📮 Moving Box Count Estimator

Estimate how many moving boxes you'll need based on your home's square footage. Adjust the rate if you know you have more or less than average to pack.

Home square footage

Boxes per 100 sq ft

How the box count is worked out

Two numbers drive the whole estimate: your floor area, and how densely the place is packed. The tool scales one by the other and rounds up.

boxes  = ceil(square feet / 100 × boxes per 100 sq ft)
small  = ceil(boxes × 0.4)
medium = ceil(boxes × 0.4)
large  = boxes − small − medium

The starting values, 1,200 sq ft at 10 boxes per 100 sq ft, give 120 boxes: 48 small, 48 medium and 24 large. Only the two 40% shares are calculated directly. The large count is the remainder, so it lands near 20% rather than exactly on it whenever the rounding takes a share upward.

Picking a rate that matches your stuff

Leave the square footage as your real floor area and move the rate instead. It is the input that carries how much you own per room:

Boxes per 100 sq ft	Fits	Total at 1,200 sq ft
6	Sparse rooms, recent move, little stored	72
10	A settled household, full closets	120
14	Books, hobby gear, years in one place	168

Books, tools and tinned food belong in the small boxes because weight, not volume, is what fails a box. Bedding, lampshades and cushions go in the large ones. Count garages, lofts and basements in the square footage only if you are actually emptying them.

The large row is a leftover, so at very small totals it can go negative: one box shows −1 large, and so does three. Anything from five boxes up behaves normally.

Frequently asked questions

How many moving boxes for a 2 bedroom apartment?

Around 900 sq ft at 10 boxes per 100 sq ft gives 90 boxes: 36 small, 36 medium and 18 large. Drop the rate to 7 if the rooms are lightly furnished.

Why does the estimate round up?

Every total is passed through a ceiling, so 1,150 sq ft at 10 per 100 becomes 115 rather than 114.9. A spare flat box costs far less than one short trip back to the shop.

Does this include wardrobe, dish or picture boxes?

No. The split covers three generic sizes only. Speciality cartons are bought per item, so add those separately once you know how much hanging clothing and how many framed pieces you have.