End of Term Student Removals Cardiff

At Cardiff University the spring exam period ends on 18 June 2027, the 39 week halls contract ends three days later on 21 June, and the 40 week contract on 30 June. The university is clear that you have to move out of your room at the end of your contract. Add the student houses in Cathays and Roath whose tenancies turn over in the same weeks, and every van, lift and loading space in student Cardiff is wanted at once.

The fix is booking the move for a specific day rather than whenever exams finish. If you are in halls, book it for before the contract end date. If you are in a house, book it around the move-out inspection. Anyone storing things over the summer rather than taking them home can use our student storage moves page, which covers the gap between contracts.

Since 15 June 2026 Cardiff Council has worked with landlords, the universities and the students' unions to run its Students on the Move campaign in Cathays and Plasnewydd. It engaged with 5,029 students through outreach events, door knocking and pop-up recycling sites, and collected 17,493kg of unwanted items, 12,592kg in Cathays and 4,901kg in Roath. That is up from 6,422kg in 2024 and 7,131kg in 2025.

The other side of the campaign is enforcement. Council teams removed 11.68 tonnes of residual waste and 3.78 tonnes of bulky waste, and more than 250 properties are receiving Community Protection Warnings over how waste was presented. The council published the results in its Students on the Move release.

Most of what gets left behind in June is still usable. In 2026 the council's Big Takeaway drop-off ran every day from 15 June to 5 July, 10am to 3pm with no booking, at Miskin Street where it meets Lowther Road and at the Mackintosh Sports Club car park on Keppoch Street. It took small electricals, clothes, books, crockery, clean pots and pans, batteries, light bulbs and non-perishable food, but not fridges, freezers, large appliances, furniture or mixed bags of rubbish.

Cardiff University halls have British Heart Foundation donation points inside the residences, listed on the poster in each kitchen. They take clothes, shoes, crockery, small electricals, books and toys, but not food, duvets, pillows or knives. The Cardiff DIGS move-out guidance for students also says rubbish must fit into your bin, because extra bags left outside a house can lead to disciplinary action.

The things that cause the problems are the big ones: the second-hand sofa, the desk bought on Marketplace in October, the mattress nobody wants. None of them go in a drop-off and none of them can be left outside. If you are moving out anyway, the simplest answer is having the same van take them away on the same visit.

We run a separate rubbish removal service for exactly that, so the room can be cleared of what is going to the new place and what is going to the tip in one trip. Tell us what is staying behind when you ask for a quote and we will price both parts together.

Student houses in Cardiff are let on occupation contracts under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. Your landlord has up to 30 days to comply with the deposit protection scheme's requirements and give you the information about where the deposit is protected and how it is repaid. At the end of the contract you get the deposit back if you have met the terms of the contract, not damaged the property and paid your rent and bills.

The Welsh Government says it usually takes 5 to 10 days for a landlord to return a deposit. If there is a dispute, you contact the deposit protection scheme the landlord used, and Citizens Advice and Shelter Cymru give free advice. The detail is in the Welsh Government's deposit guidance for tenants.

A room's worth of boxes and a few bits usually lands between £85 to £150, and a full room of furniture and boxes, one van and one trip, between £130 to £220. Open-ended jobs can be charged hourly instead, at £45 an hour for one person and a van or £65 for two, with a 2 hour minimum.

A whole house moving out on one day is usually cheapest done as one job, with several rooms on one run. Clearing unwanted furniture at the same visit adds to the job but saves a second trip. The full breakdown is on our prices page.