New double-wall moving boxes in the UK cost only a little each, and the size of your order matters more than the supplier. One UK maker lists a medium at £2.75, a large at £3.99 and an extra large at £4.99 singly, falling to about £2.54, £3.69 and £4.62 once you buy fifty or more. Whole-house packs cut further still, and that quantity discount is where most of the saving on a full move actually comes from.
The trap to avoid is price alone. A cheap carton 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. If a listing does not state the board thickness, treat that as the answer. 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.
Summary: Buy double-wall throughout, buy in a bundle rather than singly, and stick to two or three modular sizes so they stack squarely. As an indicative market rate in August 2026, the published price list at Boxes for Moving Home runs from £2.75 for a medium double-wall carton to £4.99 for an extra large, with whole-house packs discounted by roughly 21 to 27 percent against buying singly. Before ordering anything, ask your removals company: some supply crates with the job and some sell boxes outright, which can be cheaper than buying online.
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What each source charges
| Source | Typical price per box | Board quality | Best for | Main tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialist online box suppliers | About £2.75 to £4.99 new, packs cheaper | Double-wall as standard | Whole-house moves | Requires ordering a week ahead |
| Graded reuse suppliers | Below new prices, varies by grade | Mixed, sorted and inspected | Cost-conscious moves with an eco preference | Cosmetic wear, old labels and tape marks |
| Removals companies | Ask when you enquire | Usually double-wall or crates | Anyone already booking a mover | Not every firm sells boxes separately |
| Value kits and bundles | One price 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 | Convenience pricing per box | Often single-wall, check | Topping up mid-pack | Limited sizes and inconsistent stock |
| Self-storage facility counters | Priced at a convenience margin | Double-wall | Buying at the same time as a unit | Rarely the cheapest route |
| 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 |
The row people skip is the removals company. It is worth asking at the quoting stage rather than after you have ordered, because a firm that already stocks cartons for its own crews can often supply them without the courier charge and without you guessing at quantities. EcoGreen Movers supplies packing boxes on their own, with no obligation to book a move, alongside the reusable crates we bring to jobs we are carrying out.
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. Strength is not permission to overfill, though: HSE guidance INDG143 on manual handling at work is explicit that its published weight figures are risk filters rather than safe limits, so the box surviving the journey tells you nothing about whether anyone can carry it.
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 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. The one thing every route shares is the disposal, and it is the easy part: under GOV.UK guidance on the Simpler Recycling reforms, councils in England must collect paper and card from every household.
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. Our guide to finding free cardboard boxes for moving house covers the routes that actually produce usable stock.
Whatever you use, the boxes have to go somewhere afterwards, and flattened cardboard is one of the few packing materials with a straightforward answer. Our guide on whether polystyrene is recyclable covers what happens to the rest of the packaging pile, which is considerably less convenient.
The materials the box price does not include
Tape, protective wrap and markers are routinely left out of box budgets and are not optional. 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. Take the tape off before recycling, because Recycle Now guidance on recycling contamination warns that too much contaminated material can stop a whole lorry load being recycled.
- Packing tape, 3 to 4 rolls. Buy 48mm wide and low-noise if you value your sanity. A tape gun 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 with card, 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 in a single order, 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
Working the routes through for a three-bedroom house shows where the real cost sits once tape, wrap and disposal are counted rather than just the boxes. For scale, the same supplier prices a 45-box pack aimed at a two to three bedroom house at £119.99 and a 60-box pack for three to four bedrooms at £154.99. Those are indicative market rates in August 2026, not EcoGreen Movers prices, and they move with supplier, region and quantity.
| Route | Boxes or crates | Tape, wrap and markers | Afterwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| New double-wall, bought singly | Highest cardboard route | Extra, and always forgotten | Flatten and recycle, several trips |
| New double-wall, bundle pack | 15 to 25 percent below buying singly | Often included in the kit | Flatten and recycle |
| Graded second-hand | Below new prices | Extra | Pass on or recycle |
| Boxes from your removals company | Ask at the quoting stage | Often bundled | Flatten and recycle |
| Crates hired with the removal | Usually included or a small weekly fee | Minimal, crates need no tape | Collected with the van |
Two things that the headline box price hides are worth pulling out. The first is that tape and wrap are a real line on any cardboard route and are almost always left out of the budget. The second is that disposal is a cost in time rather than money: 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 box used once costs its full price for that one move. The same box kept flat in a loft and used across three moves costs a third of that each time, which is why holding on to good boxes 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.
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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.
Buying boxes from EcoGreen Movers
We sell packing boxes on their own, with no obligation to book a move. That is the option most useful to anyone who has read this far, worked out roughly what they need, and would rather not compare a dozen listings for board grade. Tell us the property size and we will quote for the boxes.
On jobs we are carrying out, we bring reusable crates instead, deliver them before the move, collect them afterwards and reuse them on the next job, so there is no packaging mountain in the hallway on day three. Which of the two makes sense depends entirely on whether we are doing the transport.
Beyond boxes, our services come as four options, so it is worth knowing where the boundary sits before you decide how much packing to take on yourself:
- Boxes only. Packing boxes supplied on their own, without a move.
- Standard. Loading and unloading.
- Standard Plus. Loading and unloading, plus dismantling and reassembling all your furniture.
- Premium. Dismantling and reassembly, plus professional packing done to whatever specification you set.
If you choose Premium, the whole question of how many boxes to buy stops being yours. If you are packing yourself, boxes only is the cheapest way to get the right cartons without a courier order. Our packing and storage services set out the range, and our guide to what a packing service actually does, room by room shows what Premium looks like on the day.
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?
As an indicative market rate in August 2026, one UK supplier lists new double-wall cartons at about £2.75 for a medium, £3.99 for a large and £4.99 for an extra large, with whole-house packs roughly 21 to 27 percent cheaper per box. Prices below that are usually single-wall, so check the stated board thickness 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.
Can I buy boxes from a removals company?
Often yes, and it is worth asking before you order online. EcoGreen Movers supplies packing boxes on their own without booking a move, as well as reusable crates on jobs we are carrying out. Not every firm does both, so ask at the quoting stage rather than after the courier order has gone in.
Are second-hand boxes strong enough?
Graded stock from a specialist reuse supplier is sorted and inspected, and a good box will handle several 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 goes in your household paper and card recycling, and under Simpler Recycling councils in England must collect it from every household. 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 pack rather than singly, and keep to two or three modular sizes so the load stacks cleanly. Expect roughly £2.75 to £5 a box for new double-wall at current market rates, appreciably less in a whole-house pack, and remember to budget for tape and wrap on top.
Before ordering anything, ask your removals company what they supply. If they bring crates, the cheapest and least wasteful option is usually to buy nothing at all. If they sell boxes, as we do, that is one order fewer to chase and one fewer guess about board grade.
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