HDB Moving Services in Singapore

No. HDB does not require a moving permit or a lift booking to move in or out of a flat. That requirement belongs to condominiums, where the MCST controls the service lift. What you do need to arrange yourself is disposal of anything you are not taking, since town council bulky-item collection is booked by the resident, not by the mover.

As a rough guide, a 2- or 3-room flat fits a 10ft lorry, a 4- or 5-room flat needs a 14ft, and an executive flat or maisonette with a full household needs a 24ft or two 14ft trips. It is volume rather than floor area that decides, so a lightly furnished 5-room can fit a 14ft while a heavily stocked 4-room cannot. Vendors confirm the size from photos before quoting.

Often, yes. Since the Lift Upgrading Programme nearly every HDB block has lift access on every floor, so the old walk-up problem is largely gone. What remains is lift car size. Blocks from the 1970s and early 1980s have small cars that will not take a three-seater sofa, a tall wardrobe or a king mattress upright, so those items go down the staircase instead. That is extra manpower and extra time, and it should be priced before the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes, if you book disposal alongside the move. Your town council will collect up to three bulky items per household per month at no charge, on weekday afternoons, but it will not dismantle built-in items, will not clear a whole flat, and requires each item to fit in the lift and be liftable by one person. Anything beyond that is a paid disposal job, and doing it on the same day as the move costs less than booking a separate trip.

Two to four weeks for a weekday move. The last weekend of the month, month-end weekdays and the weeks before Chinese New Year are the tightest slots in the calendar, and vendors commonly price a peak surcharge into them. If your date is fixed by a key collection or a lease end, start as soon as that date is confirmed.

Vendors on our network carry goods-in-transit and public liability cover. The limits, the excess and the list of excluded items differ between vendors, and high-value items usually have to be declared in advance to be covered at all. We check that cover is current as part of vetting, and we set out exactly what we check on our vendor standards page.