The honest answer is that it depends on the company — and that you need to know which answer applies to yours before you book, not when the crew is standing at the bottom of a stairwell with your sofa.
Stairs are the most common reason a move day runs longer than the person paying for it expected. They are not the most common reason a bill surprises someone. That distinction is worth understanding, because the two problems have different fixes.
Why the question does not have one answer
Stairs make a move take longer. That part is not in dispute and it is not a matter of opinion — every item goes up or down, one at a time, more slowly and more carefully than it would across a flat floor, and the biggest pieces need two people and a plan for the turn.
What differs between companies is how that additional time gets accounted for. Broadly you will see two approaches, and both of them can be perfectly fair.
Approach one: stairs are part of the scope
The company builds the stairs into the scope and the working-time estimate. A two-storey house with the bedrooms upstairs is planned as a longer job than a single-level home with a driveway, and the estimate reflects that from the start. There is no separate stair line because the stairs were never separate — they were part of what was being estimated.
This is the approach we take. Stairs change how a job is planned, how many people we send, and what we tell you the day looks like. They do not become a line item that appears after the fact.
The thing to check with this approach: that whoever scoped it actually knows about your stairs. An estimate built on a ground-floor assumption is not more honest than a surcharge — it is just wrong in a different direction. Tell them, in writing, exactly what the access looks like.
Approach two: stairs carry a stated surcharge
The company quotes a headline figure and applies a defined additional charge per flight, in each direction, on top of it. The argument for it is straightforward: stair work is harder and slower, and pricing it explicitly makes the difference visible rather than buried.
That is a legitimate structure, provided two things are true. The surcharge is stated in writing before you book, and the definitions are stated with it. Otherwise you are agreeing to a variable you cannot count.
The combination that should end the conversation
The problem is not either approach. The problem is both at once.
If a quote contains a working-time estimate that already accounts for the stairs and a per-flight surcharge on top of it, you are paying twice for the same difficulty — once in the hours, once in the fee. Ask directly whether the time estimate assumes the stairs. If the answer is yes and the surcharge stands, that is your answer about the company generally, not just about stairs.
The same logic applies to a headline figure that is conspicuously lower than everything else you have been quoted. A low number attached to a long list of situational fees is not a low number. It is the same number, disclosed later.
"Stairs" means different things to different companies
Before you can compare anything, you need the definitions. Ask:
- Does a half-flight count as a full flight, or is it pro-rated?
- Do steps at the truck count — a loading spot below street level with four steps up to the path, for instance?
- Do exterior porch steps count? Usually not, but "usually" is not a policy.
- A townhouse where the front door is already on the second level — is that counted as a flight before anyone goes anywhere?
- Does the count apply per direction, so a flight at the origin and a flight at the destination is two, or four?
A company that answers all five in a sentence each has thought about it. One that improvises the answers is deciding them on the day, which means deciding them in their own favour.
The stair situations that actually come up
Most homes fall into a handful of shapes, and it helps to know which one you have before anyone asks:
- Single-level home with a driveway. No flights, short carry. The fastest arrangement there is.
- Two-storey house, bedrooms upstairs. One flight, one direction of travel for roughly half the contents.
- Garage-entry townhouse. Entry at the lower level, living space above, bedrooms above that. Everything crosses at least one flight and the bedroom contents cross two.
- Three-level townhouse. The most demanding common layout, and frequently underestimated because the bedroom count sounds modest.
- Walk-up apartment, no lift. Flights plus, usually, a carry from wherever the truck could park to the entrance. Both matter, and the carry is the one people forget.
The turn matters as much as the count. A straight run with a wide landing is workable. A tight turn at the base of a staircase, or a low ceiling over a landing, is where the largest pieces genuinely may not fit — and that is a question to settle at the scoping stage, with a photograph, not on the morning.
Specialist items on stairs are a separate question
Pianos, safes, gun cabinets and large stone pieces on stairs are not "furniture, but slower". They need specific equipment, a specific crew size and a route assessment before anyone commits to a date. That assessment is not a formality — sometimes the honest answer is that a particular item cannot go up a particular staircase at all, and it is far better to know that a fortnight out.
If you have one of these and stairs at either end, scope it as specialist handling or piano moving from the beginning rather than adding it to a general booking.
Three questions to ask before you book
If you have stairs at either address, ask any company you are considering:
- "Is there a per-flight charge, and if so, exactly how much, per flight, per direction?"
- "Does the working-time estimate you have given me already assume these stairs?"
- "How do you count half-flights, garage entries and exterior steps?"
A clean answer sounds like: the stairs are in the estimate, there is no separate charge, and here is the number of hours we have planned because of them. Or: there is a stated charge of this amount per flight per direction, the estimate does not double-count it, and this is how flights are defined.
An answer that wanders is telling you the policy does not exist yet.
Tell us about the stairs, not the bedrooms
The most useful thing you can send is a photograph of the staircase at each end — including whatever is at the bottom of it — along with the floor your door is on and where a truck can sit. Two photographs settle more than a paragraph of description.
Send those with the rest of the route detail and we will tell you plainly how the stairs change the plan, in writing, before anything is booked. Start your move brief, or call 778-994-2303 and describe the staircase to us.