The Haulest Moving Index 2026

Key findings

The interstate median is $4,500 on 2,512 reviews with both ends named, set against $4,700 in the previous window.

Prices held flat. The interstate median is $4,500 on 2,512 reviews with both ends named, set against $4,700 in the previous window. Same-state moves sit at $1,520 on 618 reviews, set against $1,700. The middle half of interstate bills runs $3,337 to $6,000. That dip is small next to the spread inside a single year, and it describes people who chose to post a price, not every household that hired a truck. A blank price never enters the median. For the same cut by distance, use the moving cost pages.

Size moves the bill more than the calendar. An interstate one-bedroom median is $2,900, a two-bedroom is $4,200, a three-bedroom is $5,477, and a four-bedroom is $6,445. The step from one bedroom to four dwarfs the move from $4,700 to $4,500. Review posts still cluster in Sep, Aug, Jul, so the busy months are a volume fact. They are not, in this file, a second price list. Check the peak season calculator when the question is whether crews are scarce.

The Sun Belt pull is real and partial. In the 2024 ACS, Texas gained +72,680 people on net and California lost −254,332. The largest single flow was California to Texas at 77,161 people. Net migration is a different count from review volume. The busiest priced lane in our file is California to Florida at a median of $4,588 across 65 reviews. A state can add residents and still not be the pair reviewers wrote about most. Open the California to Texas route when you want the flow and the bills together.

Living costs and moving bills do not line up. BEA price parities for 2024 put California at 110.7 and Arkansas at 86.9, with the United States set at one hundred. A parity prices a broad basket of household spending. It does not price a van, stairs, or a long carry. A state can be expensive to live in and still be the largest source of net out-migration. Leaving a high-parity state does not guarantee a cheap haul, which is why origin medians and parities stay in separate sections.

A low rating lines up with a higher bill. Reviews that describe a bill above the quote are 4.9% of the window. Reviews that mention damage are 22.5%, and the one- or two-star share is 22.5%. Matching shares are not the same reviews. The median inside one- and two-star reviews is $5,000, against $4,000 in four- and five-star reviews. In this file, a rough move tends to cost more, not less. The scam guide is the right next read when the low price is the thing that feels off.

What people paid

The tables under this section carry the full cut by year and by size, so this prose does not reprint them.

Compare years with the median, then stop. Interstate reviews in the current window center on $4,500 from 2,512 priced jobs, against $4,700 in the previous window. Same-state jobs center on $1,520 from 618 reviews, against $1,700. Those two products stay split on purpose. A cross-town job and a long-distance move do not belong in one headline number. The cost calculator is what you want once the inventory is known. This page is what you want when the question is where the market sat for people who published a price.

Bedroom count is the cleanest split on the page. One bedroom interstate sits at $2,900, two at $4,200, three at $5,477, and four at $6,445. A size median is published only with at least ten priced reviews behind it, so a thin cell stays blank. Origin adds a second cut the year table cannot show. Louisiana is the most expensive origin state at $4,762, and Oregon is the cheapest at $2,500. When the pair of states matters more than the national line, start from the route index.

Lane medians follow the pairs people actually reviewed. The highest-volume lane is California to Florida, at a median of $4,588 on 65 reviews. That sample is large enough to print and still small beside a Census flow of people. The tables under this section carry the full cut by year and by size, so this prose does not reprint them. Download the priced review CSV if you need a lane we did not name. Recompute it with the same filters, or the number will not match the page.

When people move

A quiet month on the table is not a coupon.

Review posts peak in late summer. Over the last three years the busiest months are Sep, Aug, Jul. That order is about when a priced review went up, which can lag the day the truck left. A quiet month on the table is not a coupon. It means fewer people wrote about a move, and sometimes fewer crews were on the road. If you are booking into that cluster, use the peak season calculator. The desk reads the price field on every review, which is less glamorous than it sounds.

Home sales barely moved, and people still changed states. Redfin counts 5,058,987 homes sold in the twelve months to 1 May 2026, a change of 0.2% against the prior twelve months. The peak month in that series is Jun and the low month is Jan. A sale, a lease, and a move-in with family can all change an address, and only some of those paths hire a mover. Flat turnover beside a large interstate person count is a real disagreement between sources. Keep both numbers.

Where people moved

Everyone is not leaving for Texas.

The net is lopsided, and the unit is a person. The 2024 ACS records 7,129,487 interstate movers. Texas leads the gains at +72,680. California leads the losses at −254,332. The biggest single flow is California to Texas with 77,161 people. Children and housemates are in that total even when they never signed a bill of lading. Do not divide people by a guessed household size and call the result van demand. For bills on that flow, use the California to Texas route.

One large flow is not the whole map. California to Texas leads the ACS state-to-state list, and plenty of other corridors still move large crowds. The New York to Florida route is the other pair readers hold up, mostly because van-line reports have talked about Florida for years. Those reports rank one company's customers. One-way truck rankings follow rentals. This index puts the Census flow beside the review median instead of pretending either list is the country. Company files are useful. They are not the market.

A small net can flip inside the margin of error. The ACS publishes a margin of error on flows and on net migration. A rank near the middle can change places inside that band, so a small net is a lean, not a verdict. The loss from California and the gain for Texas are too large for the sampling band to swallow. Everyone is not leaving for Texas. Texas is the biggest net gainer, and most interstate movers in 2024 went somewhere else. Pairs live on the state route list.

What it costs to live there

A price parity is a cost basket, not a quote.

A price parity is a cost basket, not a quote. For 2024, California stands at 110.7 and Arkansas stands at 86.9. The United States is the baseline at one hundred. Above that baseline, the basket costs more. Below it, the basket costs less. Housing, goods, and other services are mixed together. A moving bill can run the other way if the haul is long, the building has stairs, or the load date falls in Sep, Aug, Jul. Read the parity as the cost of staying, not the cost of the truck.

Do not subtract two parities and call the difference savings. A household leaving California for Arkansas is changing price levels, and the truck is a one-time bill on top of that change. The interstate median of $4,500 does not shrink because the destination basket is cheaper. Origin still shows up in the review file. Louisiana carries the highest origin median at $4,762, and Oregon carries the lowest at $2,500. Use the parity for the destination. Use the moving cost pages for the haul.

What goes wrong

A painful move here tends to be the pricier one.

An overage is the exception in this window. The share of reviews that describe a bill above the quote is 4.9%. Everyone else came in at the quote, under it, or never said. Silence is not proof the quote held. The 110 percent rule is the federal cap on how far a non-binding estimate can grow before the mover still has to deliver. A deposit fight is a separate mess. Read the deposit guide before you send a large share of the job to a company you have not checked.

Damage mentions and low stars land on the same share. Damage shows up in 22.5% of reviews, and one- or two-star ratings are 22.5%. Equal shares can be the same people or two crowds of the same size, and this file cannot say which. There is no survey behind the index, and none is implied. The median on low-star reviews is $5,000, against $4,000 on four- and five-star reviews. A painful move here tends to be the pricier one. The scam guide covers outright fraud.

Method and sources

Haulest is not a carrier, and this index is not a bid.

Both states have to be named, and the price has to be plausible. The window runs from 1 Jan 2025 through 21 Sept 2026, the date the review file was current. Kept prices fall from $100 to $60,000. Inside those filters the count is 3,130. The previous window is the prior calendar year of reviews, the base for $4,700 and $1,700. A review missing a state, or a price outside the band, never reaches a median. The same rules apply every quarter, so a later update does not quietly change the definition.

Thin slices stay blank. A size median needs at least ten priced reviews, and a lane median needs at least twenty. Below that line, one unusual invoice can swing the middle, so we publish nothing rather than a fragile figure. The index updates each quarter as new priced reviews enter. The full filter list, including how lanes are named, is on the methodology page. Haulest is not a carrier, and this index is not a bid.

Four public questions, four sources. Review prices say what writers paid. The 2024 Census says where 7,129,487 people moved. BEA parities for 2024 say what the local basket costs. Redfin counts 5,058,987 homes sold through 1 May 2026, a change of 0.2%. The sources agree on a warm-season rush and on a large flow along California to Texas. They part ways if one of them is treated as the price of moving in America. Cite the page, or take the CSV extract. Interviews start at press. Company lookup starts at movers.