End of contract moving in Jeddah
The end of a tenancy is not one job, it is three in a single day: empty the flat, hand it back in a condition the landlord accepts without taking anything out of your deposit, and get the new address ready to receive your furniture. For most residents in Jeddah, and particularly for expatriates leaving a compound or a company-leased flat, the trouble never happens on the road between the two addresses. It happens at those two ends — deductions for damage caused while moving out, or a gap between the vacate date and the handover of the next property. This page deals with both, with prices in SAR.
Why an end-of-contract move is different
Because a third party inspects the property after you.
On an ordinary move you care that your furniture arrives intact. On an end-of-contract move you care about two things: that your furniture arrives intact, and that the flat you are leaving stays intact as well. The landlord or the agency will inspect it hours or days later, and any scratch on a door frame, mark on a wall or chipped tile comes out of your deposit.
Damage that appears on move-out day is rarely general carelessness. It comes from three specific moments: taking the wardrobe through the bedroom door, bringing the fridge down the stairs, and dragging the sofa across the floor. Each one is prevented by protection that takes about twenty minutes to put in place at the start of the day.
- Foam on door frames before any wide piece is taken through.
- A protective run laid along the route from the rooms to the front door.
- No dragging at all — every piece is lifted, however short the distance.
- Doors lifted off their hinges where they obstruct, and rehung before we leave.
Those twenty minutes are the difference between a deposit returned in full and a few hundred riyals deducted.
Running the day: vacate and hand over on one schedule
Scheduling is half the job on a tenancy-end move.
The common mistake is booking the move on the same day as the landlord inspection with no margin. The landlord then arrives while the flat is still half furnished, or the crew stands idle because the keys to the new place have not been released yet.
Two days before: sort
Decide what moves and what does not. An unsorted move costs more time and more money.
Morning: protect and dismantle
Corridors and door frames covered, then room-by-room dismantling.
Midday: load and travel
One load wherever possible, then straight to the second address.
Afternoon: reassemble
Pieces built in the order the household actually needs them first.
End of day: hand back
Return to the old flat if needed to strip protection and clear any packing debris before the inspection.
We always advise leaving a clear day between the end of the move and the landlord inspection, so that a small delay never becomes a dispute.
If there is a gap between the two contracts
The most common situation, and it has a ready answer.
The old contract ends on a fixed date and the new property is not ready on the same day: finishing work is incomplete, the previous tenant has not left, or the new contract simply starts two weeks later. This is not unusual — it is the normal state of the rental market.
The answer is not scattering your things across friends houses, which means two extra moves, duplicate packing and near-certain damage. The answer is short, organised storage: we move from the flat to the warehouse, the furniture stays wrapped exactly as it was packed, and we deliver and reassemble when the new address is ready.
| Stored volume | Monthly rent (SAR) |
|---|---|
| One to two rooms | 150 – 300 |
| A full flat of furniture | 250 – 450 |
| A villa of furniture | 400 – 800 |
Storage is billed monthly under a written agreement, and warehouse access is by appointment.
Preparation before storage — especially draining and drying appliances — is covered on the preparing for storage page.
What deposits are usually deducted for
A realistic list of what an inspection actually picks up.
A landlord is not looking for perfection. They are looking for visible differences between the condition at handover and the condition at return. The items that recur in deductions are these.
Door frames
By far the most damaged point, caused by taking wardrobes and fridges through.
Walls
Horizontal scuffs at roughly waist height — the signature of carrying long pieces.
Floors
Long scratches from dragging a sofa or table instead of lifting it.
There is one more item that is routinely forgotten: waste. Cartons and wrapping left in the flat or at the building entrance can be charged as a cleaning fee. We take all packing material off site the same day as part of the service, not as an extra.
Prices in SAR
The standard list. What changes is the organisation, not the rate.
There is no special end-of-contract rate. The price is set by volume like any other move. What differs is the coordination: two scheduled slots, protection of the property being handed back, and removal of waste.
| Move size | Estimated price (SAR) | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Pickup / single items | 80 – 250 | One or two pieces inside Jeddah, loading and unloading |
| Studio or single room | 350 – 600 | Dismantling, packing, loading, transport, reassembly |
| Two-bedroom flat | 500 – 900 | Full crew with a closed truck |
| Three-bedroom flat | 800 – 1,400 | Larger crew and extended packing |
| Four to five bedrooms | 1,200 – 1,900 | Sometimes two days depending on floors |
| Small villa | 1,500 – 2,500 | More than one truck and an extended crew |
| Large villa | 2,500 – 4,000 | Scheduled over two days with full packing |
Prices are estimates and are fixed after a free survey. The agreed figure is written down before work starts and does not change afterwards.
If you need storage between contracts it is added as a separate monthly line rather than folded into the moving price, so you can see what you are paying for.
Furniture that is not worth moving
Sorting saves more than any negotiation over the rate.
Every move-out contains pieces that cost more to move than they are worth: a tired table, a mattress past its life, broken chairs in the storeroom. Moving them takes space in the truck and doubles handling — once on loading, once on assembly.
- Mattresses over about eight years old are rarely worth either moving or storing.
- Broken appliances should be replaced or disposed of rather than transported and paid for.
- Cartons stored unopened for years: open one, and you will know what to do with the rest.
For organised disposal of what you are leaving behind, see the old furniture disposal page.
Air conditioners at move-out
The single most common source of dispute with a landlord.
A split unit the tenant installed at their own expense is theirs to take, but removing it leaves holes in the wall and exposed pipework. Some landlords treat that as damage and some do not. The practical rule is to agree it with the landlord in writing before move-out day, not after.
Technically, correct removal means pumping the gas down into the outdoor unit first, then disconnecting the pipework, then lowering the outdoor unit on a rope. A fast removal that simply cuts the pipes loses the gas and means a full recharge at reinstallation.
- Agree who closes the wall penetrations and who pays for it.
- Do not cut the pipework; its original length may suit the new installation.
- Keep the brackets and fixings in one labelled bag per unit with its location noted.
Service detail and pricing on the AC removal and installation page.
Documenting the flat before you empty it
Photographs are your only evidence if there is a dispute.
Most disagreements are not about whether damage exists but about when it happened — was it there before you moved in, or did it appear on move-out day. Without photographs neither side can prove anything, and the settlement is usually paid by the tenant.
So we ask every client to do two free things: photograph the whole flat before the crew arrives on move-out morning, and photograph it again after the last piece leaves and the protection is stripped. Two dated sets settle any later discussion.
- Photograph each room from two opposite corners, with close-ups of any pre-existing scratch or chip.
- Photograph door frames and floors specifically — they attract most of the deductions.
- Photograph the electricity and water meters on handover day and note the readings.
- Keep it all in one album named for the property and the handover date.
Five minutes of photography has saved many of our clients from deductions they never caused.
Cleaning after the move: who does what
A boundary worth agreeing before the day rather than after.
We are a moving company, not a cleaning company, and being clear about that prevents a recurring misunderstanding. What we commit to is removing everything our own work produced: cartons, foam, plastic, tape and any protection we installed. The flat leaves our hands free of any trace of the move.
What is not part of a moving service is the deep clean some landlords require — floors washed, kitchen and bathrooms cleaned, the marks of long occupation removed. That is separate work, and the efficient way to handle it is to book a cleaner for the day after the furniture leaves, because cleaning before the furniture goes is work done twice.
What we remove
All packing material, protection and move-related waste, the same day.
What stays with you
The deep clean of floors, kitchen and bathrooms if your contract requires it.
What to agree
Any minor repairs settled with the landlord, ideally documented in writing beforehand.
The ideal order is simple: vacate in the morning, clean in the afternoon, landlord inspection the next day.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. We run it as two fixed slots on one schedule, a vacate time and a handover time. We recommend leaving a clear day between the end of the move and the landlord inspection.
Through protection put in place first: foam on door frames, a covered route, and no dragging. We do this at the start of the day before anything is moved.
Short-term storage is the practical answer. We move to the warehouse, the furniture stays wrapped, and we deliver and reassemble when the new address is available.
SAR 150 to 300 a month for one or two rooms, SAR 250 to 450 for a full apartment and SAR 400 to 800 for a villa, with transport both ways quoted as a visible line.
Yes. Waste removal is part of the service rather than an extra, because material left behind can be charged to you as a cleaning fee.
Yes, pumping the gas down first, then disconnecting the pipework and lowering the outdoor unit on a rope. Agree the wall penetrations with your landlord in writing beforehand.
Yes, we run a separate disposal service, and doing it on the same day as the move-out saves you an entire additional trip.
No. It is priced by volume like any other move. The difference is in scheduling, protection and waste removal, not in the rate card.
At least a week, and two weeks if your date falls at the end of the month, which is the busiest period in the Jeddah moving market.
Yes, the survey is free and carries no obligation. A written quote follows, with moving and any storage shown as separate lines.
Book a free survey today
Send photos on WhatsApp and get a written, itemised quote before you commit — the survey costs nothing.