How much can a 3.5-tonne van really carry?

A 3.5-tonne van may weigh 3,500 kg in total on the road, and that total counts the van itself, its driver, its fuel and everything the driver carries. The payload of a long curtain-sided removal van, the weight left for your belongings, is about 850 to 950 kg once those are on board, which is less than the size of the load space suggests. Finding the van for each move is part of my job in our logistics team, and this is the sum I do before anything is loaded. You do not need to become an expert in vans to use it. You need one figure and one piece of paper, and both are further down.

Start at 3,500 kg, the legal maximum for the whole vehicle, and take off everything that is already on board before your first box.

• The van with its body, empty: about 2,300 kg for a long curtain-sided van.
• The driver: 75 to 95 kg.
• The driver's own things for a week on the road, bedding, food, water, clothes and tools: 30 to 60 kg.
• A full tank of diesel: 65 to 90 kg.
• The sleeping pod above the cab: about 50 kg.
• Straps, blankets and a sack truck: 30 to 50 kg.
• What is left for your belongings: about 850 to 950 kg.

Every van is different, and a light one does better than the one above. But a weight allowance that starts from the empty van and forgets the person driving it is a brochure figure. In that sum the gap between the brochure and the road is about 300 kg, which is four washing machines.

A customer moving from London to Switzerland picked his van from a photo we had sent him. I wrote back that the photo only shows size, that his weight limit was the same whichever van arrived, and that the larger the van, the lower its weight capacity tends to be in practice. A longer body is a heavier body, so the van with the most room often has the least weight to give.

Household belongings packed for a move weigh roughly 100 kg for every cubic metre. Fill a large van to the roof at that rate and it carries about twice what it is allowed to. That is why we ask for the weight of your inventory and not only its volume. Our guide on why weight decides what fits explains how the limit is set for your route.

Vans this size are weighed at borders and on motorways across Europe. The fine is usually small: in Germany the standard fine for a van of this class tops out at €235. The part that matters to you comes after the fine. The van does not move until the extra weight is off it.

In Britain an overloaded van is given an immediate prohibition and can be sent somewhere nearby to have load taken off. In France a van more than 5% over its limit can be held where it stands. And in our experience vans are checked as they enter Switzerland, which is what I told that customer next: an overweight van is fined, and it is not released until the excess has been moved onto another van.

The fine is the driver's and the operator's. The consequences are yours. It is your belongings that come off at a roadside, wait for a second van and are handled twice, and it is your delivery day that moves. Before you book with anyone, find the line in the contract that says who pays for that second van.

You will not be standing at the weighbridge, so ask before you book. A mover who knows the answers gives them quickly.

• What does the van weigh empty, and may I see its registration document or a weighbridge ticket?
• Does that weight include the driver, the driver's own kit and a full tank?
• What is my weight allowance, and how was it worked out?
• Who checks the weight of my inventory before loading day?
• If the van is stopped and found overweight, who pays for the second vehicle, and where do my things wait?
• Does the operator hold an international operator's licence, and does the van carry a tachograph? Both are required for vans this size carrying goods for hire across EU borders.

Your route's weight limit is published on its own page and confirmed on your quote. We check your inventory against it before a van is assigned, and a list that is over the limit is not accepted. You hear that from us before loading day, with two ways forward: take items off the list, or move up a size at the price already locked when you booked. What happens when a load turns out heavier than its list is told once, in full, on our packing guide.

Once your van is confirmed, we email you the driver's name and the van's registration. We record what each van weighs as it runs, with its driver in it, and if you ask us the six questions above, you get six answers.

None of this is clever. It is a sum, done before loading day and not at a weighbridge.