Furnished vs unfurnished is not really a rent question, even though almost every London renter treats it as one. A furnished flat typically costs 8–12% more a month than an identical unfurnished property nearby (Rightmove Rental Trends, Q1 2026) — but that premium is the smallest number in this decision. The deposit is bigger, the check-out inspection is riskier, and furnishing a flat from empty can cost more than a year of the premium you were trying to avoid. Here is the real cost comparison, not just the headline rent.
Furnished vs Unfurnished: Why the Decision Matters More in 2026
London’s rental market increasingly pulls in two different kinds of tenant at once: people relocating for a fixed-length contract who own no furniture in the country, and settled renters who already have a flat’s worth of belongings and simply want a new lease. The Renters’ Rights Act’s move to Assured Periodic Tenancies from 1 May 2026 means the legal shape of the tenancy no longer depends on whether the property is furnished, so the choice has become a purely financial and practical one rather than a decision tied to a different type of contract.
That makes the numbers worth running properly. Only around 1% of protected tenancy deposits end up in a formal dispute, and cleaning is the single biggest cause of the ones that do — 45% of Insured scheme disputes and 50% of Custodial scheme disputes in England and Wales involve cleaning issues, not damage (The Dispute Service, Statistical Briefing 2024/25). Furnished lets carry more of that risk by definition: more items on the inventory means more items that can be argued over at the door.
The Real Rent Gap — and Who Actually Pays It
The 8–12% furnished premium sounds modest until you multiply it by how long you’re actually staying. On a £2,000-a-month unfurnished flat against London’s average rent figures, a 10% furnished premium is £200 a month — trivial for someone in London for four months on a fixed contract, genuinely expensive for someone who intends to stay three years. Over 36 months that gap is £7,200, close to what it would cost to furnish the flat outright and own the furniture at the end of it.
This is the calculation most furnished-vs-unfurnished content skips entirely. It treats the premium as a fixed cost of convenience rather than something that only makes financial sense below a certain length of stay. The renters paying it happily tend to be corporate relocators, visa-route professionals on fixed secondments, and international arrivals without a UK address history to furnish against — for everyone else, the break-even point depends on what furnishing the place yourself would actually cost.
What It Actually Costs to Furnish a Flat From Empty
“Unfurnished” in a London tenancy usually means genuinely empty — no bed, no sofa, and frequently no fridge, washing machine or oven either, which catches out renters used to unfurnished lets elsewhere in the UK that at least include white goods. Confirm exactly what “unfurnished” covers on the specific listing before you assume anything; agents and landlords use the word inconsistently.
Furnishing a one-bedroom flat from nothing typically runs £3,000–£4,000 at the budget end using flat-pack basics, £5,000–£7,000 for a mid-range mix of new furniture, and £10,000-plus for anything bespoke (UK furnishing cost guides, 2026). Mixing secondhand with a few new essentials — a new mattress and sofa, everything else from Facebook Marketplace, a British Heart Foundation furniture store or a house clearance — is how most renters bring that mid-range figure down substantially. None of that spend comes back to you the way rent does; it’s either sold, given away, or hauled to your next flat when you move on.
The Deposit and Dispute Risk Furnished Lets Carry
A deposit is capped at five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is under £50,000 — but five weeks of a higher, furnished rent is a bigger absolute number than five weeks of the unfurnished equivalent, and it’s money tied up for the length of the tenancy either way. On the £2,000 versus £2,200 example above, that’s roughly £2,308 against £2,538, a difference most renters never actually calculate at the point of signing.
The bigger risk sits at check-out. Furnished lets almost always come with a longer inventory, and inventories written five or ten years ago routinely value tired flat-pack furniture at close to its original replacement cost rather than its real, depreciated worth — landlords and agents rarely correct this downward unprompted. If you’re taking a furnished tenancy, photograph every listed item’s actual condition against the inventory on day one, not just the walls and carpets, and query any valuation that looks like it was never updated after the first tenant left. That single habit resolves more deposit disputes before they start than anything raised after you’ve already moved out; our guide to getting your full deposit back covers the rest of the process.
Furnished vs Unfurnished: The Real Comparison
| Factor | Furnished | Unfurnished |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly rent | 8–12% higher (Rightmove, Q1 2026) | Baseline rent |
| Deposit (5-week cap) | Higher absolute figure, tied to the higher rent | Lower absolute figure |
| Upfront cost before move-in | None — the furniture is the landlord’s | £3,000–£10,000+ to furnish from empty |
| Check-out dispute risk | Higher — longer inventory, more items to contest | Lower — usually fixtures and decoration only |
| Best suited to | Stays under roughly 18–24 months; relocators; no existing furniture | Settled renters staying 2+ years who already own furniture |
The Landlord Side: Furnished Isn’t Automatically the Smarter Choice
The 8–12% rent premium looks like free money until the maintenance bill arrives. Furnished lets mean replacing worn sofas, dead washing machines and scratched dining tables between tenancies, and HMRC’s Replacement of Domestic Items Relief only covers a genuine like-for-like swap — upgrade the flat-pack sofa to something better and the difference in cost isn’t deductible, only the equivalent replacement value is (HMRC guidance; our London landlord tax guide covers the full mechanics). Landlords who furnish cheaply purely to claim the premium often find the furniture needs replacing well inside the years the rent increase was supposed to fund. Furnished lets also typically need dedicated landlord contents insurance on top of buildings cover, which an unfurnished let with nothing but fixtures and fittings doesn’t require — one more ongoing cost quietly eating into that premium.
Unfurnished isn’t automatically the easier option either. Void periods can run longer, since the pool of tenants who own furniture and specifically want to move it into your flat is smaller than the pool who’ll take whatever’s offered. For most landlords letting a period conversion outside London’s relocation-heavy pockets, the calculation is straightforward: furnish it if the realistic target tenant is genuinely short-stay, leave it empty if you’re marketing to renters planning to settle, and don’t furnish cheaply just to chase the premium — the maintenance cost usually erases it within two or three tenancies.
Where You Actually Get the Choice
Not every landlord offers a choice at all, and knowing who does saves you negotiating for something that was never on the table. Build-to-rent operators built around flexibility tend to offer both: at Get Living’s East Village scheme in Stratford, on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Newham, tenants can choose between furnished, part-furnished and fully unfurnished homes within the same building — a level of choice still unusual outside large purpose-built schemes. If flexibility matters more to you than choosing a furnishing status at all, co-living compared with a traditional flatshare covers a model where furnished isn’t even a decision — every unit already is.
Smaller private landlords, who still let the majority of London’s stock, usually decide one way and don’t negotiate it. Victorian and Edwardian conversions in areas like Walthamstow and Leyton, aimed at renters staying several years, default unfurnished more often than not. Studios and one-beds clustered around Zone 1–2 transport hubs, aimed squarely at relocators and students, default furnished, because an empty flat is a harder let to a tenant who’s only in the country for a year. If a private landlord’s listing doesn’t state furnishing status clearly, ask before you view — it changes the maths enough that it shouldn’t be an afterthought on the day.
Matching the Choice to Your Actual Situation
If you’re relocating to London for an 18-month secondment and own no furniture in the country, the furnished premium isn’t really a cost — it’s cheaper than the alternative. Paying £200 extra a month for 18 months is £3,600, against £5,000-plus to furnish a flat you’ll be selling or dumping in a year and a half. Take the furnished option and don’t feel you’re being charged for convenience you don’t need; you’re avoiding a bigger loss.
If you’re a settled renter with a three-year outlook and a van’s worth of furniture from your last flat, the unfurnished premium works the other way. Paying to store or dispose of furniture you already own, then paying a monthly premium on top for furniture you didn’t choose and don’t particularly like, is the worst version of this decision — and it’s the one landlords are quietly happy to let you make by default, because furnished stock rents faster and holds a higher headline figure. Push for unfurnished, or ask whether the landlord will strip the furniture out and adjust the rent; more will agree to this than ever advertise it.
Before You Choose: What to Actually Check
- Work out your realistic length of stay first — everything else in this decision follows from that one number.
- Ask exactly what “unfurnished” includes on the specific listing; white goods are not a given in London the way they often are elsewhere in the UK.
- Price furnishing the flat yourself against the total furnished premium over your expected stay, not just the monthly figure.
- Photograph every furnished item against the inventory on day one, and challenge any valuation that looks untouched since the first tenant moved in.
- If you own furniture and want an unfurnished deal on a listing marketed as furnished, ask directly — some landlords will strip it out and drop the rent rather than lose a good tenant over furniture they don’t need to provide.
Find Furnished or Unfurnished — FTR London
Comparing a furnished studio against an empty one on the same street? Filter FTR London listings by furnishing status and run the numbers above against the specific premium you’re being asked to pay, before you commit either way.
Landlords: if your property could reasonably let either way, say so in the listing. Renters increasingly search and negotiate on furnishing status directly — list your property on FTR London and specify what’s actually included, not just “furnished” as a one-word tag.
