Home inventory template

What a home inventory list is for

A home inventory is a list of what’s in your home, with whatever you need to prove it was there and what it was worth. It helps at three moments:

• For your home insurance, whether you own or rent. After a theft, a fire or a flood, you have to say what was lost. A list made calmly beforehand is far more complete than one made from memory afterward.
• For a furnished rental. The list of furniture and appliances, with the condition of each, is what gets checked at the end of the lease. The template can be the starting point for that list: keep the rows for what the home contains.
• For a move. What goes, what stays and what gets sold.

What to put on each line, and how to go through your home room by room, is in the guide to the home inventory list.

How to use the template

1. Download the spreadsheet and open it in Excel, LibreOffice, Numbers or Google Sheets.
2. Go through your home room by room, in the spreadsheet’s order. Delete the rows for what you don’t have and add the ones that are missing — the Room column has a dropdown with the list of rooms to choose from.
3. Fill in what you know: brand and model, serial number, purchase date, value and where the receipt is kept. Each row’s total value and the total for your whole home calculate themselves.
4. Take photos of anything of value — the whole thing, the label with the model, the serial number — and keep them with the spreadsheet.
5. Keep a copy outside your home, in an online service or in your email. A list that burns with the house is no use to anyone.

In Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers

The template is an ordinary .xlsx file. In Excel or LibreOffice, open it as it is. In Google Sheets, upload it to Google Drive and open it with Sheets. In Numbers, on a Mac, an iPhone or an iPad, open the file and Numbers converts it.

The value columns have no currency symbol: write the amounts in your own currency, and the totals add up just the same. The purchase date shows the month in letters — 3 Apr 2026 — so nobody reads 3 April as 4 March. To print, the sheet is set to landscape and scales to the width of the page, so it fits on A4 or Letter.

What each thing is worth

For insurance, what counts is the value your policy uses. In many policies it’s replacement cost — what it costs to buy the same thing new; in others it’s actual cash value, which deducts for age and wear. The spreadsheet has a column for the value and another for the total; the rule is your policy’s, and it’s your insurer you should ask.