Moving Truck Size Calculator

Enter how many furnished rooms you are moving and a furniture density, and it estimates your load at 100, 150, or 200 cubic feet per room. It then picks the smallest U-Haul truck class whose usable cargo volume covers that load. Usable volume is 85% of the published interior, since boxes and furniture never pack to 100%.

Using U-Haul's published interior volumes, a 10 ft truck holds about 402 cubic feet, a 15 ft holds 764, a 20 ft holds 1,016, and a 26 ft holds 1,682. Realistic usable space is roughly 85% of those numbers. The calculator compares your estimated load against the usable volume, not the gross figure.

Count every furnished room you are emptying, not just the bedrooms. That means the living room, dining room, kitchen, home office, and finished basement on top of the bedrooms. A garage, shed, or packed storage room can each add a room's worth of volume.

Density sets the cubic feet per room. Light is about 100 cubic feet for sparsely furnished rooms, medium is 150 for an average home, and heavy is 200 for a fully furnished room with bulky pieces. The 150 to 200 range follows the standard moving rule of thumb for a fully furnished room.

The calculator still recommends the 26 ft truck and shows how many full loads (trips) you would need. To keep it to one trip, consider towing a trailer behind the truck or renting a second truck. Professional movers with a larger vehicle are another option for very large homes.

Treat it as a planning estimate, not an exact figure. Appliances, oversized furniture, exercise equipment, and your packing skill all shift the real volume. When your load lands between two sizes, choose the larger truck so you avoid a costly second trip.