What Size Moving Truck Do I Need? Sizes, Cubic Feet & a Fit Checker

Renting a moving truck is a guessing game most people play exactly once every few years, which is why it is so easy to get wrong. Rent too small and you are making a second trip across town, or worse, cramming boxes into your car while the clock runs. Rent too big and you are paying for empty air and white-knuckling a giant box truck through tight streets. The trick is to think about your move the same way you would think about a room: in terms of volume. Once you know roughly how many cubic feet of stuff you own, picking a truck size becomes simple math.

Moving Truck Sizes and What They Hold

Rental trucks from the big companies (U-Haul, Penske, Budget) come in a handful of standard lengths. Capacity is measured in cubic feet, which is just length × width × height of the cargo box. Here is a practical guide to the common sizes and the kind of home each one suits:

10-foot truck (about 400 cu ft): a studio or one-bedroom apartment with minimal furniture. Good for a dorm move or a first apartment.
15-foot truck (about 760 cu ft): a small one to two-bedroom home. The workhorse of most apartment moves.
20-foot truck (about 1,000 cu ft): a two to three-bedroom house. Fits most mid-size households comfortably.
26-foot truck (about 1,700 cu ft): a large three to four-plus bedroom house. The biggest most people can rent without a commercial license.

These cubic-foot figures vary a little by rental brand, so always check the exact spec on the truck page when you book. But the tiers above hold up well as a planning tool.

Estimate How Much You Actually Own

The mistake almost everyone makes is picking a truck based on the number of bedrooms alone. Two people in a three-bedroom house with half-empty rooms need far less space than a couple who has filled a one-bedroom to the ceiling. So estimate by volume instead. There are two ways to do it.

The fast way is to add up your rooms using rough per-room averages. As a starting point:

A furnished bedroom: roughly 250–350 cu ft of goods.
A living room: roughly 250–400 cu ft (sofas and shelving eat space fast).
A kitchen: roughly 150–250 cu ft once boxed.
Each standard moving box: about 3 cu ft.

The more accurate way is to measure. Furniture volume is just length × width × height, the same spatial math you would use to size up a room. If you have already measured a room to plan flooring or paint, you are halfway there. Our room paint and flooring calculator lets you enter room dimensions and see them in 3D, which is a handy way to build intuition for how cubic feet translate into real space before you eyeball your furniture.

A Worked Example

Say you are moving out of a two-bedroom house. You walk room by room and tally the volume of everything you plan to load:

Master bedroom: bed, dresser, nightstands, and boxes ≈ 320 cu ft.
Second bedroom / office: desk, bookshelf, guest bed ≈ 250 cu ft.
Living room: sofa, TV stand, coffee table, shelving ≈ 300 cu ft.
Kitchen: boxed dishes, small appliances, a cart ≈ 180 cu ft.
Boxes and odds and ends: 25 standard boxes × 3 cu ft = 75 cu ft.

Adding those up: 320 + 250 + 300 + 180 + 75 = 1,125 cu ft.

Now add a buffer. You never load a truck with perfect efficiency, and you will always find one more box, so add about 15 percent for wiggle room: 1,125 × 1.15 ≈ 1,294 cu ft.

Compare that to the tiers. The 20-foot truck (1,000 cu ft) falls short, so you step up to the 26-foot truck (1,700 cu ft). That gives you room to load safely without a second trip. If your tally had landed nearer 900 cu ft, the 20-foot truck would have been the smart, cheaper pick.

Why You Should Round Up, Not Down

When your estimate lands between two truck sizes, go up. The cost difference between adjacent sizes is usually modest, while the cost of running short is brutal: a second day of rental, a second tank of fuel, extra mileage charges, and hours of your life. A slightly roomier truck also lets you pack items upright and secured rather than jammed in at odd angles, which means less damage in transit. The only real reason to size down is tight access, like a narrow driveway, a low parking garage, or a city street where a 26-footer simply will not fit.

A Few Practical Tips Before You Book

Declutter first. The cheapest way to fit a smaller truck is to own less. Sell or donate before you measure, not after.
Check the door height and ramp. Cubic feet do not help if a tall wardrobe will not clear the opening.
Weight matters too. Books and appliances are dense. A truck can run out of safe payload before it runs out of space, so do not stack heavy boxes to the roof.
Book early for weekends and month-ends. The size you want sells out fastest when everyone else is moving.

Think in cubic feet, add a buffer, and round up when in doubt. Do that and you will pull up to your new place with everything you own in a single trip, and no expensive surprises along the way.