This question tends to arrive late — usually the evening before, or at about four in the afternoon on move day when the last of the load is coming off and someone realises they have not thought about it.
So, plainly: tipping is never expected. It is not built into a quote, there is no line for it on an invoice, and there is no awkward moment engineered into the end of the day to prompt it. If you do nothing, nothing happens. The crew finishes, thanks you, and leaves.
The honest answer
Moving sits at the loose end of the tipping spectrum, well away from restaurants. Some customers tip and some do not, in no particular pattern, and it changes nothing about what happens next.
What that means in practice:
- There is no prompt. Nobody lingers by the door. If a crew ever makes you feel that they are waiting, that is a problem with the crew, not a convention you failed to observe.
- It is not on the bill. The invoice covers the work — crew, equipment, transport, and any specialty handling that was in the written scope. Gratuity is not part of it and never appears as a line.
- It does not buy anything. A customer who does not tip gets the same crew, the same care and the same handling next time. Crews do not keep a list.
None of which means it goes unnoticed when it happens. It simply means you are not failing an unwritten test if it does not.
Why there is no tipping line on a quote
Because a quote should be the price of the work. The moment a gratuity becomes a suggested figure on a document, it stops being a gratuity and starts being a soft charge that some people feel obliged to pay and others feel judged for declining.
Crews are paid for the job through the company. That is the arrangement, and it should hold whether or not you reach for your wallet at the end.
When people do tip
The pattern, where there is one, tends to follow difficulty rather than duration:
- The access was genuinely hard — stairs at both ends, a long carry, a lift that failed — and nobody complained about it.
- The day ran longer or rougher than anyone expected and the crew stayed steady.
- Someone did something outside the scope because it was obviously the decent thing: set the bed up, put the lamps where you would actually want them, took ten minutes to place a chair properly.
- A piano or another difficult piece came through untouched.
- Nothing dramatic happened at all, which is usually the sign that a lot of things were done right.
When it is reasonable not to
Equally worth saying out loud:
- Something was damaged. Do not sort this at the door with cash. Raise it with the company, in writing, while everything is fresh.
- The day felt padded. Same answer — that is a conversation with whoever wrote the scope, not with the person carrying the boxes.
- The crew was rude or careless. Feedback to the company, please. It is the only route that changes anything.
- It was a short, simple job. A studio flat with a driveway at each end is not the same day as a four-bedroom with three flights at both ends, and nobody expects it to be treated the same.
How much, and why we will not print a number
You will find articles that give you a dollar figure per person per half-day. We are not going to, for two reasons.
The first is that a printed number stops being guidance almost immediately and becomes an expectation — which is the exact thing this article is telling you does not exist.
The second is that it varies with the job in ways a general figure cannot capture: how many people, how many hours, how hard the access was, whether it was one crew or two. If you want to recognise the crew and would like to know how it is handled on your particular booking, ask your coordinator. They will tell you plainly, including if the answer is that the company would rather you did not.
If you would rather do something concrete than guess: a short note naming the crew members, sent to the company, reaches them and stays on their record. That costs nothing and lasts longer.
What crews notice as much as cash
Ask anyone who has done this work for a living and the list is remarkably consistent:
- Cold drinks available, especially on a hot day and a long carry.
- Lunch, if the job runs through the middle of the day. Nothing elaborate.
- Access to a bathroom at both addresses.
- Somewhere dry to set tools and dollies down when it is raining.
- Clear direction — knowing which room a box belongs in and what should come off the truck first.
- Being spoken to like people rather than furniture handlers.
A day with cold drinks, a sandwich and a friendly customer routinely lands better than a day with a generous tip and a cold one. That is not a hint. It is just what the work is like.
Two crews on a long-distance move
On a long-distance route the load is sometimes handled by one crew at origin and a different one at destination. If you are tipping and both crews did real work, split it rather than giving the whole amount to whoever happened to be standing in front of you at the end. If the same crew ran both ends, it is one crew and one gesture.
If something went wrong, do not use the tip to say so
The most common mistake is emotional accounting at the door — tipping generously because you feel bad about a long day, or withholding silently because something was damaged and you would rather not have the conversation.
Neither reaches anyone who can act on it. Damage goes through the claims process. Praise and complaint both go to the company, where they land on a record and change what happens next time. The gratuity, if you offer one, should be exactly what it appears to be and nothing else.
That is the whole convention: appreciated, never expected, never quoted, and never a substitute for telling someone what actually happened. If you want to see how the rest of our terms read before you book, the FAQ covers them, and you can start your move brief at /quote.