When to Start Packing for a Move and How to Prepare

Most people don’t decide to leave packing until the last minute. It just happens. The moving date feels far off, life gets busy, and suddenly you’re taping boxes together at 11pm the night before the truck arrives.

Packing too late costs more than time. Items get bundled into whatever box is closest, fragile pieces go unprotected, and you end up paying for extra boxes or scrambling for a removalist slot because you ran out of runway.

This guide breaks down exactly when to start packing for a move, week by week, plus how to work out which boxes and supplies you actually need at each stage. It also covers what changes if you’re moving house, moving interstate, or moving during Australia’s busiest season.

Follow it and moving day becomes a formality, not a fire drill.

Here’s Everything You Need to Know in Under a Minute

Table of Contents

When Should You Start Packing for a Move?

For most households, the right time to start packing is 6 to 8 weeks before moving day. That gives you enough room to sort through storage areas and pack the things you barely touch, so your final week stays calm instead of rushed.

If you’re in a smaller home or you travel light, 4 to 6 weeks is a reasonable minimum. Either way, the principle holds: pack from the outside in, starting with what you rarely use and finishing with what you touch every day.

6 to 8 Weeks Before: Deep Prep and Storage

• Sort through the garage, shed, attic and any storage areas first
• Set aside anything you no longer want to sell, donate or throw out
• Order your packing boxes and packing supplies before you actually need them

4 to 5 Weeks Before: Non-Essentials

• Pack out-of-season clothing, spare linen and anything in the guest room
• Box up books, framed photos and other display items you can live without for a few weeks
• Use shipping boxes for anything heading interstate ahead of you

2 to 3 Weeks Before: Kitchen and Living Areas

• Pack spare dishes, small appliances and pantry stock you won’t use before the move
• Keep one set of plates, cups and basic cookware out per person
• Wrap fragile kitchenware properly instead of stacking it loose in a box

Final Week: Daily Essentials

• Pack the clothes and toiletries you’ve been using up to this point
• Defrost the fridge and freezer the day before, not the morning of
• Put together a first day box with chargers, medication and basic tools so you’re not digging through the whole house to find them

Does Your Timeline Change Based on Your Home or Move Type?

The timeline above is a solid default, but a few things stretch or shrink it. Home size is the obvious one. A one-bedroom unit might only need two or three days of actual packing, while a four-bedroom family home can take a full week or more.

How you’re moving matters just as much. If a removalist is doing the heavy lifting, you’re mainly responsible for boxing up contents, so the timeline above applies as-is. If you’re doing a fully DIY move, including the truck and the labour, build in extra time, since you’ll be packing and moving in the same window rather than packing ahead of a scheduled pickup. It also helps to have a second person free on the day, purely for lifting and loading, so packing itself doesn’t get squeezed into whatever time is left over.

Interstate and long-distance moves change the equation again. Freight and interstate removalists usually need firm booking dates and inventory lists well ahead of time. AFRA’s moving tips are worth a read if you’re booking a professional service for the first time, since accredited movers work to standards that make this kind of planning easier.

Downsizing from a house into an apartment, or moving into a share house, adds a different kind of pressure. You’re not just packing on a timeline, you’re deciding what fits in a smaller space before you get there. Start that decision-making early too, well before the final week, so it doesn’t get rushed alongside everything else.

What Should You Actually Take With You?

Packing early works best alongside a quick sort of what’s actually coming with you. If you haven’t touched something in the last 12 months and it isn’t seasonal or sentimental, it’s a candidate to sell, donate or bin before it takes up a box.

This matters more than it sounds. Every box you don’t need to pack is a box you don’t need to buy, carry, unpack and find a home for in the new place. A short declutter pass before the 6 to 8 week mark pays for itself in time and box count alone.

• Sell items with genuine resale value online or at a garage sale
• Donate anything in good condition you no longer use
• Recycle or bin what’s left, rather than just moving it to a new garage

What Boxes and Packing Supplies Do You Actually Need?

Knowing when to pack only solves half the problem. The other half is getting things into the right box in the first place, because the wrong box costs you either protection or space. A box that’s too big for what’s in it wastes truck space; one that’s too small or too weak splits under the weight.

Books, tools and other dense items belong in smaller, sturdier boxes; a large box packed with books becomes too heavy to lift safely. General household contents fit well into standard cardboard boxes, sized to the room they’re leaving.

TVs, mirrors and other flat fragile items need dedicated TV boxes rather than a generic carton with padding shoved around the edges. The same goes for framed artwork, where purpose-built art boxes hold the piece rigid instead of letting it shift and crack in transit.

For smaller items you’re sending ahead, like documents, electronics or gift-sized pieces, mailing boxes with a self-locking base are quicker to assemble and just as secure as taping a standard carton shut.

Round it out with the right packing supplies, bubble wrap and void fill for anything fragile, plus packing tape that actually holds under the weight of a full box instead of splitting at the seams.

How Many Boxes Should You Buy?

As a rough guide, use the table below and add about 10% on top. Running out mid-pack on a Sunday afternoon is a common, avoidable problem, and leftover boxes are useful for storage or the next move anyway.

Reinforce anything heavy with extra tape and labels rather than trusting a single strip down the middle seam.

Should You Start Packing Earlier If You’re Moving in Summer?

December and January are the busiest and most expensive months to move in Australia. School holidays, warm weather and lease end-dates all land in the same six-week window, and removalists book out well in advance because of it.

If your move falls in that window, push your packing timeline forward by two to three weeks. Airtasker’s research on moving seasons points to January as the single busiest month nationally, with December close behind, so packing and booking early isn’t just convenient, it’s often the difference between getting your preferred date and not.

Outside peak season, the timeline in the first section is a safe default. There’s no need to compress it just because you’re moving in a quieter month.

What Should You Pack Last?

Some items should stay out of boxes until moving day itself, or travel with you rather than the removalist.

• Toiletries, medication and anything you use daily
• Phone chargers, laptops and other electronics you’ll need immediately
• A few days of clothes and shoes
• Basic kitchen items, like a kettle, mugs and cutlery, plus something for a first meal
• Passports, leases, insurance documents and anything else you’d hate to lose

Safewise’s moving house checklist recommends packing all of this into one clearly labelled box per person and keeping it with you rather than loading it onto the truck. It’s a small step that saves a lot of frustration on the first night in a new place.

Frequently Asked Questions

A few packing terms come up often enough that they’re worth answering directly, even where they started out as travel advice rather than moving advice.