Free printable
How to label moving boxes so they end up in the right room
A label has one job on moving day: tell a person who has never seen your house where to put the box, without asking you. Everything else is for later. Here is what to put on one, and two free sheets to print.
Cut-out labels
Six large labels per page on plain paper. Sized to print identically on A4 and US Letter, so it does not matter which side of the world your printer is on.
6 per sheet, A4 and US Letter
Avery 5163 labels
Ten peel-and-stick labels per sheet, aligned to Avery 5163 and 18163 (2 by 4 inches). No cutting and no tape, which is the difference between labelling forty boxes and giving up at twelve.
10 per sheet, US Letter, Avery 5163 / 18163
Both are free, there is no email to hand over, and both leave a small square for a QR code if you use one. They work exactly as well with that square left empty.
Five things, in this order
Most label systems fail the same way: they are perfect for eight boxes and abandoned by twenty. These are ordered by what survives that.
Number the box before you fill it
Write the number on the label and on the box itself, large, on at least two sides and the top. A box in a stack only shows one face, and it is never the face you labelled.
Write the destination room, not the source room
The room it is going to at the new place. Whoever carries it has never seen your old house and does not care which room it came out of. This is the single change that stops you directing every box on the day.
Put three or four real things on the contents line
Not an inventory, just the things you would panic about. "Kettle, toaster, mugs" is enough to recognise it. "Kitchen" tells you nothing you did not already know from the room band.
Tick fragile only when it is true
If a third of your boxes are ticked fragile, nobody reads the tick. Reserve it for glass, screens and things with a hollow stem.
Keep the numbers in one list
The label tells a person where the box goes. The list tells you what is inside box 34 three weeks later, which is the part the label is too small to do. Paper, a spreadsheet or an app, as long as there is exactly one of them.
Why the number is the biggest thing on these labels
Most printable moving labels are a room name in a coloured box. That is fine for routing, and it is useless a week later, because a room name cannot tell you which of your nine kitchen boxes has the kettle in it.
The number is what everything else hangs off. It is unique, it is quick to write large on several sides, and it is what your list is keyed on. So on these sheets the number gets the space, the room sits in a band above it, and the contents line is there to help you recognise the box rather than to catalogue it.
One deliberate omission: these are not colour coded by room. Colour coding needs either a colour printer or a separate file per room, and most people print in black and white. The room band is an outline instead, so it reads properly in mono and you can still run a highlighter down it if you want colour.
The label routes the box. It is too small to be the record of what is inside, which is the job of a moving inventory list, and there is a free template for that too.
Questions about labelling
How should you label moving boxes?
Number first, destination room second, a few real contents third. The number is what everything else keys on, so it needs to be large and on several sides. The destination room is what lets someone place the box without asking you. The contents line only needs enough detail to recognise the box, because the full list belongs somewhere you can search.
Should you write on the box or use labels?
Both, and for different reasons. A marker straight on the cardboard is free, fast and cannot fall off, which is why the number should always be written on as well. Printed labels are faster to read at a distance, they stop handwriting getting worse at box thirty, and a pre-printed room name means less writing per box.
What are the best labels for moving boxes?
For a small move, plain paper and tape is genuinely fine, and the cut-out sheet here is designed for exactly that. For anything larger, peel-and-stick on Avery 5163 or 18163 sheets is worth the small cost, because sticking forty labels is quick and cutting and taping forty labels is where people abandon the system.
Do I need QR codes on my moving boxes?
No, and it is worth being clear about that. A QR code is only useful if something can read it and show you a list, which means an app. A number written large does the same routing job for free. The label sheets here leave a small square for a code if you want one, and they work perfectly well with that square left empty.
The label gets it to the room. Then what?
Box 34 is in the spare room, which is progress, and you still do not know the charger is in it. List what goes in each box as you pack it, then search any item and BoxLister tells you the box and the room. Five boxes free, no card and no password.
Try it free, five boxes