7 Curious Moving Day Traditions From Around the World

Hello beautiful people, and welcome back on the route with us once more! 🙂

Today we are talking about something unusual: MOVING OUT!

No matter where you live around the globe, moving house feels like the most universally boring chore on the planet!

Said that, it is not always the case!

Different countries apparently do it on wildly different days, with wildly different rituals, and some of them have such weird moving traditions that made us wonder in awe when we first heard of them! ^^

Did you know for example, that there is a Canadian province where almost everyone moves on the same single day?

Or that there is a country where you should send a cat in first?

Ot that there was a city where a million people changed address at nine in the morning, all at once?

We will leave you this seven curious places here below… if you thought moving was boring, check them out and I am sure sure you’ll crack a smile ;D

Let’s dive right in!

Jump straight to a tradition! 👇

Quebec — almost everyone moves on 1 July (are they so organised??!)

New York — when a million people moved at 9am (what??!)

Japan — you bring noodles to the neighbours (being friendly is important I guess…)

Russia — the cat goes in first (why shouldn’t it?^^)

Scotland — moving was called “flitting” (it is Scotland after all…)

Amsterdam — the furniture goes through the window (doors are too tiny!)

India — the milk has to boil over (eh?!)

1. Quebec, Canada:

Almost Everyone Moves on 1st July!

Did you know that in Quebec there is a day called simply “Moving Day” (jour du déménagement ò in French), which falls on 1 July?

Tens of thousands of households move on that exact date, in the Montreal area alone.

Trucks get booked months ahead, streets fill with sofas, cabinets and shelves; streets become jammed and friends stop answering their phones! 😅

The origin of this curious tradition is genuinely old as it dates back to 1750 when the colonial government of New France fixed lease expiry at 1 May to stop landlords evicting tenant farmers in the middle of winter.

Once Quebec got its independence from France, the date also entered in Quebec civil law in 1866.

“But wait… you wrote first 1 July, then 1st of May Dani… is that a typo??!” No no…

Simply, in 1974 the government freed up the dates entirely, and extended existing leases to 30 June so families would not have to move mid school year.

The result?

Everyone kept moving together anyway, just two months later:)

As of today, the Moving Day is a tradition now, not anymore a strict rule 🙂

2. New York:

When a Million People Moved at 9am

Quebec is not the strangest version of this. New York was few decades ago.

From colonial times until after the Second World War, New York City had its own Moving Day on 1 May too!

Every oral lease in the city expired simultaneously, at nine in the morning, and the whole population that was moving started moving in the same instant.

At its peak in the early twentieth century, it was estimated that around a million people changed address on the same day (imagine how lively could have been working in the registrars public offices back then, without even computers!)

The rhythm was fixed: on 1 February landlords told tenants the new rent.

Tenants then had three months to shop around. On 1 May, the city turned into a furniture-filled riot!

The Moving Day in NYC ended in 1945 though.

The post-war housing shortage and rent control killed it off, helped by the fact that most of the men who did the moving had been drafted too!

The only trace still visible today is the fact that plenty of commercial leases in New York still run to 1 May 🙂

For the rest, today the moves in New York are an everyday thing, spread out across the year.

Despite the gained flexibility though, the city still makes it kinda hard in its own way: many buildings demand a certificate of insurance before the truck arrives, you need to reserve elevators, get acquainted with the alternate side parking rules and so on!

As the population of NYC exponentially grew over the decades, chaos and paperwork never really disappeared, which is why most people moving to or within New York prefer to delegate moving to the NYC Movers , a well-organised and cost-effective company which can take care of all the stressful moving processes and organise eventual storage too if needed! 🙂

3. Japan:

You Bring Noodles to the Neighbours

soba noodles for neightbours - moving traditions japan

As noodles lovers, this is one of our favourite!

In Japan, exists a custom called “hikkoshi soba” (translated literally into “moving-in soba”) where newcomers give buckwheat noodles to theirneighbours when they arrive (mostly in smaller towns, more than in the huge and more individualistic Tokyo).

This tradition, finds its roots back to the middle of the Edo period (1603–1868).

Before soba, people handed out red bean porridge or mochi, but adzuki beans were expensive, so soba took over as the affordable option 🙂

The meaning? It is a pun.

The word “soba” in Japanese sounds like the word for “next to”, and the noodles are long, so the gift says roughly “I live beside you, and I hope this lasts a long time.”

Before we move to the next one though, here is a fair warning if you were planning to try it: the custom is now considered fairly old-fashioned!

Most people just eat the soba themselves once the boxes are in eheheheh ;D

If Japan is your thing, we also wrote 7 Surprising Curiosities about Life in Tokyo 🙂

4. Russia:

The Cat Goes In First

cat goes in first - moving tradition in russia

As the story goes, in Russian folk tradition, the first living being to cross the threshold of a new home should be a cat: never a person nor a dog!

The belief behind it is bleak and rather wonderful: whoever enters first pays a price to whatever spirits are in the house.

Cats have nine lives, so a cat can afford it. 🤣🤣🤣😎

I know, you did not see that coming right?? eheh

Some versions of this tradition go even further.

Lettin a ginger tomcat entering first is said to bring wealth….

And if the cat refuses to go in at all, that is taken as a bad sign about the house!

Worth being clear: this is folklore, not a rule anyone enforces. But it is common enough that Russian banks have run mortgage promotions offering clients a cat to borrow for the occasion. We did not make that up! 😄

5. Scotland:

Moving Was Called “Flitting”,

and It Had Fixed Dates!

Scotland had its own version of the fixed-date system, and also here, it lasted for centuries!

The Scottish legal year until the 20th century, was divided by Term Days.

Leases began and ended on them, servants were hired or dismissed on them, rent fell due on them.

The two that mattered for housing were Whitsunday (28th of May) and Martinmas (28 of November).

Moving house was called “flitting”, and Whitsunday was known as flitting day.

There was even a “Flit Friday”: the Friday after a term day, when farm workers changed employer and, with it, home.

The dates were tidied up by the Term and Quarter Days (Scotland) Act 1990, which set removal at noon on 28 May and noon on 28 November.

A whole country agreeing to move at midday… wonderfully organised if you asked me! 🙂

If you want to know more about Scotland: check out the tips from our Campervan Trip in Great Britain! 🙂

6. Amsterdam:

The Furniture Goes Through the Window

Have you ever been to Amsterdam and looked up at the old canal houses?

Ever wondered how it would be living in those thin, slightly-tilted houses?

If you looked closely, you might have also spot a beam sticking out of the gable, with a hook on it.

As a local friend explained us, in Dutch that is called a “hijsbalk” (the pronounciation I leave it up to you eheh), and it is not just a weird Dutch decoration.

Dutch canal houses are in fact famously narrow, because property tax was based partly on the width of the frontage.

To save money, people were building narrow houses, but narrow houses often meant narrow, brutally steep staircases too… and no chance of getting a wardrobe up them!

So the solution was to hoist the furniture up the outside of the building and swing it in through a window, using a rope and pulley on that hook 🙂

The Hijsbalk are still used today!

If you are ever in Amsterdam and see a sofa hanging four floors up in mid-air over a canal, that is all normal! xD

If you want to discover more on Amsterdam, be sure to check out our article 7 Fun Facts to Help you See Amsterdam with New Eyes!

7. India:

The Milk Has to Boil Over

milk needs to spillover - india moving tradtiion

Last but not least, let’s go to India!

In some parts of this beautiful and huge country, moving into a new home involves a ceremony called “Griha Pravesh”, and one part of it is beautifully specific.

Here, milk is boiled in the new kitchen until it deliberately boils over!

For what is that you might wonder?

As the tradition goes, the “overflow” is the whole point: it stands for abundance spilling into the house: happiness, prosperity, plenty!

Normally the milk must be set to boil by a woman of the household, and the milk is often directed towards the east, considered the auspicious direction in “Vastu Shastra”, an ancient Indian system for designing and arranging buildings 🙂

Milk also carries a purity symbolism here, which is why the ritual matters more than it might look from outside.

It is a nice counterpoint to Quebec, honestly. One culture marks moving day with traffic chaos, the other with a pan of milk! xD

Conclusions 🙂

Backpack on a wooden table ready to travel

And here we are at the end 🙂

In this article we discovered few unconventional curiosities about moving out traditions around the world!

Quebec protecting farmers from winter evictions in 1750 and still moving together in 2026.

Amsterdam taxing frontages and ending up with sofas flying past windows.

Japanese people bringing the cheapest soba noodles to neighbours as a gift xD

That is the real lesson here, at least for us: the most ordinary thing you can possibly do — carrying your stuff somewhere else — is done differently everywhere, and the reasons always go back centuries and is to be found in our gorgeous, variegated, and incredible human history! 🙂

Before you go: