How to Hire a Moving Company You Can Trust

Any move that crosses a state line falls under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), part of the US Department of Transportation. A legitimate interstate mover operates under a registered USDOT number, and you can look that number up for free at FMCSA’s Protect Your Move site before you sign anything — it shows registration status, whether the entity is registered as a carrier, broker, or freight forwarder, complaint history, and safety record. It’s worth being clear about what this tool can and can’t do: FMCSA can investigate patterns and revoke registrations, but it doesn’t resolve individual disputes between you and a mover — that distinction matters later in this guide.

Before an interstate move, a mover is required by federal regulation to provide you with “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move,” a consumer-protection booklet codified at 49 CFR Appendix A to Part 375. If a mover skips this, hurries past it, or can’t produce it, that alone is worth treating as a warning sign — it isn’t an optional courtesy document, it’s a federally mandated one.

A binding estimate (governed by 49 CFR 375.403) is a signed, written agreement guaranteeing the total charge won’t exceed the quoted price at delivery — a mover can only add a surcharge for extra services requested after the fact, and even then it’s capped at 15% of the original charges, not an open-ended add-on. A non-binding estimate (375.405) isn’t guaranteed the same way, but the mover still can’t demand more than 110% of the original estimate at delivery — with any balance above that billable up to 30 days later, not on the spot. Either way, the estimate has to be in writing; a phone-only, no-visit guess is not a legitimate estimate under either standard.

Not everyone you get a quote from actually owns a truck. A motor carrier performs the move itself; a broker doesn’t — it arranges for a separate, registered carrier to do the physical move on its behalf. Brokers are required to register separately with FMCSA under their own broker authority, and to disclose their broker status in writing rather than presenting themselves as the mover. This isn’t a minor technicality: a large share of moving complaints trace back to a booking made with what looked like “the mover,” only for the job to be resold to an unfamiliar, sometimes unvetted carrier who shows up on moving day with different terms. The same Protect Your Move lookup that verifies a carrier’s USDOT number will also tell you whether an entity is registered as a carrier, a broker, or both — worth checking before you assume who’s actually going to be loading your truck.

Interstate movers are required to offer two different coverage options for your belongings, and the difference between them is bigger than most people expect. Released Value Protection is included at no extra charge, but it pays out only 60 cents per pound per item — a 25-pound television is worth $15 under this coverage regardless of what you paid for it. Full Value Protection costs more but requires the mover to repair the item, replace it, or settle in cash at its actual replacement value; movers can apply a deductible and may cap per-item liability around $100 per pound for particularly high-value items unless you specifically declare them in writing beforehand (jewelry, art, electronics). “Released” refers to what the mover is released from, not what happens to your possessions — it’s the name that trips people up most, since it sounds protective and pays out the least.

Federal and consumer-protection guidance from the Federal Trade Commission and the DOT’s Office of Inspector General converges on the same handful of warning signs: don’t sign paperwork with blank fields, verify DOT registration (and whether you’re dealing with a carrier or a broker) before you commit, and insist on an in-person or video survey of your belongings before accepting a quote — a mover willing to quote a full house move over the phone with no visual reference is quoting a number they don’t intend to honor. Be especially cautious of a large cash deposit demanded upfront: there’s no federal rule capping deposits for interstate movers the way there is for delivery-time charges, so a big deposit is a behavioral red flag rather than something the law limits for you.

A related, more severe pattern sometimes called a “hostage load” in press and law-enforcement reporting is a mover loading your belongings, then refusing to unload them at your new address until you pay significantly more than agreed. The DOT’s own Office of Inspector General describes the underlying tactic directly: movers “deliberately providing a ‘low-ball’ estimate to lure customers and then withholding or threatening to withhold the customers’ household goods unless they pay significantly more than the quoted price.” It’s exactly why getting a binding estimate, confirming registration before the truck is loaded, and knowing which coverage option you actually chose, is worth the extra ten minutes.

If something is lost or damaged, you generally have up to 9 months from delivery to file a written claim. Once you do, federal rules set a real, enforceable timeline the mover has to follow: it must acknowledge your claim in writing within 30 days, and pay it, deny it, or make a firm written settlement offer within 120 days of receiving it — with a status update at least every 60 days after that if it’s still open. Knowing these numbers in advance is useful precisely because the process otherwise feels open-ended: a mover that goes quiet for months is already outside its own legal deadlines, not just being slow.

1. 1

   File your claim

   In writing, within 9 months of delivery.

2. 2

   Mover acknowledges it

   Required in writing within 30 days of receiving your claim.

3. 3

   Mover resolves it

   Must pay, deny, or make a firm written settlement offer within 120 days.

4. 4

   If still unresolved

   The mover owes you a status update at least every 60 days after that.

Everything above covers interstate moves specifically — FMCSA has no jurisdiction over a move that stays inside a single state, which is instead regulated, unevenly, at the state level. California is a clear example: in-state movers are licensed through the Bureau of Household Goods and Services, which requires movers to state a “not to exceed” maximum charge in writing and carry at least $20,000 in cargo liability insurance, and runs its own license-lookup tool. Other states vary widely — some run comparable licensing programs through their own transportation or consumer-affairs departments and set their own specific consumer protections (including, in some states, deposit limits for local movers), while others have no dedicated body at all. It’s worth a two-minute search for “[your state] moving company license” before assuming FMCSA’s tools cover a purely local or in-state move, because they don’t.

As part of your pre-move paperwork, an interstate mover is required (under 49 CFR 375.211, implementing 49 U.S.C. §14708) to offer you access to an arbitration program — a formal dispute process with capped costs and a required decision within 60 days, that exists specifically because FMCSA itself doesn’t adjudicate individual claims. You can also file a complaint through FMCSA’s National Consumer Complaint Database, which feeds into the patterns regulators use to investigate and shut down repeat offenders — but for getting your own money or belongings back, arbitration or small-claims court is the actual mechanism, not a regulator stepping in on your behalf.

There’s no single federally mandated list of banned household items — each mover sets its own “non-allowable items” policy in its own paperwork, so it’s worth actually reading that section rather than assuming every mover follows the same rules. What is genuinely federal is hazardous materials law: flammables, compressed gas, corrosives, and explosives are restricted under the DOT’s Hazardous Materials Regulations (49 CFR Parts 171–180), which is why propane tanks, gasoline, and some aerosols routinely can’t travel on a moving truck without special certification the mover likely doesn’t hold. Perishables, plants, and pets are typically excluded by individual company policy and practicality rather than by any federal rule — two different reasons that get lumped together in most “items movers won’t take” lists online.

Industry norm — not a federal or state rule

Two questions come up constantly that have nothing to do with federal regulation. Tipping movers isn’t governed by any law — the widely cited convention is roughly $4–$5 per mover per hour, or a flat amount in the $20–$40 range per mover on smaller local jobs, more for a demanding or long-distance move, based purely on common industry practice rather than any official guidance. Booking timing follows a similar pattern: movers themselves widely report that end-of-month, summer months (May–September), and weekend slots are higher-demand and higher-priced, and that booking four to eight weeks ahead (longer for a summer move) tends to get better availability and pricing. Both are genuinely useful things to know — just worth knowing they’re market convention, not something written into federal or state law the way the estimate and valuation rules above are.

An estimated 7.7 million Americans made an interstate move in 2023 — about 2.3% of the population — out of roughly 41 million people who moved in any capacity that year, per the most recent detailed US Census Bureau American Community Survey breakdown available at the time of writing. Separately, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies has reported that overall household mobility hit a record low in 2024, so treat the 41 million figure as a snapshot of a declining trend rather than a current-year count. Reported cost ranges vary enormously by distance and volume of belongings — commonly cited estimates put a local move anywhere from roughly $300 to $3,500, and a long-distance move from roughly $2,500 to well over $11,000 — though these are directional industry estimates rather than an official government figure, and your own in-home or video survey is what actually determines your real number.