How Removal Companies Price Stairs and Upper Floors

More than half of London households live in a flat, maisonette or apartment: 54.0%, or about 1.8 million homes, according to the ONS from the 2021 Census. No other English region comes close. So for most London moves, the question is not whether there are stairs, but how they are priced.

This guide takes our stair charge apart, piece by piece. It sets out the formula, what each number in it means, a calculator for every crew and floor, and worked examples from the smallest van to a lorry. It also covers the awkward cases: lifts that take some things, basements, split levels, front steps and spiral stairs.

Every stair charge we quote is the same multiplication. There is no separate table to look things up in, and no figure that changes by borough or building type:

Each of the four numbers has a precise meaning:

• The rate. £10 for each person, for each flight, for each hour. It is the only fixed figure in the formula, and it is the same for every vehicle and every London postcode
• The people. Everyone on the crew counts, and that includes the driver. A driver-only booking is one person; "2 movers" is two people, the driver being one of them; "4 movers" is four
• The flights. We do not count steps or landings on the day. We take the floor number and multiply it by 2. A first floor is 2 flights, a fourth floor 8
• The hours. The time the crew spends at that address: the loading hours at the collection, or the unloading hours at the delivery. Driving time between the two is never multiplied

Put together: two movers loading for two hours on a third floor is £10 × 2 × 6 × 2 = £240. That is the whole calculation. The rest of this guide is about where each number comes from in your move, and the cases where the answer is not a straight multiplication.

We use UK floor numbering. The floor at street level is the ground floor, and it counts as zero. The first floor is the one above it. If you are used to a system where the street level is called the first floor, count one less: a "second floor" flat in that sense is a first floor here, and 2 flights, not 4.

In building regulations, a flight has a precise meaning. Approved Document K, the government's guidance on stairs for England, defines it as a continuous series of steps between landings. A single storey can have one flight or several, depending on the stair. In a block of flats, the same document limits the common stair to 12 risers between landings in most cases, which is one reason a staircase between floors is often broken by a half landing.

Our rule deliberately does not ask you to count any of that. It assumes 2 flights to every floor, whatever the actual shape of the stair, so the charge depends on one fact you already know: the floor number. That makes it something you can check yourself before the quote arrives, and something two people describing the same flat will always describe the same way.

Floors above the fifth

The quote form offers floors up to "5th or higher", and then asks for the exact floor. The rule keeps adding 2 flights per floor with no ceiling: a sixth floor is 12 flights, a tenth 20. In practice, most buildings that tall have a lift, and the lift is what matters.

When you are not sure

If you choose "Not sure" for the floor, the quote form does not guess. It lists the stair charge at that address as something for the team to confirm, and the team asks you before the quote is finalised. The same happens when you are not sure whether the lift will take the furniture.

The grid below is the stair charge for one address with no usable lift, for every crew size and every floor from the first to the sixth. Start with "Per hour", then pick the hours at your address to see the line for your move. The hours the quote form uses for each vehicle are in the next section.

Three patterns are worth seeing in that grid, because they are what make the charge predictable:

• It grows in straight lines. Each extra floor adds the same amount for a given crew, and each extra person adds the same amount for a given floor. A second floor costs exactly twice a first floor; four people cost exactly four times one. There are no thresholds and no bands
• The corners are far apart. Per hour, a driver alone on a first floor adds £20. Four movers on a sixth floor add £480. That spread is the reason a stair charge can be a small line on one quote and the largest line on another
• The hours multiply everything. Choose 3 hr 30 min in the calculator and every cell is 3.5 times the hourly figure. On a large move, the hours at the address matter as much as the floor

Two things are not in the grid, and both make the charge zero: the ground floor, and a working lift that takes the furniture. Those are covered further down.

The fourth number in the formula is the one people most often get wrong when they estimate it themselves. The stair charge is not multiplied by the length of the whole move. It is multiplied by the hours at the address with the stairs: the loading hours at the collection, the unloading hours at the delivery. The drive between the two is never part of it.

Our quote form takes those hours from the vehicle the load needs, because a bigger load takes longer to handle at each end. Here are the hours it uses, the crew it suggests for each vehicle, and what that means for the stair line at the collection:

Read across a row to see how fast the charge builds on a big move. The crew can be changed on the quote form, and the stair line follows the crew you choose. The hours shown are the form's starting point; the team confirms the time allocation for your move in the written quote.

Why the whole loading time, not just the stair time

A crew does not spend every minute of the loading time on the stairs. Some of it is wrapping furniture, taking a bed apart or stacking the van. The formula still uses the whole loading time at that address, for a simple reason: it is a number fixed before the day, written on the quote, and the same for everyone. Measuring the minutes actually spent on the stairs would mean a stopwatch on the day and an argument afterwards. A known multiplier is easier to check and impossible to dispute.

Here is the formula on three real-world shapes of move, using the quote form's hours. These are the stair lines only, not the price of the move. For what a whole flat move costs, see what a flat removal costs in London.

The small end: a few items from a first floor

A small load in the Small Transit (SWB), collected from a first-floor flat with no lift and delivered to a ground floor. The quote form uses 1 hour at the collection for this van.

• Driver only: £10 × 1 person × 2 flights × 1 hour = £20
• Two movers (the form's suggestion for this van): £10 × 2 × 2 × 1 hour = £40
• At the delivery: ground floor, so nothing

At this end of the scale, the stair line is modest. It is also the case where the old idea that a first floor is free would mislead you: under our rule, the first floor is charged, because it is two flights of carrying.

The middle: a Luton move between two flats

A load that fills the Luton Box Van, with the 3 movers the form suggests (3 people). The collection is a third floor with no lift. The delivery is a second floor in a block with a lift.

The lift at the new building is worth £240 on this move. That is the clearest case for confirming, before you book, that it takes your largest items. How to book a goods lift for moving day covers how to reserve it and what to measure.

The large end: a lorry move from a fourth floor

A large home in the 7.5 Tonne Lorry, with the 4 movers the form suggests (4 people) and 3 hr 30 min at each end. The collection is a fourth floor with no usable lift, the delivery a first-floor maisonette entrance up one storey of stairs.

• Collection: £10 × 4 × 8 flights × 3 hr 30 min = £1,120
• Delivery: £10 × 4 × 2 flights × 3 hr 30 min = £280
• Both addresses: £1,400

At this end, the stair line is a serious part of the quote, and it is meant to be. Moving a whole house's furniture down four storeys by hand, with four people, for four hours, is a great deal of work. If either building has a lift that takes the furniture, the line for that address drops to nothing, which is why we ask about lifts at both ends before anything else.

The rule on lifts has one sentence: a working lift that is suitable for the furniture removes the stair charge at that address. In practice there are four situations, and the quote form treats each differently.

• No lift. The stair charge applies from the first floor up, worked out as above
• A lift that takes the furniture. No stair charge at that address, whatever the floor
• A lift that is not suitable. If you say there is a lift but it will not take the furniture, the form prices the stairs as if there were no lift, and the quote line says "lift not suitable"
• Not sure. If you are not sure there is a lift, or not sure it will take the furniture, the form does not decide either way. The stair charge goes to the team as an item to confirm with you

A lift that takes the boxes but not the sofa

This is the most common London case, and the quote form does not have a setting for it: you can say a lift is suitable or not, not that it is suitable for some things. If yours takes boxes and chairs but not the sofa or the wardrobe, say so in your quote request and list which items will not fit, with their measurements. The team works out the quote on that basis and confirms it with you in writing. We do not publish a formula for a part-lift, so we will not guess one here.

Measuring is the only way to know. When the sofa won't fit explains how to measure a sofa against a lift and a stairwell, which is the work this decision depends on.

A lift that is out of service on the day

Lifts break, and some buildings take them out of service for maintenance with little notice. If the lift you booked is not working when the crew arrives, call the building's lift contact and tell us straight away. The stair rule in this guide is the rule for an address without a working lift, and the team will tell you what changes before the crew starts carrying by the stairs. A lift booked in writing, with the building's contact number in the crew's hands, is the best protection. The goods lift guide covers what to do if the lift fails.

The stair rule is written for floors above the ground. Some London homes do not fit that shape, and for each of them the honest answer is the same: tell us, and the team will confirm.

• Basement flats. We have no published rule for basements. The quote form never treats a basement as free and never guesses a charge: it lists the stair charge for a basement address as an item for the team to confirm. Tell us how many steps lead down from the pavement and whether the route is narrow
• Split-level flats and mezzanines. The form asks for one floor number per address. If the flat's entrance is on one floor and its rooms on another, or there is a mezzanine with its own stair, describe it in the quote request and the team will confirm how it is counted
• Maisonettes. Give the floor of the front door. If the maisonette has its own internal stair as well, say so, because furniture may have to go up or down it
• Front steps and garden steps. A ground-floor home is free under the rule. The form lets you say there are "a few steps", which adds ${handlingModel.fewStepsPct}% to the handling time at that address but no stair charge. If the steps are steep, long or narrow, mention it so the team can confirm

None of these cases is unusual in London. Victorian conversions often have a flight up to the front door and another inside; mansion blocks can have a raised ground floor; new-build duplexes have their own stairs. A short description in the quote request is all it takes, and it means the figure in the quote is the figure on the day.

A spiral stair winds round a central column. Approved Document K treats spiral and helical stairs as a separate type, designed to their own British Standard, because their treads narrow towards the centre. They are fine for people and hard for furniture: a wardrobe or a sofa cannot turn the curve in one piece.

Narrow and tightly turning stairs raise the same problem. When a large item cannot pass the stair whole, there are only a few honest options, and our quotation terms set them out. If an item cannot be moved safely through the normal access route, we may need to dismantle it, may recommend a specialist lifting service, or may decline to move it. Moving furniture through windows, over balconies or along unsafe stairs is not included unless it has been inspected and agreed in writing beforehand.

We do not hoist furniture through windows. Dismantling is what we offer instead, as part of a removal and priced per item. These are guide prices from our price list, confirmed in your quote:

The minimum dismantling and reassembly booking is £90. Prices assume the furniture is suitable for taking apart and that the original fixings can be reused. Dismantling is only offered with a removal, not on its own. What furniture needs dismantling before a move helps you spot the items early.

Dismantling does not replace the stair charge: the pieces still go up or down the stairs. What it does is make the carry possible and safe, and stop a stuck wardrobe from eating paid time on the landing.

Our stair charge changed on 28 September 2026. Before that, we used a flat schedule by floor: one fixed amount for each floor, the same whatever the size of the crew and however long the job took, with the lower floors included. The per-flight, per-hour rule replaced it. It is worth explaining why, because the new rule is not always cheaper: under it, a first floor is charged, where before it was not.

A stair charge should follow the work

The old schedule charged a studio on the third floor the same as a three-bedroom flat on the third floor. One is a couple of hours of carrying by two people. The other can be most of a day for four. A fixed amount per floor is either too much for the first or too little for the second. A charge built from people, flights and hours grows with the carrying itself: more people carrying, more flights to climb, more hours at the address.

Stairs slow every trip

Health and safety guidance is a good guide to why stairs take longer. The HSE says employers must avoid hazardous manual handling as far as reasonably practicable and assess what cannot be avoided. Its brief guide, Manual handling at work, sets its simple carrying limits for loads carried no further than about 10 metres without resting, and its checklist lists changes in floor level as a risk in their own right, asking whether steps can be avoided. Every flight of stairs is a change of level, and a carry up several flights means rests, lighter loads and two-person lifts. That is time, and time is what the hourly part of the formula measures.

A rule you can check

The other reason is transparency. A rule with four inputs, each one a fact about your move, can be checked by anyone with the quote in front of them. You know your floor. You chose the crew. The hours are written on the quote. If the stair line does not match the multiplication, ask us why. We would rather you could do that than take a figure on trust.

Each address is worked out on its own, with its own floor, its own lift and its own hours. A move from a third floor to a ground floor has one stair line. A move between two upper floors has two, and they are rarely the same, because the loading and unloading hours can differ and the floors almost always do.

It also means a lift at one address does nothing for the other. A new-build with a goods lift at the delivery removes the delivery line but leaves the collection line untouched. When you compare two flats you might move to, the stair rule can be one of the things you weigh: a fourth floor with a lift adds nothing, a second floor without one does.

If you are moving within London and want the whole move priced rather than just the stairs, our flat removals in London page sets out the vans, the crews and the lift questions in one place.

On a quote built from our form, each stair charge is its own line, written as the multiplication itself. For the Luton example above, the collection line reads like this:

• Stairs at collection — 3rd floor, no lift: 6 flights × 3 people × 2 hours × £10

Check four things against that line:

• The floor and the flights. The floor should be the one you gave, and the flights twice that number
• The lift wording. "No lift" or "lift not suitable" means the stairs are being charged. If your building has a lift that takes the furniture, there should be no line at all for that address
• The people. The number should match the crew on the quote, driver included
• The hours. Loading hours for the collection line, unloading hours for the delivery line, matching the time allocation in the quote

If anything on the line is wrong, tell us before you book and the team will correct it. Items the form could not price, such as a basement or an unconfirmed lift, appear as items for the team to confirm, and the written quote resolves them.

Most of the work of getting the stair charge right is in the quote request. These are the details that decide it, for each address:

• The floor number, using UK numbering, with the ground floor as zero
• Whether there is a lift, and whether it takes your largest items, with the inside measurements of the car and the door if you have them
• Anything that is not a plain staircase: a basement, a split level, a mezzanine, an internal stair, a spiral, steep front steps
• The items that worry you: anything that came in through a window, had its legs taken off, or only just made the turn on the landing
• Building rules: lift booking, set move times or a service entrance at the back

Our quotation terms ask you to tell us before the moving date about oversized furniture, narrow or uneven staircases, restricted doorways, tight corridors and window access. The reason is practical. Everything you tell us in advance becomes a figure in the quote. Everything that appears on the day becomes a problem to solve on paid time. Moving a flat in London has the wider checklist for a flat move.

Send us the inventory and both addresses, with the floor and the lift for each, and you get an itemised written quote within 24 hours. The stair charge for each address is its own line, worked out with the formula in this guide, and anything the form cannot price is confirmed by the team rather than guessed. A 20% deposit secures the date, and the team confirms the final price in writing.

For a flat, start from our flat removals in London page. For a whole house, the house removals in London page covers every van and crew with the same rate card and the same stair rule. Either way, if you are not sure how your stairs will be counted, ask: our London house removals team will tell you before you book.