Boxes
Cardboard boxes for moving house
Most people who search for cardboard boxes are about to move. Here is which ones to buy, what the hardware stores charge per box, and when it is cheaper to have the lot delivered.
Last checked 23 October 2026
What kind of cardboard box do you need for moving?
A moving carton: corrugated cardboard, sold flat, in a size one person can carry when it is full. The three sizes that matter are small for dense things, medium for most of the house and large for bulk without weight. The rule that saves your back is that the smaller the box, the heavier the thing that goes in it. Moving box sizes goes room by room.
For a whole house, start with the count rather than the box. Wise Move’s published New Zealand table puts a 3 bedrooms home at 15 small, 15 medium and 10 large, 40 boxes before the wardrobe boxes. How many moving boxes do I need? has the full table and a calculator.
Single wall or double wall?
Cardboard comes in grades. Single-wall board is one fluted layer between two flat liners; double-wall adds a second fluted layer and a third liner, so it resists crushing and stacking far better. The New Zealand hardware stores do not use those words on the shelf. Mitre 10 describes its light duty boxes as “single-cushion construction” for light to medium items and its heavy duty boxes as “twin-cushion construction” for heavy items; Bunnings labels its 104L heavy duty carton “twin-cushion” too (both read 23 October 2026). Light duty is single wall, heavy duty is double wall.
Which to buy: double wall for books, crockery, tools, records and anything that will spend the move at the bottom of a stack. Single wall is fine for bedding, cushions, clothes and lampshades, and for anything light enough that the box is really just keeping it together. A truck full of single-wall boxes of books is how the bottom row ends up a different shape to the top row.
What do cardboard boxes cost in New Zealand?
Between about $2 and $6a box at the hardware stores, depending on size and wall. These are the prices on each retailer’s own product page on 23 October 2026, per box, before any delivery charge. They change, so treat them as a snapshot with a date on it.
| Retailer | Box | Wall | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitre 10 | Moving Box Small (379 × 304 × 253mm) | Single-cushion (light duty) | $1.99 |
| Bunnings | 26L Light Duty Moving Carton | Light duty | $2.15 |
| Bunnings | 52L Light Duty Moving Carton | Light duty | $3.45 |
| Bunnings | 107L Light Duty Moving Carton | Light duty | $4.33 |
| Bunnings | 52L Heavy Duty Moving Carton | Heavy duty | $5.25 |
| Bunnings | 104L Heavy Duty Moving Carton (432 × 597 × 407mm internal) | Twin-cushion (heavy duty), made in NZ | $5.96 |
| Mitre 10 | Moving Box Heavy Duty Large (431 × 406 × 596mm) | Twin-cushion (heavy duty) | $6.28 |
Storage King lists its medium box at 30 × 33 × 40cm for $4.50 and its wardrobe box with rail at $19.90, read 16 September 2026, which is where the sizes page gets its sense of scale. Our own prices are not shown until the kits are live.
Buying boxes one at a time, or as a kit?
Do the sum on the whole house, not the single box. At the per-box prices above, the 40 boxes for a three-bedroom home come to somewhere between $80 and $251 depending on how many you buy in heavy duty, before tape, paper, a wardrobe box and the trips to carry them home. Forty flat cartons do not fit in most cars in one go.
When the hardware store is the better buy: you need a dozen boxes or fewer, you have a car and a store nearby, and you are happy to pick the tape and paper up separately. When a kit is: it is a whole house, the count has been worked out for you, everything arrives in one delivery and the delivery is priced before you pay. The three kits are sized from the same Wise Move table, and boxes by the 10-pack fill the gap when you are a few short.
Cardboard boxes in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
We are an online shop with no branches, so boxes are delivered by courier to any New Zealand address, rural included; deliveryexplains how it is priced. The city pages exist because the local crate-hire firms and the council’s cardboard recycling rules genuinely differ from place to place:
Looking for boxes without paying for them? Where to get moving boxes in NZ covers free sources and crate hire, and what to do with the boxes afterwards covers the other end.
Questions about cardboard boxes
Are moving boxes different from ordinary cardboard boxes?
Mostly in what they are built for. A moving carton is sized to be carried full by one person and sold flat so it packs into a car; a box from behind a supermarket was built to hold one product once and is whatever size that product was. Both are corrugated cardboard. The difference that matters for heavy things is wall construction, not the word on the side.
What does single-wall and double-wall mean?
Single-wall board has one fluted layer glued between two flat liners. Double-wall has two fluted layers and three liners. Mitre 10 and Bunnings label the two grades light duty (single-cushion) and heavy duty (twin-cushion). Heavy duty costs more per box and is worth it for books, crockery and anything that will be stacked underneath other boxes.
Can I buy cardboard boxes from you without a whole kit?
Yes. Small, medium and large boxes are sold by the 10-pack, and the wardrobe box on its own. The kits exist because most people underestimate how many they need, not because we only sell in bulk.
Is it cheaper to buy cardboard boxes at a hardware store?
Per box, often yes, if you have a car, live near a store and only need a handful. Where a delivered kit wins is a whole house: forty boxes do not fit in most cars in one trip, and the kit arrives with the tape and paper. The honest comparison is on this page.
Where can I get free cardboard boxes?
Supermarkets, liquor stores and bookshops hand on their cartons, and community groups pass moving boxes along. Where to get moving boxes in NZ covers the sources and what to check before you load a free box with your crockery.