How to Move an Office: Timeline, Costs & Hybrid Workspace Setup (2026)

If you're planning an office relocation, a couple of things will catch you out if you're not watching for them. When to order internet. What the current lease says about restoring the space when you leave.

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This guide on how to move an office covers those decisions and the full timeline, from 12 months out to day one. Jump to wherever you are.

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One thing first: this guide focuses on the hybrid workspace setup, including the lease, the new office layout, and the tech equipment. The physical logistics (mail forwarding, signage, address updates, moving insurance) are better covered by JK Moving and Stack Moves. If you'd rather work from a step-by-step guide with owners and deadlines, I have a checklist you can use.

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This is written for the person running point on the move: the head of workplace, office manager, chief of staff, or IT lead who got handed the project and has to coordinate everyone else.

TL;DR: Planning an office move

Where to start, depending on where you are

• Just got handed this project out of the blue? Start with Step 2 and work backward from your move date.
• Still in the process of picking a space? Read up on Step 1 first. The lease decisions you make now will set the stage for everything else.
• Already signed on the dotted line? Skip on to 3-6 months in Step 2 and get internet sorted today.‍
• Trying to estimate the budget? Go to the cost section below and skip the rest.

How much does the office moving process cost?

To be honest, the estimated range is pretty wide, and most online quotes will only give you the mover's price, which doesn’t give you the full picture. Here’s what it looks like for a 200-person commercial move in a 15,000 square foot space:

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• Moving company
  Commercial movers will cost you between $2-$8/sqft, depending on what's included. On the lower end ($1-$2/sqft), you’re basically getting the labor and transport: you’ll have to pack, move during business hours, and sort out the IT separately. On the higher end ($5-$8/sqft), the movers will take care of the whole thing, with packing, after-hours scheduling, IT equipment handling, and all the rest. For a 15,000 square foot office, that adds up to $30,000 to $120,000.

• IT setup
  It will add another $20,000 to $50,000 for most companies in this size range: network cabling, switch configuration, AV in meeting rooms. Major server migration or complex infrastructure will push that higher.

• Fit-out
  These costs can blow the budget. Move-in ready space is effectively free, but if you need light modifications like temporary walls, cabling, or a reception build-out, fit-out will run $30-$75/sqft. A full build-out from warm shell is a different conversation entirely: JLL's 2025 fit-out cost guide puts the US/Canada average at ~$280/sqft for moderate medium-quality space, which would turn your 15,000 sqft into a $4M+ project.

• Decommissioning the old office
  Another cost that often catches people out (often 3 to 5 times the physical move!). That's the one that'll come as a real shock to your CFO after the lease is signed. For a move at the middle of that range (~$75,000), that's a further $225,000 to $375,000 to get the space back to its lease-required condition, including repairing any property damage.

• Workspace software and hardware
  You might be looking at anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to tens of thousands upfront, depending on what you need: desk booking, room displays, sensors, visitor management.

Here's how those ranges stack up for a 200-person move:

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As a rough total without fit-out: $150,000 to $720,000+. With fit-out on a space that needs real work, you're easily past $1M for light modifications and well into the multi-millions for a full build-out. Don’t forget to add 15 to 20% for the things that inevitably go wrong.

Step 1: Figure out how much space you need

Most companies sign a lease based on headcount, but that's usually the wrong number.

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Gallup's 2025 data puts hybrid workers in the office about 2.3 days a week. CBRE has it closer to 2.9. Either way, most hybrid teams are in the office less than half the time, which means 30 to 50% of desks in a traditional office sit empty on any given day. A 200-person company with average daily attendance of 100 doesn't need 200 desks. Plenty sign for that many anyway.

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Before you commit to square footage, pull three numbers from your current office space:

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• Peak occupancy: your busiest Tuesday or Thursday headcount (not a Monday or Friday). That’s your real ceiling.
• Average daily attendance: what a full week looks like.
• Meeting room utilization: which rooms are always full and which ones no one ever books. That tells you what your room-to-desk ratio should be at the new location.

A two-week manual count is fine if you don't have booking data or sensors.

Step 2: Build your timeline

6-12 months out

Read your current lease before you do anything else. Specifically the restoration clause.

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Some leases require you to leave the space in the same state as when you first moved in (bare walls, no partitions, cabling removed). The property owner might also make you do a formal handover before they'll release you from obligations.

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Remember that a $75,000 move can come with a $225,000 to $375,000 restoration bill on top, and that's not something that's going to be included in the moving quote. You only find out about it when you try to leave.

3-6 months out

There are a few things to take care of:

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• Get your internet circuits sorted as soon as you sign the new lease
  DIA provisioning for on-net buildings takes 30 to 90 days; off-net can take 60 to 120 days or more depending on permits, building management approvals, and whether the carrier needs to lay new infrastructure. For IT people, delayed circuits are almost a rite of passage in office moves. The movers will turn up on time, but your ISP won't, if you ordered late. Get the activation date in writing and keep services running at both locations during the overlap.

• Lock in floor plan decisions now
  Desk ratio, team neighborhoods, where reception sits, how visitors move around the place. Hard to go back on these decisions once the fit-out has started.

• Pick your workspace software now too
  You need time to load the floor plan, configure zones, connect your calendar, and do some test runs before you move in. Don't leave it until the last minute, or it will show on the first day.

• Appoint a project manager for the move if you haven't already
  One person who owns the milestones, coordinates vendors, and has the authority to make decisions. Without one, the move is likely to slip up somewhere.

• Add a 15 to 20% contingency to your budget
  Overlap rent, surprise cabling, decommissioning at the old office, and short-term storage. They tend to crop up on almost every move.

1-3 months out

IT gets granular

Every network drop, cable run, and piece of IT equipment needs to be catalogued and labeled by user and destination desk. Get your labelling system set up before anything moves:

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• Back up data well in advance
• Run a Wi-Fi site survey at the new location (glass walls and open floorplates can mess with signal in ways you won't know about until 200 people try to join calls at the same time)
• Confirm IT vendor schedules for move day

Get workspace software ready

Load your detailed floor plan into your booking platform, set up calendar sync, and configure the visitor management process at reception. Brief department heads before briefing employees. They're your communication layer.

Tell employees what they actually need to know

Specifics, not just a general announcement. I've seen teams leave this until the last minute and spend the first week answering the same five questions over and over again. A one-page FAQ two weeks out will handle most of it:

And one more thing to remind people: clear out personal and non-essential items from their desks before the actual move. The moving team won't be able to pack what they can't find.

Final 2 weeks

Run a full tech dry run. Book a desk, schedule a room, do a test visitor check-in. Walk every meeting room and check that the network ports, AV and room display all work. Fix what's broken while you still have time.

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Walk through the building with whoever runs the day-to-day operations and make sure all sensors are up and running, kiosks are easy to find, signage matches what's in the booking system, and parking passes have been arranged for anyone who needs them. Everything confirmed before the first box arrives.

Step 3: Choose your tools

Most move guides list categories without naming anything specific. Let’s make it more practical. Here's what I’ve seen people use:

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• A shared project tracker (Asana, Monday, Notion, or even a Google Sheet)
  The tool itself matters less than everyone using the same one. IT, HR, Facilities, and Finance all have interdependencies during a move, and trying to manage that through email doesn't usually fly. One timeline, one person in charge. Pick whatever your company already uses.

• An IT asset inventory (spreadsheet or your MDM if you have one)
  Before anything moves, every piece of IT equipment and office equipment needs to be accounted for: user name, device type, current desk, destination desk. For most companies in this size range, a spreadsheet does the trick. A consistent labeling system is the whole point. If you're on Jamf or Intune, you can pull most of this automatically. ServiceNow is the enterprise option but overkill here.

• A floor plan tool (whatever your booking platform provides)
  You need the layout on a screen before you can configure desk booking. The property manager or building manager gives you the base file (usually a PDF or DWG). Most booking platforms (elia, Robin, Skedda) have tools to import it and set up zones on top. If you're moving a really big team across multiple floors with lots of department moves, OfficeSpace has dedicated move management, though it's built for larger operations.

• A Wi-Fi site survey (hire someone)
  Ekahau is the pro software if your IT department is doing it in-house. Most companies at this size just outsource the job to an IT firm. Do it before move day, not to discover dead zones when all your staff turn up at the new workplace.

• A dedicated Slack or Teams channel for the move
  One place for updates, separate from regular work channels. Pin the timeline there. Sounds obvious, but having a single place where the whole company checks in is worth the 5 minutes to set up.

Step 4: Design your workspace

For teams that split their time between the office and home, about 0.6 to 0.7 desks per employee is a good starting point.

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That’s roughly what CBRE's 2025 research found: 73% of organizations expect employee-to-desk ratios above 1.5:1 by 2027, which is a nice way of saying fewer than 0.67 desks per person. So if you're a 200-person team that peaks at 100 in the office on a busy day, you need around 120 to 140 desks. Peak headcount is the number to size for.

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Space per person in a hybrid office usually runs 80 to 120 square feet, although it will depend on your mix of desk types and how much room you need for collaboration. If you're working with an interior designer on the fit-out, give them your attendance data before they touch the layout. How people use the space should drive the design.

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There are a few things I think are more important than they get credit for:

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• Neighborhoods
  Grouping people in zones means they can find their colleagues. Teams that work together all the time should be sitting near each other. It’s simple, but most offices just don't do this deliberately and people end up next to strangers.

• Focus areas
  Quiet desks away from the busy parts of the floor. Without them, people have no real reason to come in on a day that's mostly individual work. They'll stay home.

• Casual spaces
  Couches, coffee counters, open areas between neighborhoods. The informal conversations that happen in these spots are part of why people come in at all. In my experience, companies underinvest here and then wonder why hybrid attendance is flat.

• Reception
  How does a visitor check in? Is there a display at the entrance? Who gets notified when someone arrives? If you have compliance requirements around NDAs or visitor logs, this needs to be ready before the first client visit.

Step 5: Prepare for Day 1

Here’s what you’ll need to set up:

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• Desk booking
  Floor plan is in place, zones are set, check-in is enabled. Check-in matters because ghost bookings inflate your utilization numbers and give a false picture of how well the space is working. QR code or app check-in solves that problem. Set it up from the start.

• Room scheduling
  Calendar sync confirmed and tested before the team moves in. Room displays showing live availability. Auto-release for no-shows turned on; otherwise rooms stay blocked after meetings end early and people walk the floor looking for a free one.

• Visitor management
  Kiosk or tablet at reception. Host notifications. Visitor logs. If there are any security requirements, you'll need to build that into the system as well.

• Occupancy sensors
  Booking data shows what was reserved. Sensors show what was actually used. Sensors at each desk mean no wiring is needed, and they start churning out data immediately. In the first 60 to 90 days while everyone is still getting used to the new space, that data is going to be gold, telling you exactly what to change.

Step 6: Adjust in the first 60 to 90 days

People expect a new office space to still be settling. In the first few months (roughly two months is about right), changes land with zero pushback. Try the same thing at month six or seven, and people are going to feel like you're messing with them.

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So what's the plan?

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First, watch utilization by zone. That gorgeous floor plan might look perfect, but what if one neighborhood is at 90% capacity while the one next to it barely gets used? Your booking data and sensors will show where you stand, and that's the whole point of having this system live from day one: you can see what's working and fix what isn't while it's still easy.

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After the first month, make time to gather feedback from your team members. Ask them what's not working, what they miss from the old place, and what's better. You'll fix some things. And some things will just sort themselves out as people get used to the new space.

What usually goes wrong

None of these are hard to avoid. They just need someone paying attention at the right moment:

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• Ordering internet too late
  Sixty to 90 days. Order it the day you sign the lease.

• Not reading the decommissioning clause
  This one keeps coming up because it keeps catching people. Read the lease before you set the budget.

• Overlap rent
  When your move date doesn't line up cleanly with the end of your current lease, you pay for both. It sounds obvious until you're two months in and still covering a building you stopped using. Get the dates aligned before you sign anything new.

• Skipping the tech dry run
  Everything looks set up until the first morning when 200 people show up, half the rooms aren't working, and nobody tested the booking system. One afternoon in the final two weeks saves days of post-move firefighting.

• Not having the booking system live before people arrive
  Employees show up, nothing is configured, they sit wherever they want. Those habits form in the first week. A system you introduce a month later meets resistance it wouldn't have met on day one.

• Treating the move as a Facilities project
  The decisions that determine how the move actually goes (the lease clause, internet ordering, workspace software setup) span IT, Legal, HR, and Finance. Without those teams actively involved from 6-12 months out, something gets missed.

One tool worth knowing about

If you've made it to Step 5, you already know what needs to be live on day one: desk booking, room scheduling, visitor management, occupancy sensors. elia does all of that in one platform, with its own hardware (desk sensors, room displays, touchscreen kiosk), so you're not managing separate vendors or integrations for the workspace layer.

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Want to see how it handles the workspace setup? Book a demo or take a self-guided tour.