What Is the Cheapest Day to Move House?

The cheapest day to move house is a midweek day in the middle of the month. Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, in the second or third week, is the quietest corner of the moving calendar. Those are the slots nobody fights over, so the crews are easier to plan, the vans are already near you rather than across town finishing another job, and nothing about your date forces the price up.

The most expensive days are the obvious ones: Fridays, the last week of the month, and any date in the peak summer stretch. Most of that is not a surcharge anyone invents. It is simple competition for the same trucks and the same trained hands, because that is when everyone else wants to move too.

And if you are moving in London, the day does one more thing on top of the quote - it changes the charges and the street rules around your move. That part gets skipped by every general guide, so it is where we will spend the most time.

Why midweek is the cheapest day to move

Removal work is lumpy. Almost every house sale completes on a Friday, almost every rental contract starts or ends at the edge of a month, and most people would rather not take a day off work midweek if they can help it. Stack those habits together and you get an industry where a handful of dates carry a month’s worth of demand and the rest sit half empty.

That lumpiness is your leverage. On a quiet Tuesday in the third week of the month, a good company can give your job its full attention: the right-sized crew rather than whoever is free, one clean run instead of a van shuffling between three bookings, and time at survey to plan the awkward details properly. On the last Friday of the month, the same company is running flat out, and even with the best will in the world your move is one of many.

Quieter days are cheaper to run well. That is the whole mechanism. It is also why flexibility of even a single day often moves the price more than anything else you could change.

The days that cost the most

The demand ranking is remarkably consistent across the trade:

None of these are days we refuse. We work every day of the week where a move needs it. But they are the days where your job competes hardest for crews and vehicles, and pricing a job honestly means pricing that reality in rather than pretending it is not there.

What this means on an Aviv quote

Here is the part that surprises people. On a fixed-quote firm, the day of your move is not a line item added afterwards. There is no card machine moment where a Friday surcharge appears. The day is one of the things we look at when we survey your move, and whatever it means for planning the job, it is inside the fixed written quote you agree before anything is packed.

Weekend and bank holiday moves are the same story. We work seven days a week where the move requires it, those dates are arranged individually with you, and the price is agreed at survey. A 10% deposit at booking secures your date, and the balance is due after the move is complete, once you have seen the job done.

So the saving from picking a midweek date is not a listed discount - it is that a quieter date is a simpler job to plan and run, and simpler jobs price better at survey. If you want the fuller picture of how our pricing works, our guide to removal costs in London carries the published ranges: a two-bedroom home typically lands between £480 and £960 (inc VAT), and where your move sits inside its band depends on volume, access and the plan, not on a calendar surcharge.

The London layer: what the day changes besides the quote

General moving guides stop at the quote. In London, the day you pick also changes the charges and restrictions around your move, and two of them are worth knowing before you settle on a date.

The first is the Congestion Charge. It applies to vehicles driving in central London, and its charging hours are not the same every day: 7am to 6pm on weekdays, but midday to 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays. The practical upshot is that a weekday move inside the zone will always fall inside charging hours, while an early Saturday start that wraps by midday can finish before the window even opens. TfL maintains the current Congestion Charge details, so it is worth checking the rules for your date before you commit to one. Either way, on an Aviv move any charge the job triggers is baked into the quote at survey rather than itemised on top.

The second is parking. On most zoned streets in the capital, a removal lorry cannot legally sit in a resident bay while it is loaded, so the practical answer is a parking suspension - the council reserves the bays outside your home for the day. Each borough sets its own fees and notice periods, and the notice part is where your choice of day matters: a popular weekend date can need more lead time than a quiet Tuesday, and councils do not bend their process because your booking was last-minute. Where a street needs one, we help arrange the suspension with the council (council fee applies). A few main roads are TfL red routes where stopping is restricted at the best of times, so for those the plan is usually a side-road bay nearby rather than a suspension outside the door.

None of this changes the principle. It is exactly why we survey before we quote: the charging window, the suspension, the red route - all of it is known before you sign anything, whichever day you land on.

Picking your date: what we would do

If you rang us tomorrow and asked how to keep the price down, this is the honest list we would give you:

1. Aim for a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in the middle of the month. It is the quietest slot in the calendar and the easiest job to plan.
2. If your completion date is fixed, work backwards from it. Completion day is fixed by the chain, not by you - but the packing, the storage gap or the second leg of the move can often sit on a quieter day.
3. Book early whatever you choose. End of month fills first across the industry, and early booking protects your choice of slot rather than whatever is left.
4. Give your borough time if a parking suspension is needed. Notice periods vary, and a midweek date usually makes the paperwork simpler.
5. Ask what the date means for the price. We will tell you straight at survey - the day is part of the plan, and the plan is what the fixed quote prices.

Ready to pick a cheaper day?

Tell us the dates you are considering and we will tell you honestly what each one means for the job.

Prefer to talk first? Call 0207 846 0282 or email info@avivremovals.com. Tell us what you are moving and when, and we will tell you honestly what the day means for the price - then fix it in writing.

Written by Adam, owner of Aviv Removals - 15 years in the removals trade.