New double-wall moving boxes in the UK cost roughly £2 to £7 each in 2026, depending on size and how many you buy. Graded second-hand boxes from specialist reuse suppliers run about £2.70 for a medium, £3.70 for a large and £4.50 for an extra large. Bundle packs of 10, 20 or 50 typically knock 15 to 25 percent off the single-box price, which is where most of the saving on a full house move actually comes from.
The trap to avoid is price alone. Anything advertised as a moving box below about £2 is usually single-wall board sold under a name that implies more, and single-wall boxes fail when stacked three or four high in a van. This guide covers what each source charges, which sizes are worth paying for, and how buying compares against hiring reusable crates for the same move.
Quick answer: Budget £80 to £150 for a full set of new double-wall boxes for a three-bedroom house, or £50 to £90 for graded used ones. Buy double-wall throughout, buy in a bundle rather than singly, and stick to two or three modular sizes so they stack squarely. Crate hire often works out cheaper still and produces no waste.
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What each source charges
| Source | Typical price per box | Board quality | Best for | Main tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialist online box suppliers | £2 to £7 new, bundles cheaper | Double-wall as standard | Whole-house moves | Requires ordering a week ahead |
| Graded reuse suppliers | £2.70 medium, £3.70 large, £4.50 XL | Mixed, sorted and inspected | Cost-conscious moves with an eco preference | Cosmetic wear, old labels and tape marks |
| Value kits and bundles | £40 to £50 for 20 to 30 boxes with tape and wrap | Usually double-wall | Anyone wanting one order and done | Fixed size mix may not match your home |
| Supermarkets and DIY chains | £2 to £5 | Often single-wall, check | Topping up mid-pack | Limited sizes and inconsistent stock |
| Self-storage facility counters | £3 to £8 | Double-wall | Buying at the same time as a unit | Priced at a convenience margin |
| Reusable crate hire | Hire by the week, no purchase | Rigid plastic | Moves where a company is doing the transport | Must be returned, so no long storage |
Most UK box suppliers dispatch same day or next day on courier services, so a week’s lead time is comfortable. Ordering the day before you pack is how people end up paying supermarket prices for whatever sizes happen to be on the shelf.
Single-wall against double-wall, and why it matters
Double-wall board has two layers of fluting between three liners; single-wall has one. The price gap is often pence per box, and the difference shows up when boxes are stacked in a van or held in storage for weeks. For a house move, buy double-wall throughout.
Board grade is the specification that gets hidden in listings. A product titled as a strong moving box may still be single-wall, and the only reliable way to tell is to look for the words double wall in the specification rather than in the marketing copy. A typical large double-wall carton carries a load guide of around 15kg.
Strength is not permission to overfill. A double-wall large box packed with books will survive the journey and injure whoever lifts it, and it is the single most common packing mistake. Heavy items belong in small boxes and light bulky items in large ones, which is the opposite of what feels efficient while packing.
Board also loses strength when damp. Boxes stored in a garage or loft for a few weeks before a move, or stacked in a storage unit over a winter, weaken noticeably. If the boxes will sit anywhere for more than a fortnight, that alone justifies the double-wall premium.
Sizes worth buying and sizes to skip
Two or three modular sizes beat five odd ones. Boxes that share footprints stack squarely and fill a van efficiently; a mixed collection of unrelated dimensions leaves air gaps, and air gaps are what turn one van load into two.
- Small, around 30 x 23 x 23cm. Books, tools, tinned food, anything dense. Buy plenty, people always underestimate these.
- Medium, around 34 x 34 x 34cm. The workhorse. Kitchen items, toys, bathroom contents, general packing.
- Large, around 46 to 51cm long. Bedding, cushions, clothing, lampshades. Light bulky items only.
- Extra large. Duvets and soft furnishings. Useful but easy to over-order, since few households have enough light bulky goods to fill many.
- Wardrobe boxes with a hanging rail. Genuinely useful for hanging clothes, and expensive per unit. Hire rather than buy where possible.
- Specialist picture and mirror boxes. Worth it only if you own framed pieces you would be upset to lose.
Hand holes matter more than they sound. A large box without cut handles is awkward to carry down stairs, and the difference between a range with handles and one without shows up in the third hour of loading rather than the first.
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Free sources, and what they are actually good for
Supermarkets, local shops, community reuse groups and workplaces all give away used cardboard. It is genuinely free and genuinely inconsistent: mixed sizes, unknown board grades and variable condition. Treat it as a supplement rather than the basis of a whole-house pack.
Free boxes work well for non-fragile, light contents and for the overflow you always need at the end. They work badly as the structural core of a move, because you cannot stack unknown grades reliably and a collapse in the van costs more than the boxes saved.
Supermarket boxes in particular are usually shallow produce trays rather than cartons, often without flaps that close. They are fine for tinned goods and useless for anything that needs sealing. Ask at the customer service desk mid-morning, which is when overnight stock has been unpacked.
Whatever you use, the boxes have to go somewhere afterwards. Flattened cardboard is collected kerbside everywhere in the UK, unlike most other packing materials, which is one of the strongest arguments for card over foam. Our guide on whether polystyrene is recyclable covers what happens to the rest of the packaging pile.
The materials the box price does not include
Tape, protective wrap and markers add roughly 15 to 25 pounds to a three-bedroom move and are routinely left out of budgets. Packing tape is the item people underestimate most: a full house needs three to four rolls, and cheap tape that will not stick is a false economy measured in re-taped boxes.
- Packing tape, 3 to 4 rolls. Buy 48mm wide and low-noise if you value your sanity. A tape gun costs a few pounds and roughly halves the sealing time.
- Fragile tape. Optional, but it changes how a box gets handled by anyone who did not pack it, which matters if a removals crew is loading.
- Protective wrap. Packing paper and corrugated sheets both recycle kerbside, unlike foam and bubble wrap. For crockery, paper performs about as well and costs less.
- Two thick marker pens. Label the side of the box rather than the top, because stacked boxes hide their own lids.
- A craft knife for unpacking. Genuinely worth having on the van rather than in a box you cannot open.
Value kits bundle boxes with tape and wrap for around 40 to 50 pounds for 20 to 30 boxes, which usually beats buying the components separately. The catch is the fixed size mix. Kits tend to be heavy on large boxes because they look generous, while most households run out of small ones first.
Checking a supplier before ordering
Four things decide whether an order goes smoothly: the stated board grade, the delivery window against your packing start date, whether there is a minimum order, and whether unused boxes can be returned. Only the first is usually displayed prominently.
Returns policy is the one worth reading closely. Most suppliers will not accept back boxes once a bundle is opened, which is reasonable and also means over-ordering is a one-way decision. A supplier that does accept unused returns is worth paying slightly more per box for, because it removes the guesswork from the quantity.
Check where the boxes ship from. Same-day dispatch from a UK warehouse on a next-day courier is standard among specialist suppliers. Marketplace listings sometimes ship from further afield on longer timescales, and a delivery that lands two days after you started packing is worse than a slightly dearer order that arrives on time.
Finally, confirm what happens if the delivery is damaged. Boxes arrive as flat-packed bundles strapped together, and a corner crushed in transit affects the boxes at that end of the stack. Photograph the pallet or parcel on arrival before cutting the straps, which makes any claim straightforward rather than a debate.
Buying against hiring crates for the same move
We priced a three-bedroom house move three ways, using published 2026 UK rates, to see where the real cost sits once tape, wrap and disposal are counted rather than just the boxes.
| Route | Boxes or crates | Tape, wrap and markers | Afterwards | Rough total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New double-wall, bought singly | £110 to £170 | £15 to £25 | Flatten and recycle, several trips | £125 to £195 |
| New double-wall, bundle pack | £85 to £130 | Often included | Flatten and recycle | £85 to £130 |
| Graded second-hand | £55 to £90 | £15 to £25 | Pass on or recycle | £70 to £115 |
| Crates hired with the removal | Usually included or a small weekly fee | Minimal, crates need no tape | Collected with the van | Often the lowest |
Two things came out of this that the headline box price hides. First, tape and wrap add £15 to £25 to any cardboard route and are almost always forgotten in budgeting. Second, disposal is a real cost in time: a three-bedroom move produces enough flattened card to need several trips or a fortnight of kerbside collections, and that is the part people complain about a week after moving in.
Crates change the shape of the problem rather than just the price. They need no tape, they stack perfectly because they are modular by design, and they leave with the van. The tradeoff is that they must be returned, so they suit a move where a company handles transport and not a slow self-managed move spread over weeks.
The useful way to compare the routes is cost per use rather than cost per box. A new double-wall box bought at 3 pounds and used once costs 3 pounds per move. The same box kept flat in a loft and used across three moves costs a pound a move, which is why holding on to good boxes after a move is worth the storage space if you expect to move again within a few years. Graded second-hand boxes are the same logic applied by a supplier: they are boxes on their second or third life, priced accordingly.
Crates sit at the far end of that scale. A crate is used dozens of times across its life, which is what allows hire pricing to undercut single-use cardboard while using a more expensive material. The economics only work if the crates come back, which is the one obligation attached to them.
Figures are indicative UK ranges based on published 2026 supplier pricing and vary by supplier, region and quantity. Box counts for a given property size vary widely with how much a household owns.
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When buying boxes is the wrong move
Do not buy boxes if a removals company is already supplying crates, if the move is small enough to fit in a car over several trips, or if the contents are going into long-term storage where cardboard will slowly absorb moisture and lose shape.
Box retailers have no reason to raise any of these, so here they are.
The storage case is the one that costs people money quietly. Cardboard in an unheated unit over several months softens, and a stack that was square in June is leaning by October. If belongings are going into storage for more than a couple of months, rigid plastic boxes are worth the outlay even though they cost several times as much per unit.
The other case is over-ordering. Bundles are cheaper per box, which encourages buying 50 when 30 would do, and the surplus becomes flat-packed clutter in a garage. Order roughly what you think you need, then top up locally near the end, because unused boxes are rarely returnable once the pack is opened.
And if the whole move fits into a few car loads, boxes are optional. Bags, suitcases and laundry baskets you already own move soft goods perfectly well over short distances.
How EcoGreen Movers handles packing materials
We supply reusable crates rather than selling cardboard, which is the main reason customers rarely need to buy boxes at all. EcoGreen Movers delivers crates before the move, collects them afterwards, and reuses them on the next job, so there is no packaging mountain in the hallway on day three.
Our packing and storage services cover full and part packing, and we run residential moves nationwide including London, Manchester and Edinburgh. For the wider swaps worth making, see our eco-friendly packing tips, or get in touch for a quote.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a moving box cost?
Roughly £2 to £7 for new double-wall, depending on size and quantity. Graded second-hand boxes run about £2.70 medium, £3.70 large and £4.50 extra large. Anything advertised below about £2 is usually single-wall, so check the board grade rather than the product name.
Is double-wall cardboard worth the extra?
Yes for a house move. The premium is often only pence per box, and the difference appears when boxes are stacked several high in a van or held in storage. Single-wall is adequate only for light contents that will not be stacked.
How far ahead should boxes be ordered?
About a week. Most UK suppliers dispatch same or next day on a courier service, but packing always starts earlier than planned, and running out mid-pack means paying convenience prices for whatever sizes are locally available.
Are second-hand boxes strong enough?
Graded stock from a specialist reuse supplier is sorted and inspected, and a good box will handle three or four moves. Expect cosmetic wear such as old labels and tape marks. Random free boxes are a different proposition, since the board grade and history are unknown.
Can moving boxes be recycled afterwards?
Yes. Flattened cardboard is collected at the kerbside across the UK, which sets it apart from most other packing materials. Remove tape and labels first where you can, since adhesive contaminates the card stream.
In summary: double-wall, in a bundle, in three sizes
Buy double-wall throughout, buy as a bundle rather than singly, and keep to two or three modular sizes so the load stacks cleanly. Budget £85 to £130 for a three-bedroom house from a bundle, or £70 to £115 buying graded second-hand, and add £15 to £25 for tape and wrap either way.
Before ordering anything, check whether your removals company supplies crates. If they do, the cheapest and least wasteful option is usually to buy nothing at all.
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