How this calculator works
There is no lookup table in this engine. There is division, and this is all of it:
usable(size) = carton cu ft × fill%
small cartons = ceil( dense / usable(1.51) )
medium cartons = ceil( general / usable(3.02) )
large cartons = ceil( (bulky × 0.5) / usable(4.50) )
XL cartons = ceil( (bulky × 0.5) / usable(6.00) )
dish barrels = ceil( dishes / usable(5.25) )
order(size) = ceil( cartons(size) × (1 + spare%) )
weight check = (dense + general + bulky + dishes) × 7 lb/cu ft
tipping point = 65 lb ÷ carton cu ftThree things in that block are published rather than ours. The carton volumes are the arithmetic of conventionally published dimensions — multiply the inches, divide by 1,728. The 65 lb figure is the published carton capacity. Everything else is labeled.
Two things are explicitly ours and sit in editable fields. The fill factor defaults to 80 percent because cartons do not fill to their geometric volume; that number is an editorial planning assumption and not a measurement of anything.
The spare margin defaults to 10 percent because the cost of running short is worse than the cost of running over, which is a judgment about the shape of the two costs rather than a statistic about how often it happens.
One thing is ours and cannot be put in a field: bulky cube is split half into large cartons and half into extra-large. A real household uses both and we have no basis for a different ratio, so we chose the neutral one and are telling you we chose it.
The 7 lb per cubic foot in the weight check is HyreMover’s whole-household planning density, published on the truck-size page and in our fact base. It is an average across a shipment, so it understates the dense cartons and overstates the bulky ones by design.
It is there to give you an order of magnitude, not a weight ticket. A mover using a volume-to-weight conversion must explain its own factor in writing under 49 CFR 375.401(e) — ask for theirs rather than assuming ours.
What each input means
| Input | What it is actually asking |
|---|---|
| Dense cu ft | Books, files, records, tools, hardware, tinned food, most heavy kitchen equipment. Find it by measuring: a bookshelf 3 ft wide, 1 ft deep and 6 ft tall is 18 cu ft, a two-drawer filing cabinet about 6, a full kitchen cupboard 8 to 12. Count the shelves, not the rooms. |
| General household cu ft | The everything-else category — linens, toys, decor, crafts, small appliances, the contents of drawers. Usually the largest field. Estimate it by wardrobe and cupboard volumes rather than by guessing a total. |
| Light and bulky cu ft | Duvets, pillows, coats, cushions, curtains, soft toys. Deceptively large: a single duvet compressed into a bag is still 3 to 4 cu ft. Find it in airing cupboards, under beds and on top of wardrobes. |
| Dishes and glassware cu ft | Crockery, glasses, stemware, ceramics. Estimate the shelf space they occupy and then add for the paper, which is most of the volume once packed. A kitchen with a dinner service and a glass collection is commonly two to four barrels. |
| Fill factor | The share of a carton’s geometric volume you can actually use. Our editorial default is 80 percent. Raise it toward 90 if you are packing books and files, which stack without voids. Drop it to 65 or 70 for awkward, rigid, irregular contents. |
| Spare margin | How far above the arithmetic to order. Default 10 percent. Set it to 0 if you can walk to a supplier on the day; set it higher if you are packing over a single weekend or in a place with no nearby stockist. |
Worked examples
Including one where the naive answer misleads, which is the example most calculators leave out.
The worked example: a two-bedroom apartment at 205 cu ft boxable
Inputs: 40 dense, 90 general, 60 bulky, 15 dishes, 80% fill, 10% margin.
Usable per carton is 1.21, 2.42, 3.60, 4.80 and 4.20 cu ft. That gives 40 ÷ 1.21 = 34 small, 90 ÷ 2.42 = 38 medium, 30 ÷ 3.60 = 9 large, 30 ÷ 4.80 = 7 XL and 15 ÷ 4.20 = 4 dish barrels — 92 cartons, rounding each up.
With the 10% margin, 103 to order: 38 small, 42 medium, 10 large, 8 XL, 5 dish barrels. Weight check: 205 × 7 = 1,435 lb, about 16 lb per carton on average.
Note how many of the cartons are small ones even though dense is the second-smallest input. That is the tool doing its job.
The same house with a home library: 150 dense instead of 40
Total cube rises to 315 and the count rises to 183 cartons — 125 small, 38 medium, 9 large, 7 XL, 4 dish barrels, or 203 to order.
The dense field alone added 91 cartons for 110 cubic feet, because those cubic feet are going into 1.5 cu ft boxes.
The engine flags that 48 percent of the cube is dense and that the 12 lb average per carton understates the heavy ones.
A reader who put those books in large cartons would need 25 boxes instead of 125 — and each would be around 68 lb, past the published rating, which is the exact failure this page exists to prevent.
The same 315 cu ft, but soft: 170 bulky instead of 150 dense
Identical total cube, and the answer is 118 cartons rather than 183 — 34 small, 38 medium, 24 large, 18 XL, 4 dish barrels.
Two households with the same volume differ by 65 cartons purely on what the volume is made of.
That is the reason no boxes-per-bedroom chart can be right, and it is a stronger argument than any objection we could make about who publishes them.
The fill factor, changed alone
The 205 cu ft example at 60% fill: 121 cartons. At 80%: 92. At 95%: 78.
That is a 43-carton spread from one editorial assumption, which is precisely why it sits in an editable field with our name on it rather than buried in the engine.
If we hid it, the tool would look more confident and be less useful.
The margin, changed alone
205 cu ft at 80% fill is 92 cartons by arithmetic. Order at 0% margin: 92. At 10%: 103. At 25%: 117.
The 25 cartons between the extremes are the cheapest insurance in the whole move, and the only scenario where 0% is right is one where a supplier is open and close on the day you pack.
A four-bedroom house at 500 cu ft boxable
90 dense, 220 general, 160 bulky, 30 dishes at the defaults returns 215 cartons — 75 small, 92 medium, 23 large, 17 XL, 8 dish barrels, or 239 to order.
Weight check 3,500 lb at 7 lb/cu ft, about 16 lb per carton. If that number feels high against the charts, note that the charts are counting a household nobody measured, and this one is counting yours.
What changes the result
What moves the answer, ranked. First, the total boxable cube, because it is a straight multiplier — and the most common error is typing a whole-house figure that includes furniture, which roughly triples it.
Second, and this surprises people, how the cube is distributed. The same 315 cubic feet returns 183 cartons if it is dense and 118 if it is bulky, a 55 percent difference from composition alone.
That single comparison is the strongest available argument that a boxes-per-bedroom table cannot work, and it is arithmetic rather than opinion.
Third, the fill factor, which swings the 205 cu ft example between 78 and 121 cartons across its plausible range. It is ours, it is a guess, and it is in an editable field.
Fourth, the spare margin, which changes what you order but not what you need.
What is deliberately absent, and why. There is no bedroom or room-count input, because the relationship between rooms and cartons is exactly the thing nobody has measured.
There is no price, because we have not retrieved a carton price list we could re-verify. There is no specialty-container arithmetic — wardrobe, mirror, mattress and television cartons are counted by the item, not derived from cube.
There is no packing paper or tape, which are a real share of a materials invoice. And there is no labor estimate: how long packing takes is not a function of carton count.
Local considerations
Two things about this are genuinely local. Carton supply is: a city with several moving-supply stores nearby makes a 0 percent margin defensible, and a rural address two hours from the nearest one does not. Set the margin to your geography, not to ours.
The other is which rulebook covers a carrier that packs for you. The federal survey, estimate and 110 percent rules quoted on this page attach to interstate household-goods moves.
A move inside one state is regulated by that state — a public utilities commission, a transportation department, a consumer-protection office, or in some states nothing trade-specific at all.
HyreMover has not built a fifty-state table of intrastate moving regulation and will not publish one it has not verified. Name your regulator and ask them; that is a five-minute search and the only reliable answer.
What is not local is the arithmetic. A 4.5 cu ft carton is 4.5 cu ft in every state, and 65 lb of books in it is over the rating everywhere.
When not to use this
Do not use this as a prediction of how much you own. It has no opinion on that and never will. If you type guesses, you get arithmetic on guesses.
Do not use it as a quote or a materials invoice. If a carrier is packing, the count on their estimate is theirs, generated from their survey, and yours is a cross-check rather than a substitute.
Do not use it as a lifting guide. The weight arithmetic is on this page to push you toward smaller cartons, not to license heavier ones. Pianos, safes, large appliances and gym equipment are not carton problems and should not be moved by people who have not done it before with the right equipment.
Do not use it for anything hazardous. Paint, solvents, fuel, propane, ammunition, pool chemicals and aerosols are non-allowables that carriers will not take and that should not be packed into a carton at all. Dispose of them properly before the day.
And do not use it as a claim document. HyreMover does not move household goods, does not sell cartons, does not rank movers and takes no referral fee for anything on these pages.
Related on this site
- Volume estimator Start there, then subtract the furniture.
- Truck size Where the cube goes once it is in cartons.
- Editorial policy Why this page refuses to publish a boxes-per-bedroom table.
Questions this calculator answers
- How many boxes do I need for a 2-bedroom apartment?
- It depends on what you own, not the bedroom count. Two similar apartments can differ threefold, depending on books, kitchen gear and how long you have lived there. Measure the cubic feet you will pack, split it by density, and this calculator does the division.
- What are the standard moving box sizes in cubic feet?
- Book box 1.0 cu ft (12 × 12 × 12 in), small 1.5 (16⅜ × 12⅝ × 12⅝), medium 3.0 (18⅛ × 18 × 16), large 4.5 (18 × 18 × 24), extra-large 6.0 (24 × 18 × 24) and dish barrel 5.2 (18 × 18 × 28). Inches multiplied, divided by 1,728.
- Why should heavy things go in small boxes?
- Because the weight rating does not grow with the box. Standard cartons are rated up to 65 lb at every size. A large box reaches that at 14.4 lb per cubic foot, and books are denser. A large box of books is overweight while it still looks half empty.
- What is the fill factor and why is it not 100 percent?
- Objects leave gaps, and the flaps must close flat, so you use less than the full box. We default to 80 percent, our planning figure, not a measurement. Books pack tighter and justify more; kitchen gear and odd shapes justify less.
- Should I order more boxes than the calculation says?
- Yes; our recommendation is 10 percent extra, the tool’s default. Spare cardboard costs little and keeps. Running short happens mid-pack, usually in the evening, and ends in bin bags and odd boxes that do not stack on the truck.
- Do I use my whole-house volume from the volume estimator?
- No. Furniture, appliances and mattresses make up most of a household’s volume, and none of them go in a box. Take the estimator figure, subtract everything carried as a piece, and type what is left. Otherwise the answer roughly triples.
- If the movers are packing, do I need this at all?
- Not to buy boxes, but the count becomes a line on your bill. On an interstate move, the written estimate must cover packing and materials as related services. Ask for them itemized before you sign, and ask which tariff sections the unit prices come from.
- Does it matter who packs the fragile items for a claim?
- It can. The mover must inventory your shipment and note damage, and carriers often mark boxes you packed yourself. How a carrier handles damage inside a box it did not pack varies by carrier; we found no federal rule on it. Ask the carrier and get the answer in writing.
- How much will the boxes cost?
- We publish no box prices. They vary by supplier, quantity, new or used, and location, and we have no price list we could re-check. Take your count to a supplier. If the mover is packing, the materials line on the estimate is the price.
- What about wardrobe boxes, mirror cartons and mattress bags?
- They are not in this calculation. Specialty containers are counted by item, not by volume: for example three wardrobe boxes, two mirror cartons and one mattress bag per bed. Add them after you have the general count.
- Does HyreMover sell boxes or take a commission on them?
- No. HyreMover does not sell boxes, does not move household goods, does not rank movers and takes no referral fee. That is why this tool prints no boxes-per-bedroom number: we have no data for one and no reason to guess high.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated September 5, 2026. Last reviewed .
- Moving Box Sizes: The Complete Guide (HireAHelper, retrieved 2026-09-05. Supports the carton dimensions, nominal cubic feet and the published capacity of up to 65 lb per carton across the size range. Cited as a published industry size guide, not a measurement of any supplier’s stock.)
- 49 CFR 375.401 — physical survey and written estimate (eCFR via Cornell LII, retrieved 2026-09-05. Supports the statement that an interstate mover must survey and give a written estimate covering the transportation and all related services, which is where a packing-and-materials line belongs, and that estimates may be amended only before loading.)
- 49 CFR 375.407 — the 110 percent ceiling (eCFR via Cornell LII, retrieved 2026-09-05. Supports the limit on what a mover may require at delivery under a non-binding estimate, quoted in the packed-by-carrier section to mark what that ceiling does and does not cover.)
- Appendix A to 49 CFR Part 375 — Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move (eCFR via Cornell LII, retrieved 2026-09-05. Supports the inventory requirement and the valuation statements. fmcsa.dot.gov returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on September 5, 2026, so this codified mirror of the booklet is what we actually read.)
- Protect Your Move (FMCSA, retrieved 2026-09-05. Where to check that a carrier quoting you for packing is registered. Listed because it is where a reader should go, not because we retrieved it: FMCSA hosts returned 403 to automated retrieval on that date.)
Related
- Volume estimator Whole-household cube. Subtract the furniture before you bring a figure here.
- Truck size The other box. Owns the cube-to-vehicle question so this page does not restate it.
- Moving checklist When to order the cartons, relative to everything else.
- Moving cost calculator If a carrier is packing, materials sit on the same estimate.