Stacking chairs vs folding chairs
Updated: 22 October 2026
You are choosing seats for a hall, a church, or a small flat, and the brochure photos both show chairs that put away. Stacking chairs vs folding chairs is a storage choice. A stacking chair is a rigid frame that forms a vertical pile of the same model. A folding chair has a hinge that takes the frame flat, and a row of folded chairs leaned in a corner is not a stack. The [stacking chairs comparison](/hub/garden-furniture/stacking-chairs) only kept chairs that do not fold. This page says when the pile is the right store and when the hinge is. It does not rank the six amazon.co.uk rows. Peter F. read UK makers’ guides and those listings, and did not measure a hall. A qualifying purchase can earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.
You are choosing seats for a hall, a church, or a small flat, and the brochure photos both show chairs that put away. Stacking chairs vs folding chairs is a storage choice.
You are choosing seats for a hall, a church, or a small flat, and the brochure photos both show chairs that put away. Stacking chairs vs folding chairs is a storage choice. A stacking chair is a rigid frame that forms a vertical pile of the same model. A folding chair has a hinge that takes the frame flat, and a row of folded chairs leaned in a corner is not a stack. The stacking chairs comparison only kept chairs that do not fold. This page says when the pile is the right store and when the hinge is. It does not rank the six amazon.co.uk rows. Peter F. read UK makers’ guides and those listings, and did not measure a hall. A qualifying purchase can earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.
Our top picks
| Badge | Product | Folds flat | Stack height | Seat | Note | Price | Offer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall |  Amazon Basics Amazon Basics metal dining chairs | No | Stackable, no count | Metal | 8.3 | about £126.69 | View offer |
| Best value |  Office Hippo Office Hippo royal-blue pack of 4 | No | 4 high | Padded fabric | 7.3 | about £189.99 | View offer |
 Office Hippo Office Hippo charcoal chair | No | 4 high | Padded fabric | 7.2 | about £58.38 | View offer |
On this page
What each chair does when you put it away
A stacking chair stays the same shape. You lift an identical chair onto it, up to the number that model prints, and the column needs ceiling height and a clear piece of floor. A folding chair changes shape. The hinge closes, the depth collapses, and the store is a flat pack or a hanging trolley rather than a tower of open frames. Kirkhouse, writing about its own furniture, gives a concrete pair rather than a national ratio. One folding trolley example stores 48 Virco chairs in a footprint of 1,400 × 700 mm, with an overall height of 1,970 mm. About 60 of Kirkhouse’s stacking chairs fit a similar height in 1,500 × 1,100 mm. That 48-versus-60 comparison is their products, not a rule that every stack beats every fold by twelve chairs. The stacking store can hold a few more chairs and it takes a wider piece of floor, while the folding store is narrower and depends on the trolley. Rosehill describes one of its folding chairs with a folded depth of 44 mm. Our six kept chairs all say they do not fold flat. If your only store is a slot a few centimetres deep behind a door, none of those six is the object in the photo you wanted. How high you may build the pile is on how to stack chairs safely.
Which routine suits which chair
Choose stacking chairs when the room stays laid out most of the time and you can give the pile its printed height between bookings. A kitchen that wants four metal chairs under a table, or a reception area that keeps four padded chairs out and stacks them only at night, is that routine. Strictly Tables and Chairs makes the same cut from the hall side. A stacking chair has no hinge, so the seat can feel closer to fixed furniture, and you pay for that with ceiling clearance and a column that must be lifted rather than folded. Choose folding chairs when the hall must go flat, more than once in a day, and you have a trolley that suits the hinge. The same guide says folding chairs clear a room faster and store flatter, and that the joints are what you have to check. Comfort follows the routine. The shared Office Hippo reviews do describe desk sits and a church hall, and they also describe frames that collapsed, so no hinge is not the same sentence as will not break. A metal bistro seat is rigid and it is also a bare metal seat. For a two-hour quiz that chair can be the right store. For a three-hour meeting, padding matters more than the absence of a hinge. What the listing must print before you buy is on the buying guide.
Volunteers, trolleys and a twice-a-day hall
If two people can lift a stack of four identical chairs, a small church can live with stacking and no trolley. If the team is one person, or the store is at the far end of a hall, both types need a trolley, and the folding trolley and the stacking trolley are different tools. Rosehill separates hanging, standing and stacking trolleys. A stacking trolley sold for folding chairs only suits chairs that both stack and fold. High-density stacking, up to 60 chairs on the right trolley, is a specific lightweight system. It is not the Office Hippo chair that prints four high. Kirkhouse is blunt about the trolley. Folding chairs without one almost never work, in their words, because a heap of hinges in a corner is not a system. If the hall is cleared twice a day, folding chairs with a proper trolley are the recommendation, on the condition that someone checks the hinges and that you are not pretending a leaned row is a stack. If the chairs stay out and you only clear them for a weekend let, stacking chairs are the recommendation, on the condition that you have the ceiling and you stop at the printed number. A small flat that must recover the floor every evening is closer to the twice-a-day hall. In that flat, a folding chair that is actually in a folding range will store flatter than any of the six rigid chairs we kept.
Nesting is a third storage trick
Nesting chairs sit side by side on castors and slide under one another. They are not a vertical stack, and they are not a hinge. AOS, writing for the UK trade, separates stacking, folding and nesting, and states that a hinge or a set of castors does not by itself make a chair stackable. A nesting chair needs a clear run of floor at chair height, not a ceiling above a column and not a 44 mm slot. It suits a room that restacks by pushing, if the floor is flat and the castors match the surface. None of the six listings we kept is a nesting chair, and none of them folds. The comparison field on every row is Folds flat: No. If a seller’s photo shows a hinge, you are not looking at these ASINs, whatever the title does with the word stackable. The practical test before you pay is the store you have this week. A corner that can take a vertical pile of four identical rigid chairs, with headroom, points to stacking. A cupboard measured in centimetres of depth points to folding. A long wall at seat height points to nesting.
Common questions
Which one stores in less space?
It depends which space you have. A folding store can be a narrow trolley, as in Kirkhouse’s 48 Virco chairs in 1,400 × 700 mm at about 1,970 mm high. A stacking store of their own chairs held about 60 at a similar height and needed 1,500 × 1,100 mm. That pair is not everyone’s ratio. A 44 mm folded depth, from one Rosehill folding chair, beats any of our rigid chairs for a shallow cupboard. A vertical pile of four can beat a heap of unfolded hinges if you have the ceiling and you actually stack.
Which is more comfortable for a long meeting?
A rigid chair with no hinge can feel closer to a fixed chair, which is the point Strictly Tables and Chairs makes for stacking. Comfort still depends on the seat. A padded reception chair is the long-sit case in our file, with the collapse reports in the same reviews. A metal bistro seat is rigid and unpadded. If the meeting is long and the chair is bare metal, the missing hinge does not add comfort. If the hall turns over several times a day, the faster clear of a folding chair can matter more than the hinge you will feel.
Do folding chairs count as stacking chairs if they lean together?
No. Leaning folded chairs in a corner is storage by gravity, not a stacking system. A stacking chair builds a vertical pile of the same rigid model, up to a printed height. AOS treats a hinge as a reason to ask again, not as proof the chair stacks. If the product both folds and stacks, the maker has to say so, and the trolley has to be the one for that combination. A lean is not that claim.
What is a nesting chair?
A nesting chair stores side by side, often on castors, so one chair slides partly under the next. It is a third type. It does not need a tall ceiling, and it does not go flat like a hinge. It needs floor length at seat height. Castors alone do not make it stackable. If your hall photo shows a tower, you want stacking. If it shows a row pushed against a wall, you may want nesting, and you still check the maker’s limit before anyone lifts one chair onto another.
What if the hall is cleared twice a day?
Prefer folding chairs, with a trolley, when the room has to go flat more than once a day and someone will check the hinges. Prefer stacking chairs when the room stays set and you only clear it occasionally, and when the ceiling takes the printed stack. A weekend let in an otherwise permanent layout is the stacking case. Two turnovers a day, with the floor needed for sport in between, is the folding case. Neither answer is buy whichever set is cheaper and lean them.
Can one of the six listings fold?
No. Every kept chair is marked as not folding flat. That includes the Amazon Basics metal set, the three Office Hippo fabric listings, the Jemini polyurethane chair and the mesh visitor chair. If you need a hinge, you are in a different range from this comparison. The stacking pages can still help you read a stack height and a user weight on whatever rigid chair you keep.
Related pages
Sources
Public UK sources used for this comparison, last checked on 21 October 2026. Listing prices, stars and review counts are the amazon.co.uk lines saved for this set. There is no laboratory test.
- BS EN 16139:2025, non-domestic seating (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- BS EN 581-1:2017 outdoor general safety (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- BS EN 581-2, BSI release 21 May 2026 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Fire safety amendment in force 30 October 2025 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- FIRA, contract chairs in homes (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Burgess, no universal stack height (retrieved 21 October 2026)