Cost of Office Relocation: Sourced Price Ranges
What movers actually charge per square foot and per employee, and where office-move budgets typically go over.
- Every figure sourced to IOMI, FMCSA, IBISWorld & IFMA — never invented
- Independent editorial — not a moving company, nothing to sell you
- No fake reviews or fabricated testimonials, ever
- Free to use, always — no cost, no obligation
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Square footage vs. headcount
Most commercial movers price an office move one of two ways: by square footage or by employee headcount. Square footage is the more common basis, and the more reliable one. It correlates better with furniture density, equipment volume, and labor hours. A floor of dense cubicles costs more to move than the same square footage of open desks — headcount alone misses that difference entirely. Reported ranges run $5 to $15 per square foot for a typical commercial move. The $2 to $8 per square foot band is often cited as a benchmark for straightforward moves, with the higher end reflecting more complex projects. Per-employee estimates, where used, tend to land around $100 to $200 per employee for the physical moving cost alone.
$5,000–$15,000 for 20–50 employees
For a medium office of 20 to 50 employees, all-in moving costs commonly fall between $5,000 and $15,000. That figure covers labor hours, elevator and building-access fees, furniture disassembly and reassembly, and IT relocation — it applies to the physical move only. New furniture, buildout, and the cost of the new lease are not part of that number.
The most commonly underestimated line item
IT and infrastructure typically account for 20 to 30 percent of a total relocation budget — and it's the line item most often underestimated. Network cutover, server relocation, workstation setup, and cabling all require specialized labor that a general moving crew doesn't provide. Treating IT as a line item inside the general moving quote, rather than a separate scoped cost, is a common way budgets run over.
Budget for these separately
New furniture, office buildout or renovation, security deposits or setup fees at the new location, temporary storage if there's a gap between move-out and move-in, and moving insurance beyond the mover's basic cargo liability are typically priced and budgeted separately from the moving quote itself. Our cost calculator walks through these inputs for an estimate specific to your move.
What you control before quotes come in
The single biggest lever a company controls before getting quotes is cutting the volume of what actually has to move. When furniture and equipment are sorted into liquidate, donate, or discard categories ahead of the site survey, the inventory a mover prices against gets smaller — see our furniture liquidation and donation guide for how that process works. Do this before requesting quotes, not after; a quote is priced against the inventory it's shown.
Labor rates, which drive most of the physical moving cost, vary meaningfully by metro area, just as general construction and service labor costs do. An identical-sized move can quote out substantially differently in a lower-cost metro area than in a higher-cost one, which is one reason the ranges in this guide are presented as national ranges rather than a single number.
Frequently asked questions
How is an office move typically priced?
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Are building-access fees included in the quote?
Published 2026-09-06. Reviewed against sources current as of that date — see how we rate.