Direct answer
Commercial and retail clearance cost in London isn't set by a fixed rate card - it's driven by how much shopfit and fixtures need to come out (shelving, counters, display units, sometimes a full strip-out), how much stock or inventory is left to sort and remove, whether access has to be out of hours or through a shared loading bay or service corridor, and how firm the lease end-date is. houseclearance.co publishes indicative ranges on /prices/ that every page on this site reuses - commercial and retail clearances are usually priced by van-load volume, from £65 for a single item up to £695+ for a full load (see the table below). You still describe the job once - unit details, rough volume, access notes and preferred date - and a licensed carrier quotes the real price against the actual scope.
Contents
- What drives the cost of a commercial or retail clearance
- Commercial clearance vs skip hire
- Preparing for a commercial clearance
- How premises size and fixtures change the job
- Timing around lease end-dates
- Worked examples: reading the indicative ranges for a shop or unit
- Price table: commercial items and access extras
- Commercial clearance checklist: what to settle before you post the job
- London access, loading and parking for commercial premises
- Questions to ask before you accept a commercial clearance quote
- The legal background: commercial waste duty of care
- Frequently asked questions
What drives the cost of a commercial or retail clearance
The factors carriers check on every job - see how pricing works across houseclearance.co.
Carriers quoting on a commercial and retail clearance job are weighing up a different mix of factors again compared with a home or a standard office clearance, even though the underlying approach is the same: no published rate, just a quote against the real scope. The more clearly you describe fixtures, stock and access in your job post, the less likely the price is to move once the carrier actually sees the unit.
Indicative price by van load
| Van load equivalent | Indicative London price range |
|---|---|
| Single item minimum charge | £65 – £95 |
| 1/4 van load | £145 – £195 |
| 1/2 van load | £275 – £345 |
| 3/4 van load | £425 – £495 |
| Full van load | £575 – £695 |
Full table published on houseclearance.co/prices - the same figures every page on this site uses. WEEE-regulated electronics carry an additional disposal surcharge on top.
| Factor | What carriers are assessing |
|---|---|
| Shopfit and fixtures | Shelving, gondola units, counters, display cabinets, signage - and whether they can be removed whole or need dismantling first. |
| Stock and inventory volume | How much unsold stock is left, whether it's already boxed or still needs sorting, and whether perishable stock is involved. |
| Access | Shopfront loading versus a rear service yard or shared loading bay, goods lift availability, and street or pedestrianisation restrictions. |
| Out-of-hours requirements | Evening, early-morning, overnight or weekend work to avoid disrupting trading hours or neighbouring units. |
| Lease end-date and scope | How firm the handover deadline is, and whether the job is a standard clearance or a full dilapidations-driven strip-out. |
Fixtures matter beyond just size and weight. A run of bulky fixtures and furniture - fitted counters, gondola shelving runs, a reception desk built into the unit - sometimes needs dismantling on site before it can leave the building, and refrigeration or catering equipment in a food-retail unit needs WEEE-compliant handling the same way a household white good or appliance does. Both are worth flagging in your job post rather than folding into a generic "fixtures" line.
Commercial clearance vs skip hire
Two different services that solve different problems in a trading unit.
A skip and a labour-included commercial clearance aren't really substitutes for each other - a skip gives you a container to fill yourself, while a clearance service also includes a crew physically dismantling fixtures, loading stock and handling the waste streams. Which one makes sense depends on how much of the manual handling, sorting and segregated waste admin you're prepared to take on yourself.
| Consideration | Skip hire | Labour-included commercial clearance |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the lifting | You and anyone helping you fill it | The carrier's crew removes, dismantles where needed and loads items |
| Street or bay permit | Often required if placed on a public road or in a shared bay - arranged with the local council or centre management | Not applicable - items are loaded directly into a vehicle during an agreed access window |
| Out-of-hours access | Still down to you to coordinate with building or centre management | Carrier can often schedule around trading hours as part of the job |
| Segregated commercial waste | Mixed by default unless you sort before items go in | Carrier can separate streams - WEEE, recyclables, general waste - as agreed |
| Typical use case | Ongoing shopfit or renovation waste building up over several days | A defined clearance job, often against a lease deadline, in one or two visits |
| Stock sorting | Down to you entirely | Carrier can quote around stock that's already boxed versus still needing sorting |
A skip can work out practical during an ongoing shopfit or refurbishment where waste builds up gradually and there's somewhere off-street to put it. A commercial clearance makes more sense where the whole unit needs emptying in a defined window, where access is restricted to specific hours, or where stock and fixtures need sorting for responsible disposal or reclamation rather than simply being thrown in together.
Preparing for a commercial clearance
What to sort out before the carrier arrives, and what the day itself typically looks like.
A commercial or retail clearance runs more smoothly - and is easier to quote accurately - when a few things are settled in advance, particularly around lease deadlines, stock disposal and coordinating access with building or centre management.
Before you post the job
- Decide what's staying (fixtures owned by the landlord, for instance) and what's going, so there's no confusion on the day.
- Work out whether stock still needs sorting, or whether it's already boxed and ready to go - this changes the volume a carrier needs to quote for.
- Confirm access arrangements with the landlord or centre management, including any loading bay booking rules or out-of-hours entry procedures.
- Check your lease for any dilapidations or "make good" requirements so the scope you describe matches what's actually needed.
- Note the firm handover date, if there is one, and whether a dilapidations inspection follows it.
Posting the job and comparing quotes
Once the job is posted with those details, licensed carriers quote against the actual scope rather than a guess. It's worth comparing more than one quote and checking what each one actually includes - our how to compare house clearance quotes guide covers what to look for beyond the headline figure, and the same principles apply to a commercial job. Our guide on how to choose a licensed clearance company is also worth reading before you accept, since a commercial job can involve waste transfer documentation that a household job doesn't.
On the day
The carrier confirms the access window and any centre-management requirements directly with you ahead of the visit. For most jobs, the crew works through the unit systematically - stock first, then fixtures - loading items for disposal, reclamation or recycling as agreed in advance. A straightforward, shopfront-access unit is generally quicker to clear than one relying on a shared service yard or a goods lift with limited booking slots, simply because of the extra coordination involved.
How premises size and fixtures change the job
Not every commercial clearance is the same shape.
A single small shop unit with one shopfront, one stockroom and one set of fixtures is usually a contained job. A larger unit, or one split across a ground floor and a basement or first-floor stockroom, adds real time simply through the extra floors and access points involved - narrow stairs or a hatch-style basement can add more to a quote than the headline volume suggests. Multi-unit jobs, such as a small chain closing several branches at once, multiply the practical questions rather than just the volume: whether the units are close enough for one carrier and one van route, whether each has its own landlord and make-good obligations, and whether fixtures are consistent across units or picked up differently over time.
Fixtures themselves are a bigger driver of cost than many people expect. Freestanding shelving and rails are straightforward to remove, but fitted counters, built-in reception desks and gondola runs bolted to the floor often need dismantling before they can leave the unit, which adds crew time beyond simple loading. Where a job moves beyond fixtures into a full strip-out - flooring, ceiling tiles, partitioning, security shutters - it becomes a larger job than a standard clearance, and describing that scope clearly, ideally with photos, is what gets an accurate quote rather than a generic one. If your job is actually a standard corporate office rather than a shop or trading unit, our office clearance cost guide covers that scenario specifically, including IT equipment and goods-lift access.
Timing around lease end-dates
Usually firmer than a residential moving date, and it shapes both scope and scheduling.
A commercial or retail lease typically has a fixed handover date written into the tenancy agreement, and that date generally can't move the way a residential completion date sometimes can. A lease-end clearance can also come with a dilapidations inspection to follow, where the unit is checked against the condition set out in the lease - or a schedule of condition recorded at the start of the tenancy - before the tenancy is formally closed out. Because that deadline usually can't shift, it's worth posting the job with as much lead time as possible rather than leaving it to the final few days before keys are due back.
Out-of-hours and weekend access needs tend to cluster around these same deadlines - a unit inside a managed shopping centre or retail parade often can only be accessed via a service corridor or goods lift with its own booking windows, on top of needing the work done outside trading hours in the first place. Mentioning both the deadline and the access window together in your job post, rather than separately, helps a carrier judge whether they can realistically take the job in the time available.
For businesses managing clearance across more than one London site - a chain closing several units at once, for example - it's worth checking the coverage map for which boroughs currently have carriers active before assuming availability across every location.
Worked examples: reading the indicative ranges for a shop or unit
Illustrative arithmetic built from published ranges, not examples of real customer jobs.
The figures below show how the indicative ranges on our prices page can be combined to sense-check a quote. They are illustrative arithmetic only: they are not customer jobs, not a price list and not an offer. Every figure is excluding VAT, and your real price is whatever a licensed carrier quotes once they know your premises.
Example A: leftover shopfittings from a small retail unit
Suppose the shelving, a counter and some display units fill roughly half a van. The half-van range is £275 – £345. If the unit is upstairs with no lift and two flights of stairs, carriers typically add £30 – £60 per flight, which is £60 – £120 for two. The combined sense-check range is therefore about £335 – £465 before any VAT or parking costs.
Example B: a stockroom with a commercial display fridge
A quarter-van of boxed leftovers is £145 – £195, and a commercial display fridge is listed at £140 – £220 because it needs specialist degassing. Add them together and the sense-check range is £285 – £415. If a large commercial screen is also on the list (over 40 inches, £30 – £50), the total moves to £315 – £465.
Example C: a full van of mixed office-style furniture
A full van load is £575 – £695. If the load includes three padded office chairs at £15 – £25 each (£45 – £75 for the three), the sense-check range is £620 – £770. Where the carrier prices the chairs as part of the volume instead, the surcharge may not be added separately, which is exactly why it pays to ask how each quote was built.
If a quote lands far outside the range you calculate this way, that is not automatically a problem – hard access, out-of-hours work or a tight handover deadline can all justify a higher figure – but it is a good reason to ask the carrier what is driving it.
Price table: commercial items and access extras
Indicative London ranges excluding VAT, taken from the houseclearance.co prices page.
| Item | Indicative London range (excl. VAT) |
|---|---|
| Commercial display fridge | £140 – £220 |
| Large TV or commercial screen (over 40") | £30 – £50 |
| Flat screen TV or monitor (under 40") | £15 – £25 |
| Office desk chair (padded) | £15 – £25 |
| Fluorescent lighting tube (per tube) | £4 – £8 |
| One flight of stairs, no lift (extra) | £30 – £60 |
| Council parking suspension (per day, borough dependent) | £35 – £90 |
Items such as the display fridge and fluorescent tubes are regulated waste, so they are often priced separately from the general volume of the load. The parking suspension figure only applies when a vehicle must stop on restricted kerbside, and the TfL Congestion Charge (currently £18 a day where it applies) depends on the vehicle, route and time, so confirm it with the carrier rather than assuming it is included.
Commercial clearance checklist: what to settle before you post the job
Most price changes on the day trace back to something that was not written down in advance.
Work through this list before you request quotes. It takes ten minutes and gives carriers what they need to price the job in one go.
- Define the scope in writing. Which rooms, floors, storerooms and outside areas are included, and what stays (landlord fixtures, items you are keeping).
- List the regulated items. Fridges, freezers, display chillers, screens, lighting tubes and any padded chairs or sofas, because they attract separate disposal costs.
- Check for stock that cannot go in a general load. Perishables, chemicals, batteries and anything pressurised should be flagged, not hidden in boxes.
- Photograph the space. A wide shot of each room, the stockroom, the loading route and the door or shutter width.
- Confirm access. Shopfront or rear yard, lift size, stairs, shared loading bay rules and who holds the keys or fobs.
- Agree the time window. In-hours, evening or weekend, and the date by which the unit must be empty.
- Clear confidential material. Paperwork, hard drives, customer records and till rolls should be removed or securely dealt with by you before the crew arrives.
- Tell the landlord or centre management. Many managed buildings and shopping centres want advance notice of crews and vehicles.
London access, loading and parking for commercial premises
The kerb outside the unit often matters as much as the stock inside it.
Commercial clearances in London tend to run into access questions that a house clearance does not. A high street shop may have no off-street loading, a unit in a shopping centre may have a booking system for the service yard, and a first-floor office may share a single lift with other tenants. Tell carriers which of these applies and they can plan vehicle size, crew numbers and timing around it.
If a vehicle has to wait on a red route, a controlled parking zone or a single or double yellow line, a loading or parking suspension may be needed. The indicative range on our prices page is £35 – £90 per day depending on the borough, and the council or the managing agent decides what is allowed. In pedestrianised areas, delivery time windows can be tight, so ask the carrier whether they can work inside the permitted hours. Our coverage map shows which boroughs are served, and the how it works page explains how carriers receive your job details.
Where goods lifts or service corridors are involved, say whether the lift needs to be booked and whether it has weight or dimension limits. A crew that arrives to find the lift unavailable may have to carry everything down stairs, which is the situation that the per-flight extra in the price table above is meant to cover.
Questions to ask before you accept a commercial clearance quote
Quotes that look similar on price can include very different things.
When several licensed carriers reply, compare them like for like. Our guide on how to compare clearance quotes covers the general approach; these questions are the commercial-specific ones.
- Is the price fixed for the scope I described, and what would cause it to change on the day?
- Does the quote state whether VAT is included? Carriers are independent businesses and some are not VAT-registered.
- Are fridges, screens, lighting and padded furniture included, or listed as separate lines?
- Is the crew able to work out of hours, and is any evening or weekend premium shown clearly?
- Who handles parking, permits and any loading-bay booking?
- Can the carrier confirm their upper-tier waste carrier registration, and can you check the carrier licence yourself?
- Will a waste transfer note be issued after the job, and how long will it take to reach me? See our guide to waste transfer notes.
- Can the carrier sort items for reuse, donation or recycling, and will any of that be reflected in the price?
The legal background: commercial waste duty of care
General UK regulation, not a houseclearance.co-specific claim.
Anyone who produces, carries or disposes of waste in England and Wales - including a business clearing a shop or commercial unit - has a legal duty of care to make sure that waste is handled responsibly and passed only to a carrier authorised to take it. Commercial waste also has its own segregation expectations - keeping streams such as general waste, recyclables and WEEE-regulated electricals separate rather than mixed - which can matter more for a trading unit than a household job. Our own waste carrier licence page covers what that authorisation looks like, and you can run a waste carrier licence check on anyone quoting before you accept. Our waste transfer notes guide explains the documentation that can matter for a commercial job in a way it doesn't always for a household one - it's worth confirming directly with the carrier whose quote you accept whether transfer notes will be provided. For the official government position, see:
How the process works, start to finish
From job request to a carrier turning up - see the full how it works breakdown for more detail on each stage.
Describe the job
Unit details, rough fixture and stock volume, and a photo if that helps, then post the job for licensed carriers to quote.
Add access and timing
Postcode, preferred access window and any centre-management or loading bay notes, so the quote reflects the real job.
Get a carrier quote
Our team matches your job with a suitable licensed carrier, who contacts you directly with a price and time slot.
You're not charged for getting an estimate or posting a job - nothing is owed until you've actively accepted a specific quote from a specific carrier. Start the process on the job request form, and see real examples of how other jobs were scoped in our case studies.
Frequently asked questions
The questions that come up most often before booking a commercial or retail clearance.
How much does commercial or retail clearance cost in London?
There's no single published price list - cost depends on how much shopfit and fixtures need removing, how much stock or inventory is left, whether access has to be out of hours or through a shared loading bay, and how firm the lease-end deadline is. Commercial and retail clearance is usually priced by van-load volume rather than floor size - indicative London ranges run from around £65 for a single item up to £695+ for a full van load, based on the same ranges published on /prices/ (see the table on this page for the full breakdown). The actual price is whatever a licensed carrier quotes once you post the job with those details.
Is commercial clearance more expensive than a skip for a shop unit?
Not automatically - a skip only covers the container and disposal, while a labour-included commercial clearance also covers a crew physically dismantling fixtures, loading stock and handling segregated commercial waste streams. Which works out better depends on how much manual handling, sorting and waste documentation you're prepared to take on yourself versus pay a carrier to manage.
Does unsold stock change the price of a retail clearance?
Yes - a unit with empty shelving is a different job to one where the shelving is still full of stock that needs sorting, bagging or boxing before it can be lifted. Describing roughly how much stock is left, and whether it's already boxed or still needs sorting, helps a carrier quote accurately rather than guessing at the volume.
Can commercial clearance work happen outside trading hours?
Yes - evening, early-morning, overnight and weekend slots are common for shop and commercial clearances specifically to avoid disrupting trading, other tenants, or a shared loading bay during business hours. Mention your preferred access window in the job post so carriers who can work those hours are the ones quoting.
How does a lease end-date affect the cost of a commercial clearance?
A fixed lease handover date, sometimes followed by a dilapidations inspection, generally can't move the way a flexible moving date can, which narrows the pool of carriers able to take the job at short notice. Posting the job with as much lead time as possible before the deadline gives more carriers the chance to quote and schedule around it.
What's not included in a standard commercial clearance quote?
Structural work, anything wired into the building's electrics or fixed to the structure itself, and formal dilapidations or lease compliance advice are generally outside the scope of a standard clearance carrier - confirm anything unusual, including waste transfer documentation, directly with the carrier whose quote you accept.
What is the average cost of house clearance in London?
In London, indicative house clearance costs range from about £150 for a studio/1-bedroom property up to £1,400+ for a 3-bedroom house, with the exact price set by the licensed carrier who quotes your specific job.
How much should I pay for garden clearance?
Garden clearance costs generally fall within similar ranges to general clearance work, varying with the volume of green waste, whether there's vehicle access, and whether cutting or dismantling is needed before removal - the exact price comes from the carrier who quotes the job.
How much do charities charge for house clearance?
Charities that collect furniture for reuse, such as the British Heart Foundation, typically collect for free if the items are in good, resaleable condition. They won't usually take on a full house clearance that includes rubbish, damaged items or items that can't be resold.
Can a commercial clearance be done out of hours?
Often yes. Many carriers will work in the evening, early morning or at weekends so that a shop or office is not disrupted during trading hours. Say so when you post the job, because out-of-hours work can affect the price and the quotes you receive will show whether it does.
What paperwork should I ask for after a commercial clearance?
Ask for a waste transfer note that describes the waste and names the carrier, and keep it with your business records. Our guide to waste transfer notes explains what the document should show, and you can check the carrier's registration before you accept a quote.
Ready to see your price?
Post your commercial or retail clearance for licensed carriers to quote on.
