How to Make a Home Inventory for Moving

By David Green

Updated: Aug 12, 2024

4 min read

Fact-checked by Martin Panayotov

Reviewer & editor

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Making an inventory of valuable items is essential when moving home

Table of Contents

Why Create a Home Inventory?

The major reason for an inventory is to ensure that nothing has been mislaid during your move

Here are the 3 major reasons why you should make a home inventory list when moving to a new home:

An inventory serves as a packing list

Your comprehensive home inventory worksheet can serve as an excellent packing list, especially if you have chosen to use the numbered labelling method instead of the color-coded one.

Simply mark down the corresponding item numbers on both the inventory sheet and the packed box, and one single glance over your spreadsheet will inform you which moving box you need to open to find a specific inventoried item.

An inventory helps you quickly identify any mislaid items

A precise home inventory checklist for moving will enable you to track your items and know immediately if a specific item has gone missing between the time of its loading into the moving vehicle and its delivery to your new home.

Your personal inventory list will inform you immediately if a possession is not where it’s supposed to be so that you can take the right steps under the circumstances.

You may also like to read: Home Moving Insurance – Do I Need It? Being underinsured is one of the most common home moving mistakes. In this guide, we explain all you need to know about insuring your home move so that you do not make the same mistake.

An inventory is essential for overseas home moves

Customs will require a detailed inventory of your items when they are being imported to another country.

When moving overseas it is recommended that you have professional packers to pack for you. Not only will they pack efficiently and ensure the maximum protection for your items but they will know exactly what information customs will require about what is in each box.

This could considerably quicken the customs clearance process which could save you a lot of time, and inconvenience, and even save the costs of any extra incurred charges.

You may also like to read: Are International Home Moves the Ultimate Home Moving Challenge? In this guide, we share tips to make your move abroad easier, cheaper, and less stressful.

If you have used the services of a professional removal company, you can also file a claim against your relocation partner if something was lost or damaged.

On the other hand, skip the step of taking a home inventory altogether and it could be months before you notice that a specific item is missing, and by the time you do realise it, it could be too late to do anything about it.

How to Make a Home Inventory for Moving

A spreadsheet is the easiest way to document your valuable items

Just follow the steps below and you’ll have a great household moving inventory list in no time.

Step 1: Allow plenty of time for the home inventory process. Begin diligently to document absolutely everything you own as soon as your move is confirmed, so that you don’t have to be forced to cut corners, and thus make inventorying mistakes and deal with confusion later on.

Step 2: Select what medium you’ll build your inventory sheet on. For many home movers a pen and a sheet of paper is still the easiest way to do a detailed home inventory. While the old-school pen-and-paper approach has its charm, it’s even quicker and much more versatile to create an inventory list electronically – just use the spreadsheet program Excel or another specialised home inventory software as a great modern way to stay organised during your move. By using a computer, you can easily insert digital photos and even record videos of your house belongings, especially of the more valuable and fragile ones.

You may also like to read: How To Pack Antiques and Collectibles. Inventories are particularly useful if you are moving antiques or collectibles. In this guide, we show you how to pack and move all different types of antiques and collectible items.

Step 3: Make sure your home inventory template has at least 6 essential columns:

Item name or description: this one is pretty obvious. You don’t really have to go through each and every small item – you can easily use the collective descriptive approach. For example, it’s really unnecessary to inventory all the individual books you own – instead, you can view your entire book collection as one unit and only list separately the more expensive and valuable ones. However, don’t forget to include individual jewelery pieces, pricey artwork, and other valuables.
Current condition: the current condition of your household belongings is an important requirement for your moving inventory list. Note down diligently any pre-existing damage and try to be as objective as possible.
Quantity: the quantity column can help you realise you have too many of a certain item, and therefore cause you to take appropriate actions to fix this anomaly.
Destination room/location: it’s important to know the exact room or location where each item will be placed in your new home. If you wish to introduce any location changes, this is the opportune moment to do so.
Estimated value: the item values you place in that column of your home inventory sheet will help you file an insurance claim with your removal company or insurance company in case of damaged or even missing items upon arrival.
Notes: of course, it’s always a good idea to leave some space for taking personal notes or writing additional info about an item that falls outside the constraints of the previous 5 columns.

You may also like to read: How to Label Moving Boxes – An Easy and Foolproof Way. In this guide, we share a really good way to label your moving boxes that will make finding your items and unpacking so much easier.

Step 4: Start with the furniture – every piece of furniture should be duly noted down in your detailed house moving inventory list. Also, mark appropriately the pieces that will need to be disassembled before they can be successfully transported to and loaded into the moving van.

Photographic evidence of the condition of your precious items can be invaluable if you need to make an insurance claim

Step 5: It’s a great idea to add visual aids to your house inventory checklist. Take digital photos of some of the more valuable or fragile items you own as proof of their current condition.

Step 6: You can even go a step further and create a video home inventory by going from room to room with a video camera and taking voice memos.

Step 7: If you intend to compile the house inventory sheet by hand, make sure the detailed list is neatly written and perfectly legible.

Step 8: The home inventory process takes a great amount of time, so it’s never a bad idea to have some helpers by your side. If possible, get your entire family involved to speed things up. For example, if you have a child or children and they are old enough, it’s only natural that they should be responsible for inventorying their own room(s).

Step 9: When you’re done with your personal home inventory moving list, make several copies of it and store them in different places just in case. After all, it’s fairly easy to lose your inventory sheet during the chaos of a house move. If you have just prepared a digital moving inventory, then transfer a digital copy of it to a memory stick or send it to your own e-mail address as a backup option.

Step 10: Don’t forget that the most important documents you own must always travel with you to your new home – that is, don’t make the rookie mistake of entrusting them to your removal company. Simply add your ready inventory sheet/packing list to that folder of essential papers.

You may also like to read: How to Make a Home Moving Binder. In this guide, we show you how to create a folder of all the important household documents that you need when moving home.

Don’t forget to visit our home moving blog which is packed with guides to make every aspect of your home move easier, cheaper, and safer.