A 20-foot shipping container has about 33 cubic metres (1,170 cubic feet) of usable space inside: 19ft 4in long, 7ft 8in wide, 7ft 10in high. On paper that is a lot. In practice furniture does not stack like bricks, so the honest capacity for a household move is closer to 25–28 m³ of belongings once sofas, mattresses, boxes and odd shapes are loaded by a crew who knows what they are doing. That is a one-bedroom apartment with room to spare, a two-bedroom home if you are not bringing everything, and a tight squeeze for anything bigger.
Below is what fits, room by room, from the loads we pack at our Toronto warehouse every week. If you want your own number, the volume calculator on our moving quote page totals your inventory item by item.
What a 20ft container holds, by home size
| Home | Typical volume | Fits in a 20ft? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio / bachelor | 8–15 m³ | Yes, easily | Usually better as groupage (shared container) — you pay only for the space used |
| 1-bedroom apartment | 15–22 m³ | Yes | Room for a few extras: bikes, a treadmill, seasonal gear |
| 2-bedroom apartment or condo | 22–30 m³ | Yes, if packed well | Full-size sofa, dining set, two bedrooms, 40–60 boxes |
| 2-bedroom house with garage | 28–38 m³ | Borderline | Garage and basement contents are what tip it over |
| 3-bedroom house | 35–50 m³ | No | A 40ft, or a 20ft plus a groupage lot for the overflow |
| 4+ bedrooms | 50 m³+ | No | 40ft high cube, sometimes two containers |
A typical two-bedroom load
To make it concrete, this is a real packing list that filled a 20ft to about 27 m³ for a family moving from Mississauga to Manchester. Everything was export-wrapped and the boxes were standard 2–4 cubic-foot moving cartons.
- Living room: 3-seat sofa, armchair, coffee table, TV stand, 55-inch TV (crated), two bookcases, floor lamp
- Dining: table (legs removed), six chairs, sideboard
- Main bedroom: queen bed frame and mattress, two nightstands, dresser, mirror
- Second bedroom: single bed and mattress, desk, chair, wardrobe (disassembled)
- Kitchen: 14 cartons of dishes, glassware and small appliances — no fridge or stove
- Other: 38 cartons of books, clothing, linens and toys; two bicycles; a vacuum; four suitcases
What did not go: the fridge, the washer and dryer, a treadmill and the garden furniture. Appliances are the first thing to leave behind on an overseas move — voltage and plug differences mean many will not work at the destination, and they take up to 2 m³ each.
What pushes a move from a 20ft to a 40ft
It is rarely the furniture. The things that break a 20ft budget are the contents of a garage, a basement and a shed — tools, bikes, patio sets, sports gear, Christmas decorations — plus anything you are tempted to bring "just in case". The other big one is a vehicle.
- A car takes 10–12 m³ on its own, so a sedan plus a two-bedroom home is a 40ft, not a 20ft. We ship a car only as part of a household move — see our note on taking your vehicle with you.
- A motorcycle, crated, is 2–3 m³ and usually fits alongside a one- or two-bedroom load. Details on our motorcycle shipping page.
- Large appliances: each one is 1.5–2 m³ and most are not worth shipping overseas.
- A piano: an upright is about 1.5 m³ crated; a grand is 4–5 m³ and needs its own crate.
- Garden and patio furniture: bulky, light and awkward — it fills space fast.
How to measure your own move
- List every piece of furniture and estimate each one in cubic metres (length × width × height, roughly — a three-seat sofa is about 1.5 m³, a queen mattress about 0.6 m³, a dresser about 0.5 m³).
- Count your boxes. A standard medium moving carton is about 0.06 m³, so 50 boxes is 3 m³.
- Add 15–20% for packing materials, export wrapping and the air that inevitably ends up between items.
- Compare to 25–28 m³. Under it, a 20ft works. Well under 15 m³, ask about groupage instead. Over it, you are looking at a 40ft or at trimming the list.
- Or skip the math: the moving quote calculator does this item by item and a coordinator checks the total.
Packing a 20ft so everything fits
The difference between 22 m³ and 28 m³ in the same container is almost entirely the crew. Heavy, flat items go on the floor; mattresses go upright along the walls; sofas go on end if they can; every drawer and cavity is filled with soft goods; boxes are built into tiers by size so the load is tight from floor to ceiling. A container packed loosely will shift at sea and arrive with damage — a tight load is both the cheapest and the safest. We cover the method in how to pack a container and the wrapping side in how to wrap furniture for international shipping.
Should you bring the furniture at all?
Sometimes the right answer is a smaller container. If the furniture is ten years old and the destination is a furnished rental, the cost of shipping a two-bedroom load — several thousand dollars plus duties if you have not owned it a year — can exceed what it would cost to replace. We go through the arithmetic in is it worth shipping furniture overseas?. The honest move is often a groupage lot of the things that matter and a fresh start on the rest.
Find out whether your move fits a 20ft
Build your inventory in the calculator and a move coordinator confirms the container size and prices the route.