Put a flat on the market in Bratislava and the estate agent will walk through it once and hand you a list: the family photos come off the walls, the spare armchair goes, the bikes leave the balcony, and all of it before the photographer comes. That is home staging: preparing a flat for sale or for letting so that it looks spacious and neutral in the listing photos and at every viewing, often for weeks on end. Meanwhile you usually still live there, nobody can tell you whether it will sell in one month or in three, and the things that have to go need somewhere to wait.

To be clear about our part: we do not do home staging ourselves. We have no stager and no stylist, we do not furnish or style flats, and we neither pack nor move anything. What we offer is the storage unit where the things you take out of the flat wait, from 1 month or up to an end date you choose.

Below, in this order: what to take out first, how much space one room's surplus needs, when an indoor unit and when a container, units and prices on 4 October 2026, how long to rent when the sale date is open, and what changes when you let the flat instead of selling it.

What to take out of the flat first

Ask your agent or a home stager how to prepare a flat for sale and they will point at whatever spoils the photos. Decluttering before selling almost always comes down to three groups of things, and it pays to clear them in this order:

• Personal things. Family photos, collections, folders of paperwork, children's toys, the boxes still taped shut since you moved to Slovakia. At a viewing, buyers need to picture their own life in the flat, and a stranger's photos on every wall get in the way. Letters and documents with your name and address should not lie in view while people you do not know walk through your home either.
• Surplus furniture. The armchair that stands in the corner because it fitted nowhere else, the side table, the bulky shelf unit, the extra chairs. A room with fewer pieces looks bigger in the photo and is easier to walk through at a viewing.
• Seasonal things. Off-season clothes and shoes, the skis from your Tatra weekends, bikes, everything on the balcony and in the cellar. Buyers open the wardrobes, step onto the balcony and look into the cellar if one comes with the flat, and a wardrobe packed to the doors tells them the flat is short of storage space.

What you use every day stays: dishes, bedding, this season's clothes, the laptop you work on. The flat should look neutral, not abandoned; you still live in it. Be careful with the word "seasonal" too: if you are selling in autumn, the summer clothes and the bikes go into storage, not the winter coats you will be wearing in a few weeks. And if you need something from the unit sooner than planned, you can fetch it at any hour, because access is 24/7.

Wash clothes before they go into storage, clean the shoes and let everything dry properly. How to pack clothes and shoes for several months is covered in our guide on how to store seasonal clothing and footwear. Houseplants and food stocks stay out of the unit: nothing alive, nothing perishable, nothing flammable or illegal may be stored.

How much space one room's surplus takes

The unit page gives dimensions, not a count of armchairs, so the figure that follows is our own estimate. The surplus of one room during a sale, meaning a few boxes of personal things, an armchair, a side table, a shelf unit, lamps and pictures, fits into a unit of about 2.5 to 3.6 m² with 2.60 m of height. The height does much of the work: the boxes go up in stacks, and the floor stays free for the armchair and the table.

That range includes, for example, the indoor storage units at Tomášikova 50D in Nové Mesto: T8, T13 and T14 have 2.56 m² on a floor of 1.55 × 1.65 m, while T44, T58 and T67 have 3.60 m² on 2.00 × 1.80 m. At Holíčska 7 in Petržalka there is H13 with 3.20 m², narrow and long at 1.23 × 2.60 m. The floor plan decides whether the armchair stands next to the boxes or behind them, so check it on the unit page before you order.

If more than one room's surplus is leaving the flat, go by the size guide on our site:

• 3 to 5 m²: the contents of a whole balcony or cellar, plus dismantled furniture.
• 5 to 7 m²: the furniture of a one-room flat.
• 7 to 12 m²: the contents of a two-room flat.

It works the other way too: if only boxes of photos, papers and books are going, a smaller unit will do. The smallest sizes and what fits into each are compared in our article on a small storage unit in Bratislava.

Indoor unit or container: the things and the door decide

The indoor units at Tomášikova and Holíčska are inside buildings kept at a comfortable temperature in summer and in winter. That is where boxes of personal things, pictures, books, clothes and electronics belong, the kind of things that do not take well to swings of temperature and humidity. And a sale that starts in autumn can easily run into winter.

Containers are ventilated, but neither heated nor air-conditioned, and they have a solid steel ceiling at 2.60 m. They suit furniture that comes by van: at a ground-floor container you reverse right up to the door and unload straight in.

On 4 October 2026, ground-floor containers of 3.60 m² with the car at the door are free at Pionierska in Nové Mesto (P13 and P14) and at Polianky 15 in Dúbravka (D35). The other free containers of that size in Dúbravka are on the first floor, up a flight of stairs: you drive onto the site, but the armchair goes up by hand. The dimensions of every size and the difference between the ground floor and the first floor are in our guide to storage container rental in Bratislava.

Where to put furniture for viewings also depends on the door. Indoor units have doors of 0.80 × 1.95 m, ordinary containers 0.80 × 2.00 m: a side table, chairs and a dismantled shelf unit go through without trouble, but the armchair is worth measuring.

A sofa or a wardrobe that does not come apart and will not pass 0.80 m even on its side needs a double door of 2.25 × 2.30 m. Among the drive-up containers at Pionierska, that means P32, P36 and P38 with 14.40 m²; in Nitra, N2, N5, N9 and N10 of the same size and the smaller N41 with 7.20 m². All of them are on the ground floor, with the car right at the door.

We have no van and no movers. If you have neither, tick "Moving assistance (paid service)" when you order: our partner gets in touch with you and you pay them directly. How to take furniture apart, what to cover it with and how to stack it in the unit is in our article on where to store furniture during renovation; for a sale it works just the same.

Free units and prices on 4 October 2026

Prices change every day with how full a site is, and you always see the exact sum before you confirm the order. Until 31 December 2026 every free unit at Tomášikova carries a 20% discount for new rentals ordered on the site, the same percent on every term. The unit page shows it as "Discount -20%" next to a small gift icon, with the regular price struck through. Monthly prices for a term of 1 / 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 months:

• T8, T13, T14, Tomášikova, indoor unit 2.56 m², 6.66 m³, 1.55 × 1.65 m: with the discount 79 / 75 / 70 / 66 / 62€, regular 99 / 94 / 88 / 83 / 77€. Three months come to 225€.
• T45, T47, T53, T55 (3.30 m², 2.00 × 1.65 m) and T44, T58, T67 (3.60 m², 2.00 × 1.80 m), Tomášikova: with the discount 91 / 86 / 82 / 78 / 74€, regular 114 / 108 / 103 / 98 / 93€. Three months come to 258€.
• T51, Tomášikova, 6.60 m², 17.16 m³, 2.20 × 3.00 m: with the discount 128 / 124 / 120 / 115 / 111€, regular 160 / 155 / 150 / 144 / 139€.
• H13, Holíčska, 3.20 m², 1.23 × 2.60 m: 83 / 78 / 73 / 68 / 63€.
• H6 (3.48 m², 2.68 × 1.30 m) and H38 (3.50 m², 1.75 × 2.00 m), Holíčska: 94 / 88 / 83 / 78 / 73€.
• D35, Dúbravka, container 3.60 m², 2.40 × 1.50 m, ground floor with the car at the door: 72 / 67 / 62 / 53 / 46€. Three months come to 201€.
• P13, P14, Pionierska, container 3.60 m², 2.40 × 1.50 m, ground floor with the car at the door: 75 / 70 / 65 / 56 / 49€. Three months come to 210€.
• P32, P36, P38, Pionierska, container 14.40 m², 6.00 × 2.40 m, with a double door: 169 / 157 / 145 / 139 / 133€.
• N25, N44, N45, N51, N52, N55, Nitra, container 7.20 m² on the ground floor, 10% off: 76 / 72 / 68 / 62 / 58€, regular 85 / 80 / 75 / 69 / 64€. N41, with a double door and the car at the door, costs the same.
• N2, N5, N9, N10, Nitra, container 14.40 m² with a double door, 20% off: 123 / 114 / 106 / 101 / 97€, regular 154 / 143 / 132 / 126 / 121€.

The discount applies to the term you pay when you order, and a later extension is at the regular price; what that means for choosing the term comes in the next section. The deposit, kaucia in Slovak, is one month's rent, and with a discount it is the discounted month. Holíčska, Dúbravka and Pionierska have no discount, so the prices above for those sites are the regular ones. On 4 October 2026 the free 7.20 m² containers in Bratislava are all on the first floor up the stairs (D40, G47 and K27D), so if you need more room and the car at the door, go for 14.40 m² at Pionierska.

How long to rent when nobody knows the sale date

We rent for 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 months, and with "Custom period" ("Exact to the day") you set the end date yourself, at least 31 days after the start. The longer the term, the lower the monthly price. Storage while selling a flat has one awkward feature, though: viewings can drag on for weeks or months, and the day you hand the keys to the buyer is a date nobody knows at the start, not even the agent.

So start with one or three months and extend online in your account for as long as it takes. The new period starts the day after the last paid day, and an extension carries no second deposit. Once you know the day the things will leave the unit, for your new flat for example, you can extend with "Custom period" exactly to that day and pay for no spare days. There is one condition: an extension to a custom date has to cover at least 30 days, counted from the day after your last paid day, and a shorter one is refused. If the day you need is closer than that, extend by one month. How a one-month rental, the deposit and the hand-back work in practice is in our article on short-term storage rental for a month.

At Tomášikova there is a catch: the 20% discount holds only for the term paid at the order. If you expect the sale to take months rather than weeks, pay for three months straight away. On 4 October 2026 that makes T14 225€ for three months, so 75€ a month, while the regular price of a single month is 99€. These prices, too, move with occupancy.

We do not recommend a year "just in case". Contracts are for a fixed term, and if you end one early, the period you actually used is recalculated at the tariff of that term, minus the last 14 days, which are not refunded. The FAQ on our site gives an example: a 6-month rental, 3.5 months used, recalculated at the 3-month tariff. So the low yearly rate does not survive a sale that goes quickly.

After the sale people often move, sometimes to another country, and the new home is not always ready. In that case you simply extend, and if the furniture that stayed in the flat for the viewings now joins the boxes, switch to a larger unit. Moving to another unit is a new rental.

Letting the flat: personal things wait out the lease

If you are letting the flat rather than selling it, the preparation is much the same. A tenant chooses by the photos and the viewing, and once they move in, your personal things have no place there. The difference is time: instead of a few weeks until a buyer turns up, the things wait out the whole lease, and its length is in your contract with the tenant.

For a long lease the lowest monthly rate is on a 12-month rental. On 4 October 2026 H13 at Holíčska costs 63€ a month, and T14 at Tomášikova 62€ a month with the 20% discount if you pay the year at the order by 31 December 2026; the regular yearly rate of T14 is 77€ a month. Prices move with occupancy. If you are letting the flat because you are leaving Slovakia for a while, the rental can be renewed online from wherever you are, since the site and your account work in English.

The size depends on whether you let the flat furnished or unfurnished. Furnished, only personal things, clothes and seasonal things leave, mostly in boxes, and they belong in an indoor unit; judge the size by the number of boxes and the floor plan on the unit page. Unfurnished, the furniture goes too and the size guide applies: 5 to 7 m² for the furniture of a one-room flat, for example indoor unit T51 at Tomášikova with 6.60 m², as long as the furniture passes the 0.80 m door.

The contents of a two-room flat, 7 to 12 m², belong in a container. With the car at the door, in Bratislava on 4 October 2026 that means a 14.40 m² container at Pionierska, while in Nitra there is also N41 with 7.20 m². The free 7.20 m² containers in Bratislava are on the first floor up the stairs and cost from 87€ a month on 12 months, prices moving with occupancy; heavy furniture goes up those stairs by hand.

Common mistakes

1. A year "just in case". If the flat sells in two months, the year you paid for is recalculated at the tariff of the term you actually used, and the last 14 days are not refunded. Start with one or three months and extend.
2. Paying month by month at Tomášikova when you know it will take a while. The discount covers the term paid at the order. On 4 October 2026 T14 costs 79€ for one month with the discount, but an extension is at the regular price, 99€ for a single month.
3. A sofa that will not go through the door. Indoor units and ordinary containers have doors 0.80 m wide. Measure whatever does not come apart before you order, and if you have to, take a 14.40 m² container with a 2.25 × 2.30 m double door.
4. Pictures, books and electronics in a container over winter. Containers are not heated. These things belong in an indoor unit at Tomášikova or Holíčska; the container is for the furniture.
5. Movers stuck outside a locked door at Holíčska. Extra phone numbers, up to nine per location, open the gate with a call at Tomášikova and at the container sites. At Holíčska the building door opens only with the personal code from your account, so be there yourself when the movers come.
6. A forgotten end date. If the sale drags on and you neither extend the rental nor hand the unit back, it is cleared within 3 days after the paid period ends. We charge no fine, but the deposit is not refunded.

When a different unit or term suits you better

• You are showing the flat over one open-house weekend. That is no reason for 12 months. Take one month, the shortest term we rent, and if the flat does not sell, extend in your account.
• You are emptying the whole flat. The buyer wants it empty, or you move out before it sells. Then a unit for one room's surplus is not enough: the contents of a two-room flat need 7 to 12 m², so a larger container, and the furniture should be prepared as described above.
• The sofa or the wardrobe does not come apart. Take a 14.40 m² container with a 2.25 × 2.30 m double door at Pionierska or in Nitra, where N41 with 7.20 m² has the same door.
• You are storing mainly boxes, pictures and books. They belong in an indoor unit with a steady temperature, not in an unheated container.
• You are letting the flat for a year or longer. Rather than extending month by month, take 12 months, the lowest monthly rate.
• An estate agency or a developer is staging flats. Rent the unit in the company's name: invoices with IČO and DIČ are in the account, and the people who bring things in can be added with numbers that open the gate at every site except Holíčska.

How to go about it

1. Walk through the flat with your agent or home stager and write down what leaves: personal things, surplus furniture, seasonal things.
2. Split the list: boxes, pictures, books, clothes and electronics go into an indoor unit, furniture that comes by van into a ground-floor container. Measure the largest piece and compare it with a door 0.80 m wide.
3. On our site, choose a location and a free unit. Each one shows its dimensions, volume, door and the price for every term.
4. Choose the term: 1 or 3 months if the sale date is open; "Custom period" if you already know when the things will leave, with the end at least 31 days after the start; 12 months if you are letting the flat for a year.
5. Fill in your details: real name, address, e-mail and a European phone number starting with +3 or +4, since a number from outside Europe cannot be registered. A company is found by name in the business register and its details fill in by themselves. If you need transport, tick "Moving assistance (paid service)": our partner gets in touch and you pay them directly.
6. Pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The contract is concluded with the first payment, the documents and access details are in your account at once, and the whole thing takes about 10 minutes, in English from start to finish.
7. Bring the things in and lock the unit with your own padlock. Add the phone numbers of anyone who will bring things for you, up to nine per location: at Tomášikova and at the container sites the gate opens when they call it, while at Holíčska the building door opens only with your personal code.
8. Once the flat is sold and the things have somewhere to go, hand the unit back by 17:00 on the last paid day: empty, padlock off, three photos uploaded in your account (two inside, one outside) and the return form sent. The deposit comes back within 5 working days, at most 10 depending on your bank.

What TOP SKLAD offers, and what it does not

We run six self-service sites in Bratislava and one in Nitra, 527 units in all; on 4 October 2026, 71 are free, 60 in Bratislava and 11 in Nitra. The indoor units are at Holíčska 7 in Petržalka, tram 3 to the Pajštúnska stop and 230 m on foot, and at Tomášikova 50D in Nové Mesto, 400 m from the bus 50 stop. At Tomášikova you drive onto the site and the gate opens when you call it from your registered number; at Holíčska the car stays in the outside car park and the building door opens only with the personal code from your account. The containers stand in Dúbravka at Polianky 15, at Gessayova 3 and Kaukazská 2 in Petržalka, at Pionierska in Nové Mesto and in Nitra at Bratislavská 15.

Access is 24/7, and the sites are fenced and covered by cameras with recording. You lock the unit with your own padlock; with every new rental you get a sealed one as a gift, and only you hold the key. Insurance of your things up to 2,000€ is included, and higher cover costs 4.50€ a month up to 5,000€, 7.50€ up to 7,000€ and 12€ up to 10,000€. Estate agencies and developers who prepare flats for sale can rent in the company's name and find invoices with IČO and DIČ in their account.

What we do not do: home staging. We have no home stager or stylist, we do not furnish flats, we neither pack nor transport anything, and there are no staff on site. If you are looking for home staging in Bratislava as such, someone to style the flat before the photos, ask a home stager or an estate agency; we are the place where the things that leave the flat wait.

Our containers are not heated, and we are not the cheapest storage in Slovakia. Support works through the form in your account or by e-mail at info@top-sklad.com, and we reply within 5 working days.

Frequently asked questions

How much does home staging cost in Bratislava?

The price of home staging itself is set by the home stager or the estate agency; we do not offer the service. What we can tell you is the cost of storing what leaves the flat: on 4 October 2026, for example, 225€ for three months in T14 at Tomášikova with the 20% discount, or 201€ for three months in container D35 in Dúbravka. Prices move with occupancy.

Where can I store my things while selling my flat?

In a storage unit for the time of the sale, from 1 month and extended for as long as the flat is on the market. Boxes, pictures, books and clothes belong in an indoor unit with a steady temperature, furniture that comes by van in a ground-floor container. On 4 October 2026 container P13 or P14 at Pionierska costs 70€ a month on a 3-month term; prices move with occupancy.

What size storage unit do I need for one room?

By our estimate about 2.5 to 3.6 m² with 2.60 m of height, enough for a few boxes, an armchair, a side table, a shelf unit, lamps and pictures. T8, T13 and T14 at Tomášikova with 2.56 m² fit that, as do T44, T58 and T67 with 3.60 m². For the furniture of a whole one-room flat, count on 5 to 7 m².

How long should I rent storage if I don't know when my flat will sell?

Take 1 or 3 months and extend online in your account. When you know the day you will take the things out, extend with "Custom period" exactly to that day if it is at least 30 days after your last paid day; if it is sooner, extend by one month. Do not take a year just in case: ending early is recalculated at the tariff of the term you used, and the last 14 days are not refunded.

Will a sofa that doesn't come apart fit in a storage unit?

If it will not pass 0.80 m even on its side, it needs a double door of 2.25 × 2.30 m. The 14.40 m² containers P32, P36 and P38 at Pionierska have one; on 4 October 2026 they cost 169€ for one month or 157€ a month on a 3-month term, and prices move with occupancy. In Nitra, N41 with 7.20 m² has the same door.

Where can I keep my personal things while I rent out my flat?

In a storage unit for the whole lease, where the yearly rate is the lowest. On 4 October 2026 H13 at Holíčska costs 63€ a month, and T14 at Tomášikova 62€ a month with the 20% discount if you pay the year at the order by 31 December 2026. Prices move with occupancy.

Related articles

• how much a storage unit costs in Bratislava
• where to temporarily store your belongings after selling a flat