The cost of a corporate move in Belgium: the complete guide
You need to budget your office move and you are looking for a reference price. But a corporate move is not like a household move: it affects your workstations, your IT, your archives, the coordination of your teams and the continuity of your business. A simple price "per cubic metre" therefore means little.
This guide reviews what really makes up the cost of a corporate move in Belgium: the factors that make it vary, benchmarks by company size, how a quote is built, the costs people forget, and a method to estimate your own situation concretely.
There is no universal price list: a corporate move is priced case by case. The amounts in this guide are benchmarks, not fixed rates.
Why relocating an office is more than transport
A lot of online content lumps household and professional moves together. Yet the two do not have the same scope, or the same price.
Moving a company means relocating a working tool without halting the business. Workstations have to be dismantled and reassembled, IT unplugged and reconnected, archives (sometimes sensitive) transported, access to both buildings managed, sometimes permits obtained (parking, lift, furniture hoist), and all of it coordinated with teams that still have to work. That complexity — far more than the number of boxes — explains the price.
What really drives the price
For a similar situation, two companies can pay twice as much. The cost depends mainly on five variables:
- the volume to be moved (furniture, workstations, archives, stock);
- the distance between the old and the new site;
- access: floors, lift, corridor width, room to park a lorry, the need for a furniture hoist;
- the IT equipment you have to disconnect, transport and put back into service;
- the timing: a move in the evening, at the weekend or on a public holiday costs more.
A reliable quote always starts from these elements, after a site visit. A price quoted without having seen the premises or the inventory tells you little. We explain this calculation in a dedicated article (see "Read also").
How much it costs: benchmarks, not a price list
That is the question everyone asks, but it has no single answer. On the Belgian market, providers charge according to different logics: by time spent (hourly rate and number of movers), by volume, per workstation, or "à la carte" depending on the services included (packing, IT, dismantling, insurance). Two quotes can therefore both be correct and still differ widely.
The orders of magnitude below are there to give you a reference point, not to replace a quote:
- a small office (a few workstations): often €1,500 to €5,000;
- an office floor or an SME (twenty to fifty workstations): often €5,000 to €20,000;
- a headquarters or large organisation (above that): from €20,000 to more than €100,000.
These benchmarks are deliberately broad: they depend entirely on the factors above. Working "per workstation" gives a first indication, but access, IT and out-of-hours work can move that figure considerably.
How a corporate quote is built
To read an offer, you need to know what it contains. A quote for a corporate move is usually made up of several items:
- labour: the moving team, often the main item;
- transport: lorries, fuel, number of trips;
- packing and materials: boxes, protection, IT crates;
- difficult handling: a furniture hoist, charged separately;
- IT: disconnection, secure transport, reconnection;
- insurance of the goods during transport;
- out-of-hours surcharges: evening, weekend, public holiday.
Not all of these items appear in a "lowest-price" offer. That is often where the gap between two quotes appears — and the unpleasant surprise on the day.
The costs people forget
Transport is only part of the real bill. Several expenses often stay under the radar when building the budget: reinstating the old premises (painting, repairs, removing fit-out), often required by the lease; dismantling and disposing of what does not follow; new or adapted furniture for the new spaces; and the unexpected costs on the day itself. We devote a separate article to this (see "Read also").
The invisible cost: coordination, continuity, permits
One item appears on no quote: internal time. An office move also means communication to the teams, a switch-over schedule, managing suppliers and connections (telecoms, energy, network), insurance, administrative permits, and the continuity of the business during the operation.
That coordination work has a value, even if it does not show in the price of the lorry. Someone has to scope the need, compare offers, run the day itself and secure the restart. Depending on the size of the project, one internal person is enough; beyond that, bringing in a third party to manage the move avoids blind spots — a trade-off to weigh against the time your teams can actually devote to it.
How to lower the bill without taking risks
A few levers bring the cost down without sacrificing quality: sorting and decluttering before the move (you pay to move volume), planning ahead to avoid rush and out-of-hours work, bundling services with a single provider where it makes sense, and above all requesting several comparable quotes. We detail these levers in a dedicated article (see "Read also").
How to get a reliable figure for your situation
Benchmarks give an indication, but they do not replace an estimate. To approach your actual cost:
- make a clear inventory of what is moving, going into storage or being discarded;
- use our calculator to get an indicative estimate in a few minutes;
- request three quotes on the same basis (same volume, same date, same services), so that they are comparable.
In summary
A corporate move is more than transport: it is priced case by case, depending on the volume, the access, the IT, the schedule and all the coordination around it. There is therefore no universal rate, but benchmarks and a method. Use the orders of magnitude to get your bearings, the calculator for a first estimate, and three comparable quotes to decide with confidence.