How to get rid of old furniture in Miami: bulky pickup, donation or a haul

In Miami, old furniture leaves one of four ways: the bulky-trash pickup that serves your address, a drop-off center, donation or resale, or a paid haul. Which fits depends on what it is, how much there is, and whether you have a curb or a condo tower — and on a move-out, all of it goes before the walkthrough.

First, find out who collects at your address

Miami-Dade is not one trash system. The county’s Waste Collection page lists where the county itself collects — unincorporated Miami-Dade plus Aventura, Cutler Bay, Doral, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, Opa-locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, Sunny Isles Beach and Sweetwater — and sends everyone else to their city. The City of Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables and Hialeah run their own.

If the county collects, bulky pickup is an appointment: book it online or in the MDC Solid Waste app, then set the pile out no more than three days before the date, by 7 a.m. on the day. Setting it out earlier risks enforcement, from a warning notice up to a civil citation, per the county’s Bulky Waste Pickup page. Each household gets two pickups a year of up to 25 cubic yards each, paid through the annual waste fee on your tax bill. The calendar opens 30 days out, with no waitlists or fit-ins, so a fixed move-out date means booking early.

The City of Miami’s Solid Waste Department collects residential bulky trash once a week; its address search shows your day. Household furniture, electronics, appliances and clean yard trash are on its list, and its guidelines say bulky trash goes out no earlier than the evening before and no later than 6:00 a.m. on service day. Its schedule page also sets bundling rules — read them first.

Anywhere else on the county’s list, your city’s page is the rulebook. Reading from Broward, Collier or the Tampa Bay area? None of these rules carry over; start with your own city or county.

What the county truck won’t take, or takes only with prep

Check the county’s not-allowed list before anything goes out: TVs, other electronics, microwave ovens, central air units and any single item over 150 pounds. Two common items need prep. A mattress must be fully encased in a plastic mattress bag or sleeve sealed with weather-resistant tape — the box spring is exempt — and violations may result in a fine. Refrigerators and freezers go out only with the doors removed.

Rather drive it yourself? County waste-fee customers can use the 13 Neighborhood Trash and Recycling Centers, open daily 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a Florida license or ID to prove the address; not every center takes electronics or mattresses. City of Miami residents have the city’s Mini Dump on NW 20th Street: one proof of City residency, one pickup-truck load a day.

Still usable? Donate or sell it first

A sofa someone can still use is worth more in their living room than at any curb. Every charity and resale shop sets its own rules on what it accepts and whether it picks up, so ask first, with the photos you would send a hauler. As a rule of thumb, the pieces worth offering are clean, intact and free of stains and pests; a torn mattress or a wobbling dresser is a job for a paid haul. And you decide what leaves the house — no crew, ours included, should decide for you.

Where the curb stops working

A curb assumes a house. In the City of Miami — Brickell included — the Solid Waste Department tells owners of any property with four or more units to contract garbage and recycling with a city-approved franchise commercial hauler, and the county tells its own dumpster customers to keep furniture and appliances out of the dumpsters and not beside them. In a tower, management is the first call: it knows the hauler, the trash-room rules and the service elevator.

In storm season, the curb can close on short notice. The National Hurricane Center dates the Atlantic season June 1 to November 30, and Miami-Dade’s hurricane-preparation pages tell county customers to schedule bulky pickup before a storm threatens, and say not to put trash on the curb during a tropical storm or hurricane watch or warning: “Debris flies everywhere during a hurricane.” After a storm, the cleanup has its own order — see how to clean up your house after a hurricane.

Our Miami-Dade junk removal page puts the house-or-tower split in hauling terms: “A Brickell or Aventura tower means a service elevator reserved for a window, a loading dock, and a certificate of insurance on file with the building before anyone rolls a cart through the lobby. A Coral Gables or Pinecrest house means a driveway, a side gate, and a long carry from a back room.” Add stairs, a gate code or HOA rules about what can sit outside, and the curb stops being the simple option.

What a paid haul is priced on

How we price a haul is spelled out on that same junk removal page: “Volume is the biggest factor — how much of a truck the load fills — and after that it is the things that make a load harder to move: weight, stairs, a long carry from a back room to the curb, an elevator reservation, or an item that has to come apart before it fits through a door.”

So there is no number in this article; the price comes back after we see the job. In the page’s words: “Send photos of what is going out — WhatsApp, text, or email all work — and we come back with a written quote.” And: “Nothing is due at booking, and the number you approve is the number you pay.”

To the question this article keeps circling — do you have to move anything to the curb? — the page’s FAQ answers: “No. Point at it and we carry it out — that is the job. Tell us in your message if it is upstairs, behind a gate, or through a building elevator, because that is part of what we are quoting.” The list names “Furniture: sofas, tables, desks, dressers, bed frames,” plus the mattresses, TVs and refrigerators the county refuses or makes you prep — and afterward, “we send before-and-after photos of what we hauled.”

If it is leaving because you are moving out

Then order matters more than method: haul first, clean second, walkthrough last. The FAQ on our junk removal page puts it plainly: “A cleanout followed by a clean is one conversation and one schedule.” If only a few pieces stay behind, our move-out cleaning page lists “trash/junk removal by separate quote” among the items quoted separately.

How “empty” shapes that clean, and how to line up truck, crew and walkthrough in lease-end week, is covered in our post on whether the home needs to be empty before a move-out clean. What the walkthrough checks is in what to clean to get your full deposit back.

What we won’t promise

No price before we see the job, and no date before you have your quote: our Terms put the order in writing — the quote first, the time after. Nor do we promise anything about your building; the elevator and the trash-room rules belong to management, and we plan around them.

The same Terms reserve “the right to refuse or stop service where conditions are unsafe for our team — such as mold, infestation, biohazards, or abusive behavior,” so tell us before the visit if you suspect bed bugs in a mattress. We publish no claims about where hauled items end up, so we make none here. And the county and city rules above are general information from their own pages, checked in early October 2026, not legal advice; they change, so read the page for your address first.

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