London move and rarely on a long, easy one.

The Luton Box Van is the suggestion for a 1-bed because a typical 1-bedroom flat fills most of its 700 cubic feet. A sparsely furnished flat, with no large sofa or wardrobe, may fit the Transit LWB at 500 cubic feet, which costs £85 an hour with two movers against £100, and £1.40 a mile against £1.80. The Small Transit (SWB), at 350 cubic feet, cannot take a typical 1-bed in one trip.

The table prices the same 1-bedroom flat in each van, with two movers and the same 4 hours of carrying in every case, because the same things are carried. A second trip adds two more drives, back empty and loaded again, at the same driving time and mileage as the first. The figure in brackets is the hours charged. These are illustrations of the rate card arithmetic, not quotes.

If the whole flat genuinely fits the Transit LWB, it is the cheaper van: £389.50 on a 5-mile move against £459 in the Luton Box Van, and £650 against £780 at 100 miles. But the saving depends on everything fitting in one load.

Two trips are where distance decides. On a short London move, two trips in a smaller van can come out slightly cheaper on paper: £393 in the Small Transit (SWB) and £446 in the Transit LWB at 5 miles, against £459 for one trip in the Luton Box Van. By 20 miles that has reversed: £559.50 and £636.50 against £536. On our rate card, one Luton Box Van trip is the cheapest of the three from about 19 miles. At 100 miles, two trips cost £1,110 and £1,270 against £780, because every extra trip repeats the drive and the mileage.

Even on a short move, the paper saving rests on three assumptions: that the carrying takes no longer with two loads, that the van finds a space at both doors twice, and that the sofa, bed and wardrobe fit the smaller van at all. A London street where the van cannot stop close the second time wipes out the difference quickly. For a typical 1-bed we suggest one trip in the Luton Box Van, and out of London a second trip is the most expensive mistake on the table.

So the honest answer is to size the van from the load, not the bedroom count. Send a room-by-room list or photos, and we will say which van it needs before you book. What fits in a Transit van has the room-by-room volumes and when two trips beat a bigger van on a short move.

Weekday and Saturday daytime moves have no surcharge on our rate card. Evenings add 15% to the hourly rate, and Sundays and bank holidays add 20%. Because the surcharge applies to the hourly rate, it grows with the hours, and a long move has more of them. The mileage is the same on any day.

On a 5-mile move, a Sunday adds £90. On a 200-mile move it adds £150, because there are 7 hr 30 min to surcharge instead of 4 hr 30 min. If your dates are flexible and the move is long, a weekday or a Saturday is worth the most. Booking at short notice costs nothing extra: a move of up to 2 bedrooms booked by 2pm can often be done the same day, if a van is free.

The figures so far are the move itself. Many 1-bedroom moves in London have at least one more line. This is the 5-mile move again, with each extra added in turn, so you can see what each one does to the total. Each appears in a written quote as its own line, and you can leave out any of them.

Built up this way, the same 1-bedroom move goes from £459 to £1,237. The move itself ends up as 37% of the total, and the largest additions are a choice (packing) or a fact about the building (stairs). None of them depends on the distance, so on a 100-mile move the same extras would add the same amounts to £780.

Stairs

The ground floor is free. From the first floor up, with no lift that takes the furniture, stairs are charged per person, per flight, per hour at that address. The 2nd-floor line above is £160 at the collection; a flat upstairs at both ends has a line at each. How the removal stairs charge works explains the formula, and the flat removal cost guide shows the same flat on every floor.

Packing

The 1-bedroom packing package is £400: £250 for 2 packers / up to 3 hrs and £150 for the materials, which include 30 boxes, 2 wardrobe boxes and 1 mattress cover. It is only offered with a removal, never on its own. Packing yourself saves the whole line, as long as everything is sealed before the team arrives.

Dismantling

Dismantling is priced per item, only with a removal, with a £90 minimum. A double bed taken apart and rebuilt is £90, and a 2-door wardrobe £110, so the pair is £200. On a small job the minimum matters: one bed dismantled only is £50 on the list but £90 with the minimum. Do removal companies dismantle furniture? has the full price list.

Congestion Charge

If either address is inside the zone during charging hours, the charge is added as its own line, at what TfL charges. TfL charges £18 a day when paid in advance or on the day, and £21 if paid by midnight of the third day after travel. Our vans meet the ULEZ standard, so no ULEZ charge is ever added. London road charges on moving day covers the zone and its hours.

Parking

A parking suspension is not in our total, because you apply to the council and pay it directly. Islington is a useful example for a 1-bed, because of how it charges. Islington charges residents £164.80 for the first day for as many spaces as you need, then £62.25 per space on day two. Each space is 5 metres, so a Luton Box Van can need two, and in Islington the second one costs nothing extra on day one. You must apply at least 14 days ahead (10 for pay-by-phone bays), and a late application can carry a £100 fee at the council's discretion.

Islington also says that for most domestic removals you can park near your home for free: clearly branded removal vehicles can use a single yellow line or a resident bay while loading is continuous. So in Islington, a suspension is often not needed at all. Other councils charge very differently; our parking suspension finder lists the rules and fees for 31 London councils, and parking suspensions for moving day explains how to apply.

These are real 1-bedroom moves from our booking records, anonymised to the area. The prices are what customers booked at the time, under our earlier pricing, which charged a price for a time slot. The miles are straight-line distances between the two postcode areas, not road miles, so the road distance was longer. Read them for the van, the crew and the time each move needed, not as today's rates.

The pattern matches today's rate card. The two 2024 moves ending in London were booked for up to 3 hours with two movers in a large van. The Barking to Beeston, Nottingham move, 111 miles in a straight line, was booked with a Luton box van and 2 movers for up to 8 hours: the same carrying as a London 1-bed, with a long drive on top.

Every figure above is an estimate for a typical 1-bedroom flat. Your written quote is built from your own move. These are the things to check before you compare one quote with another:

• The load, not the bedroom count. A 1-bed with a big sofa, a king-size bed and a wall of books can need more space and time than a sparse 2-bed
• The road distance. Mileage is £1.80 a mile on the Luton Box Van, from your collection to your delivery
• The floor and the lift at each end. A lift that takes the furniture removes the stair line at that address
• The parking at each end. How far the van can stop from each door, and whether a suspension is needed
• The crew. 2 movers is the suggestion; a third mover adds £30 an hour for every hour charged
• The day. Evenings add 15% and Sundays and bank holidays 20% to the hourly rate
• The extras. Packing, dismantling, the Congestion Charge and any tolls each appear as their own line
• Waiting. £40 per crew member per hour, for example while keys are released

Whatever the distance, every move with us includes:

• 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.

Start from our flat removals in London page, which covers 1-bedroom flats and every other size with the same rate card. If your 1-bed is a house, or comes with a shed and a garden, our house removals in London page has the larger vehicles and crews. Either way, the quote shows every line in this guide for your own move, and the London removals team can tell you which van and crew suit your flat and your distance.