Long distance moving

Long distance movers in Massachusetts

Roughly two thirds of Boston's leases end on 31 August, so the city runs one enormous moving day a year. If yours is on it, the plan is different, and if it is not, you have the pick of the calendar.

  • One carrier door to door
  • 7–12 days west coast lanes
  • 30 days storage included
  • USDOT 2138595 · MC-744411 checkable on FMCSA SAFER
Autumn trees framing the Boston skyline across the Charles River

Licensed interstate carrier

Our authority is public record — and so are our reviews. FMCSA register

Massachusetts DPU
licenses movers in state
West coast lanes
7–12 days driving days once loaded
Midwest lanes
3–6 days typical spread
Storage in transit
30 days included
Authority
USDOT 2138595 licensed carrier

The same window applies in both directions: a lane is as long one way as the other. Transit is driving days from the load date, not calendar days from booking, and both ends of the spread go on your bill of lading.

What changes here

What a move in or out of Massachusetts involves

We are movers, not a relocation guide, so this is the version from the truck: what actually decides a Massachusetts move, whichever way you are going.

Fallen leaves and a bench under a yellow tree in Boston's Public Garden

1,200+ city moving permits for 31 Aug–1 Sep, against about 37 on a normal day

One date, and the whole city moves on it

Boston's rental market runs on a September-to-August cycle built around the academic year, and roughly two thirds of leases in the city end on 31 August. The city has issued over 1,200 moving permits for 31 August and 1 September combined, against an average of about thirty-seven on any other day, with a record of 3,257. What that means for you is concrete: crews, trucks, permits, elevators and lifts are all competing for the same forty-eight hours, and a move booked late for that window is a move with no good options. Booked early it is an ordinary day.

The Boston skyline at sunset above the elevated highway and the bridge

A few blocks hire the whole city

Boston's Longwood Medical and Academic Area is one of the densest medical and academic districts in the country: tens of thousands of staff and students inside a few blocks, with the Kendall Square biotech cluster across the river in Cambridge. Those employers hire on the academic calendar, and that is the reason behind the 31 August date rather than any quirk of the rental market: the leases follow the hiring, not the other way round.

Boston harbour at sunrise with old pilings in the foreground

Winter storms, December to March

New England's winter, not the Atlantic season, is what moves a delivery date here. A nor'easter closes I-90 and I-95 for hours at a time and it makes curbside loading in Boston impossible until a street is cleared and the snow has somewhere to go. It is the reason a January window into Massachusetts is a spread rather than a date, and the reason we would rather load you a day early than a day late.

Boston rooftops and a ballpark from above with the skyline behind

1 metro we crew regularly

We are in the state every month

We run into Boston on a repeating basis, not on demand. That is what makes a delivery spread a spread of days rather than of weeks, and it is why we can tell you at survey which vehicle can physically reach your door.

Figures shown are ours: metros we crew, and the transit spreads our dispatch works to. Where we have no sourced number for a claim, we have not printed one.

What it costs

What it costs to move out of Massachusetts

Weight and distance set the price before anything else. On the market data below, a two-to-three-bedroom household runs $4,810 – $9,090 to California and $2,840 – $7,170 to Illinois. Ours is one number, in writing, after a survey.

Home size Typical weight To California To Illinois
Studio or 1 bed one bedroom of contents 2,000 – 3,500 lb $1,630 – $6,530 $1,330 – $5,220
2 – 3 bedrooms the most common interstate move 4,000 – 9,000 lb $4,810 – $9,090 $2,840 – $7,170
4+ bedrooms often needs a trailer to itself 10,000 – 14,000 lb $9,330 – $14,230 $4,960 – $9,420

The dollar ranges are the MARKET rate for these lanes, not our quote: Massachusetts to California and Massachusetts to Illinois. moveBuddha's monthly dataset of live quotes across vetted movers, last updated 31 August 2026, full-service movers column. Weights are the industry rule of thumb. We price your move from a survey of your actual inventory and give you one binding number.

Get a binding price

Included and extra

What your final price includes

The complaint in this industry is always the bill that grew. This is the line between included and extra, before you have to ask.

  • Included One truck, one crew The crew that loads you is the crew that unloads you.
  • Included Storage for 30 days Useful when a closing slips.
  • Included Basic cover 60 cents for every pound an item weighs.
  • Extra Full cover Pays to repair or replace what we list together.
  • Extra Packing and crates Up to 15 boxes is partial, more than that is full.
  • Extra Car shipping Open or enclosed.

How the price is built

Long distance moving routes from Massachusetts

Road distance and the transit window we plan against on the lanes we run most out of Massachusetts.

All routes

Where we crew

The Massachusetts cities we crew

We move anywhere in Massachusetts. These are the places we run often enough to know the access before we arrive; each one opens a page on what a move out of it involves.

  • The Zakim Bridge and elevated highway into Boston, traffic drawn out in light trails at dusk Boston Almost every Boston lease turns over on 1 September, so the whole city moves…

On the day

What arrives at your door in Massachusetts

Boston's constraint is where a truck can legally and physically stop. Storrow Drive and its neighbors are closed to us by clearance, many streets need a city permit, and on 1 September every legal space in the city is contested.

A mover unwrapping a framed picture on the floor beside a sofa and a stepladder
53 ft
trailer, the long haul standard
26 ft
shuttle where a trailer cannot go
7–12 days
west coast lanes
30 days
storage in transit, included

Delivery and unload. The same company that loaded you in your old state unloads you in Massachusetts: no handover to a carrier you did not choose.

How a long distance move runs

After the truck is loaded

The part most movers do not put in writing. These are your rights and our obligations on an interstate move in or out of Massachusetts, in the order they happen.

  1. You get a spread, not a date

    Your bill of lading carries a delivery window, 7–12 days in driving days on West coast lanes. A single promised date on an interstate move is a date somebody intends to miss.

  2. The driver calls ahead

    You get 24 hours of notice before delivery so somebody can be at the property. If the new place is not ready, the shipment goes into storage in transit rather than onto your driveway.

  3. Check it before you sign

    Walk the inventory against the sheet at delivery and note anything damaged on the paperwork before signing. That note is what makes a later claim straightforward instead of contested.

  4. You have nine months to claim

    Federal rules give you nine months from delivery to file a written claim on an interstate move. We acknowledge within 30 days and settle, deny or make an offer within 120.

Where to go next

Every Massachusetts move is one or more of these, and these are the two lanes we run most out of the state. Storage is included for thirty days whether you plan to use it or not.

Reviews from customers on our long-distance lanes

“I was expecting all of this to be done in two days but this was all done in 1 day.”

Moving in and out of Massachusetts: the practical part

We run into and out of Massachusetts every month, most often Boston. We run into New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania on the same crews. The move itself is the predictable part: a survey fixes the inventory and the weight, the weight and the mileage fix the price, and the price goes on the paperwork before anything is loaded.

Storrow Drive, and why your truck will not be on it

Storrow Drive, Memorial Drive and Soldiers Field Road are cars only, with bridge clearances as low as nine feet, low enough that the state hangs “CARS ONLY” signs at the height of the lowest bridge to stop people finding out the hard way. Getting wedged under one is common enough in Boston to have a local verb: storrowed. It happens to people driving rented trucks who followed a phone’s directions, and it closes a lane and makes the evening news. Our drivers run this lane routinely and route around it; we mention it because if any part of your move involves a truck you are driving yourself, this is the single most useful thing on this page.

If your date is 1 September

Book it in spring, not in August. Permits for that window go early, and the honest position on late bookings for 31 August is that we would rather tell you no than take a date we cannot run properly. If your lease allows any flexibility at all, even a few days either side, you will get a better crew, a better price and a calmer day.

The longest lane on our network starts in Boston

Boston to Los Angeles, at 2,991 miles, is the longest run we publish, and the California column above is priced like it. Chicago, at 982 miles, is a different move entirely, and the gap between the two columns at the same home size is almost all line-haul. Boston itself adds its costs through access rather than through miles, and access is settled at survey.

Off the first of September, Boston is an ordinary city to leave

The lease cliff this page opens with concentrates the city’s moving year into one weekend; the other fifty-one are ordinary. If your lease ends 31 August, book the week you sign: not four to six weeks out, earlier. If it does not, you have the run of the calendar, and a midweek, mid-month date is the cheapest way to use it.

What we need from you on the first call

Two ZIP codes, a date you are working towards, and roughly how many rooms. That is enough for a coordinator to tell you which lane you are on, what the realistic spread is, and whether anything about either address is going to need a shuttle or a permit. Everything after that is the survey.

Common questions about moving to and from Massachusetts

323-379-1382 All moving questions
How long does a move to or from Massachusetts take?

Boston to Los Angeles is 2,991 mi and runs 7–12 days once loaded; Boston to Chicago is 982 mi and 3–6 days, the same numbers as the route table on this page. A lane is as long one way as the other, so those windows hold in both directions. You get the spread in writing on the bill of lading rather than a single date we might miss.

Why is 1 September such a problem for moving in Boston?

Because most of the city moves that day. Around two thirds of Boston leases end 31 August, tied to the academic calendar, and the city has issued over 1,200 moving permits for 31 August and 1 September together against about thirty-seven on a normal day. Trucks, crews, permits and building elevators are all contested inside one forty-eight-hour window. Book in spring if your date is fixed to it, and if you have a few days of flexibility, use them.

Do you serve the whole of Massachusetts?

We deliver anywhere in Massachusetts. Boston is the metro we crew regularly: the places we know the access before we arrive. Everywhere else starts with the destination ZIP: a coordinator confirms shuttle, permit and access questions before the price is set.

What does a move out of Massachusetts cost?

Weight and mileage set the base, then access. On the market data above, a studio or one-bed to California runs $1,630 – $6,530, and a four-plus-bedroom house to Illinois runs $4,960 – $9,420. Those are third-party rates to sanity-check any estimate against, including ours. A binding price needs a survey, and anybody quoting a firm number off a phone call is guessing.

Can you store my shipment until my place is ready?

Thirty days of storage in transit is included on long distance moves, in a facility we control, going out on a date you set.

Are you a carrier or a broker?

A carrier. We hold our own operating authority, USDOT 2138595 and MC-744411, and our own crews and trucks run the move end to end. You can check both in the FMCSA SAFER database without asking us.

Moving to or from Massachusetts?

Two ZIP codes and a date. A coordinator will call you back with the lane, the spread and what the survey needs to look at.

Get a price for your move from Massachusetts

Two ZIP codes and a date is enough to start. A coordinator confirms the lane, the access at both ends and what the survey needs to look at before anything is booked.