No federal statistic prices a house move. But the US military publishes the entire rate table it uses to move a service member's home: 54 mileage bands, 94 weight brackets, 223 service areas, and packing rates to the cent. So we can price your move by weight and distance, exactly the way the government prices a soldier's.More
This is the Domestic 400NG Tariff, issued by US Transportation Command and effective 15 May 2026. Every number below is read straight out of it and nothing is modelled. One thing to understand before you read the figure: the tariff's rates are a LIST PRICE. Moving companies bid discounts against them, and in the tariff's own worked example the carrier had bid 57%, taking 43 cents on the dollar. So the baseline is what the move is worth on paper, and the discount box is where you decide what you think a carrier would actually take. We show you the tariff's own 57% because it is in the document, and we are not going to pretend it is an average, because it is an illustration and we could not find a published one.
The US military publishes the entire rate table it uses to move a household, and almost nobody
has looked at it. 54 mileage bands by 94 weight brackets, 227 service areas, packing rates to the cent,
and a published formula. Your figure above is read straight out of that grid: this calculator carries 46 of the
bands and 87 of the brackets, which is every household move up to 20,000 lb and 3,000 miles, and it does not
extrapolate past its own table. Nothing on this page is modelled.More
The baseline is a LIST PRICE, and that is the thing to understand. Moving companies bid
DISCOUNTS against the tariff, and in its own worked example the carrier had bid 57%, taking 43 cents on the dollar.
So the baseline is what the move is worth on paper and the discount box is where you decide what a carrier would
really take. We show you the tariff's own 57% because it is in the document. We are NOT telling you it is typical:
it is an illustration, we went looking for a published distribution of the discounts carriers actually file, and we
did not find one. Set the box to zero and you will see the pure baseline.
How we know we are reading the table correctly, and it failed the first time. The tariff works an
example, 6,000 lb over 565 miles, and says the base linehaul is $6,845. Our read of the 2026 table said $9,505.
That is a failed check and a failed check means stop. Then we noticed the example's pickup date: 16 May 2017. A
MISREAD table scatters its errors. A STALE example moves every figure by the same ratio. Four independent cells:
the base linehaul (1.389), the origin factor (1.404), the destination factor (1.391), the origin service fee
(1.391). A spread of one percent. The read is right, the example is nine years old, and those four rates
are up about 39% since 2017. We say those four, not the whole tariff, because four is what we compared.
And a limit that is ours to admit: three of those four cells come from a different tab of the workbook and could
not detect a misreading of the LINEHAUL grid even if there were one, so the grid itself is tested by a single
comparison. It passes, and all 4,002 of its cells were afterwards checked against the source file one by one. But
the four-way ratio test is weaker evidence than it looks, and we would rather say so than let it flatter us.
And what this is NOT. It is a government tariff for a military move: a bulk contract, guaranteed
payment, a carrier that wants the volume. Your move is not that, and a civilian quote above these numbers is not
thereby a rip-off. What the tariff gives you is the shape of the thing: how much weight matters, how much distance
matters, what packing really costs, and a number that somebody has actually committed to in public.
Every rate here is the US military's, read out of its own published tariff and its Baseline Rates workbook, and the linehaul grid is inlined cell for cell rather than fitted to a curve. The weight guide by room count is ours. The discount is yours: the tariff's baseline is a list price, and the 57% we default to is the figure in its own worked example, not a published average.
Where the money goes
Linehaul (60 cwt, 565 miles)$4,087
Full pack, per hundredweight$1,945
Recommended next steps
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At this size an accurate weight is the single most valuable thing you can get, because everything is priced off it. Ask for a written estimate based on a survey, and ask what the packing costs separately.
The US military publishes a complete rate table for moving a household: 54 mileage bands by 94 weight brackets, 227 service areas, and packing rates per hundredweight.More
The Domestic 400NG Tariff, issued by US Transportation Command, effective 15 May 2026. It governs what the government pays to move a service member's home, and it is public. Every figure on this page is read out of it.
The tariff's baseline is a list price. In its own worked example, the moving company had bid a 57% discount, taking 43 cents on the dollar.More
Carriers bid discounts against the published rates, which is how the programme works. We show you the tariff's own 57% because it is in the document, and we are not calling it typical: it is an illustration, and we could not find a published distribution of the discounts carriers actually file. The box is yours to move.
Four rates in the tariff's worked example are up about 39% since 2017, and that is how we know we are reading the table correctly.More
The example says the base linehaul for 6,000 lb over 565 miles is $6,845; the 2026 table says $9,505. That looked like a misread until we saw the example's pickup date, 16 May 2017. A misread scatters its errors; a stale example moves every figure by the same ratio. Base linehaul 1.389, origin factor 1.404, destination factor 1.391, service fee 1.391. A spread of one percent. Four cells, not the whole tariff.
Weight is the number that moves your bill. Distance matters less than people expect, and packing costs more.More
At the tariff's baseline, a 6,000 lb move over 565 miles is $9,505 of linehaul. Full packing it adds $4,523, which is nearly half again. Doubling the distance does not double the bill; doubling the weight comes far closer to it. The rate per hundredweight also FALLS as the shipment gets heavier, which is a real volume discount written into the grid.
No federal statistic prices a civilian move, and the moving industry's own payroll works out at about $20.83 an hour per employee.More
So there is no crew rate and no price per move to be had: $20.1bn of receipts across 10,223 establishments tells you the size of the trade, not the price of your job. That is why we went looking for someone who had committed to a rate table in public, and found the one the military uses.
Sourced, and primary: every rate on this page is read out of the 2026 Domestic
400NG Tariff and its Baseline Rates workbook, published by US Transportation Command. The linehaul grid is inlined
cell for cell, not fitted to a curve. Ours: the room-count weight guide, and nothing else.More
What we leave out, deliberately. The tariff has an origin and destination service fee that
varies by service area, a Shorthaul charge on moves of 800 miles or less, storage-in-transit, crating, debris removal, shuttle service, a
fuel surcharge, and FULL UNPACK, which the tariff bills alongside full pack and which we could not locate in the
rate workbook, so we do not estimate it. We price the two things that dominate a move, the linehaul and the packing, and we leave the
rest out rather than half-model it. That means this page UNDERSTATES the tariff, which is the direction we would
rather err in.
Why there is no federal price for a civilian move. Sector 48's Economic Census publishes no hours,
so there is no crew rate. Its product file gives forty lines for the household moving industry and not one carries
a quantity. But we are NOT offering that second fact as evidence: no service anywhere in that file carries a
quantity, so it is a property of the file rather than a fact about movers. We have made exactly that mistake before
and it is worth naming rather than repeating.
What the trade looks like. 10,223 establishments and $20.1bn of receipts. On wages we nearly made a Rule 22 error and caught it: we were about to quote BLS occupation 53-7062, "laborers and freight, stock and material movers", at $19.35 an hour, as though that were the crew carrying your sofa. That occupation holds 2.95 MILLION people and the entire household-moving industry employs 108,004, so more than 96% of it is somebody else, mostly in warehouses. An occupation code is a bucket exactly as a NAICS code is. So we use the industry's OWN payroll instead: $43,322 per employee per year, about $20.83 an hour. Same population as the receipts. And the tariff is what the government pays the COMPANY, not what the crew takes home.
The rate table is capped and we do not extrapolate past it. 1,000 to 20,000 lb, and up to 3,000
miles. Outside that the tariff has other provisions and we would be guessing.
This is a military tariff, not a civilian price list, and it is not a bound on a fair quote.More
A military move is a bulk contract with guaranteed payment from the government, and a carrier bids for that volume. Your move is not that. A civilian quote above these numbers is not thereby a rip-off, and we are not going to hand you a grievance.
The baseline is a LIST PRICE, and the discount is the reader's to set.More
Carriers bid discounts against the tariff. The 57% we default to is the figure in the tariff's own worked example. It is an illustration, NOT a published average, and we could not find a published distribution of filed discounts. Set the box to zero to see the pure baseline.
We price the linehaul and the packing, and leave the rest of the tariff out.More
The tariff also has origin and destination service fees that vary by service area, a Shorthaul charge on moves of 800 miles or less, storage-in-transit, crating, debris removal, shuttle service, a fuel surcharge, and full unpack. Every one of them is ADDITIVE, so omitting them makes this page understate the tariff, which is the direction we would rather err in. For the default move it leaves out roughly $1,800 of about $15,800.
The weight guide by room count is OURS. The tariff prices pounds, not rooms.More
A mover weighs the truck empty and weighs it loaded, and you pay on the difference. Our one-bedroom / three-bedroom / four-bedroom figures are a rough starting point and nothing more.
The grid is capped at 20,000 lb and 3,000 miles and we do not extrapolate past it.More
The tariff's own table runs to 23,500 lb and 3,800 miles, and beyond that it has other provisions. A calculator that quietly extends past its own source is inventing numbers.
Frequently asked questions
How much do movers cost?
Nobody publishes a civilian price, and we will not invent one: the Economic Census records no hours and no quantities for this trade, so there is no rate and no price per move in the federal statistics. What does exist is the rate table the US military uses, and it is complete: 54 mileage bands, 94 weight brackets, 227 service areas, packing to the cent. This calculator carries the part of it that covers a household move, up to 20,000 lb and 3,000 miles. At its baseline, a 6,000 lb move over 565 miles is $9,505 of linehaul, plus $4,523 if you want them to pack it. Then remember the baseline is a list price: in the tariff's own example the carrier had bid a 57% discount. Put your own weight and distance in above and move the discount box yourself.
What actually drives the price?
Weight, far more than distance. Doubling the miles does not double the bill; doubling the pounds comes much closer to it. And the rate per hundredweight FALLS as the shipment gets heavier, which is a genuine volume discount written into the government's grid. Packing is the other big lever: full packing a 6,000 lb house adds $4,523 at the tariff's baseline, which is nearly half again on top of the transport. If you are trying to spend less, throwing things away and packing your own boxes are the two moves that work.
My quote is much higher than this. Am I being ripped off?
Probably not, and we would rather say so than sell you a grievance. This is a government tariff for a military move: a bulk contract, guaranteed payment, and a carrier that wants the volume. Your move is a one-off with a stranger, in whatever week suits you, possibly in peak season, and a military move is booked into a season the government plans around. What the tariff gives you is not a fair-price bound. It is the shape of the thing, and a number a public body has actually committed to.
Why should I trust the numbers on this page?
Because we checked them against the tariff's own worked example, and the check FAILED the first time. The tariff prices a 6,000 lb, 565-mile move at $6,845 of base linehaul; our read of the 2026 table said $9,505. That is exactly the moment to stop. Then we saw the example's pickup date: 16 May 2017. A misread table scatters its errors, while a stale example moves every figure by the same ratio, and all four figures moved by 1.389 to 1.404. So the read is right and the example is nine years old. We have put that check on the page rather than in a drawer.
