How to start a moving company in Georgia: the DPS household goods certificate, the maximum rate tariff, what it costs, and what to do this week

Georgia licenses movers through the Department of Public Safety and publishes the maximum rate every mover may charge. What the household goods certificate costs, the insurance it requires, the state's hourly ceilings and minimums, the paperwork every Georgia move needs, and the work you can take before any of it.

Georgia is a big moving market with a license that runs through the state police. The Department of Public Safety's Motor Carrier Compliance Division took over from the Public Service Commission in 2012, and it does two things most states do not: it publishes the maximum rate every mover may charge, and it issues a new company an interim certificate for a year before it audits the books and makes it permanent.

Neither is a wall. The application is under $100, the interim certificate arrives in six to eight weeks, and the published ceiling means the customer already knows what a fair quote looks like. This is the order we would do it in. We run a licensed carrier in New York, not Georgia, so read the Department's application form and the tariff yourself before you take a job that needs the certificate, and call the household goods section when a page is unclear. They answer this question every week.

What needs the certificate and what does not

Georgia requires a household goods carrier certificate before anyone operates as, or holds itself out to be, a mover of household goods between two points in the state. The trigger is transport for compensation: your vehicle, their belongings, money changing hands. There is no vehicle-size exception, and the Department's FAQ closes one door other states leave open: if you supply the driver, you need the certificate even when the customer supplied the truck.

• A paid move in any vehicle you drive, pickup or 26-foot box truck: certificate required. Operating without one is a civil fine of up to $5,000 per violation plus the cost of the investigation, and advertising without one is a misdemeanor.
• Driving a truck the customer rented: certificate required, since 2013.
• Labor-only work, loading or unloading a truck, trailer or container the customer rented, with nobody from your crew behind the wheel: the certificate attaches to operating a motor vehicle for hire, and you are not. The Department publishes nothing on it either way, and its tariff mentions carriers that provide only ancillary services, so confirm your exact setup with the household goods section before the first job. How to price it and find the first customers.
• In-home moves, room to room or floor to floor: no transport, same answer.
• Office moves: no certificate, only the intrastate vehicle registration below.
• Moves that cross a state line, into Florida, Alabama, Tennessee or the Carolinas: federal rules apply on top. The USDOT number and federal authority are covered here.

Labor-only is how we tell everyone to start, in any state, because it needs no truck and no permit and it pays the same hourly rate. In Georgia it matters twice, because the application asks for a financial statement and a $50,000 minimum net worth, and the interim year ends with an audit of your actual service need. Real jobs on the books are the evidence for both.

Step one, before the Department: a USDOT number

Georgia requires a USDOT number for intrastate carriers with any vehicle over 10,001 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, which is every box truck, and the application has a field for it. The number is free from the FMCSA and takes about ten minutes online. When it asks about your operation, choose intrastate, not interstate. Choosing interstate signs you up for federal filings you do not need yet.

Do not pay anyone to get this number for you. The sites that charge $100 to $300 for it are filling in the same free form.

Step two: the household goods certificate

The formal name is a Class B household goods certificate. A new applicant gets an interim certificate good for twelve months, and the Department converts it to a permanent one based on actual performance. The application is online through the Department's household goods portal, or on the notarized paper form TR0006.

What it looks like in practice:

1. The application and fee. $90 for a company with fewer than six vehicles, $165 for six to fifteen, $215 above that, non-refundable and by certified funds only. The statute's fee is $75, $150 and $200; the extra $15 is the hearing advertisement fee the Department collects with it. The form wants a consent to a background investigation and a certified three-year driving record for every owner and officer, a statewide criminal history check for each, a past business practice disclosure, the articles and certificate from the Secretary of State if you are an LLC, a list of vehicles with VINs and their latest inspection, a list of drivers, and a financial statement.
2. The net worth test. The rules require a minimum net worth of $50,000, and the form says personal assets may be counted.
3. The training class. Every applicant attends and completes a Department class on Georgia's laws and the Department's rules. The Department schedules it after it receives the application. There is no exam beyond the class.
4. The notice and protest window. The Department posts the pending application on its website for ten days. A written protest, which for household goods has to come from another motor carrier, triggers a hearing within 90 days, with you there in person. No protest and the certificate can issue without one.
5. The insurance filings, below, due within 90 days of the Department accepting the application. Nothing issues without them.
6. The interim certificate, usually six to eight weeks after a complete application. You cannot operate until it is in hand.
7. The audit. Before the twelve months are up, the Department reviews your records for actual service need and rule compliance, then converts the certificate, extends the interim period by up to a year, or lets it lapse. It has to tell you which at least ten days before the interim certificate expires.

An incomplete application gets 90 days to be finished. A denied applicant waits 90 days to try again.

What it costs, from the Department's form and fee pages current at this writing:

• Application: $90, one time, for fewer than six vehicles
• Intrastate vehicle registration under the Georgia Intrastate Motor Carrier program, every year: $5 per vehicle for a new applicant or before January 1, $25 per vehicle after, with a safety seminar within the previous twelve months
• Annual renewal fee for the certificate itself: none published

That is before insurance, and the insurance is the bigger number.

The insurance the Department requires

• Auto liability: $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $50,000 property damage. Your insurer files a Form E with the Department.
• Cargo: $25,000 for the goods on any one vehicle and $50,000 aggregate at one time and place, filed on Form H. That is five times the Texas minimum, and still less than a two-bedroom house is worth to the family that owns it.

The policy has to be solely in the applicant's name with a Georgia-licensed insurer, and a lapse voids the certificate automatically. No bond is required. What moving insurance actually covers and what we carry.

The tariff: Georgia sets your ceiling

You file no tariff in Georgia. The Department publishes one, Maximum Rate Tariff No. 7, effective January 13, 2026, and every mover charges from it. You may charge less. You may not exceed any rate in it, and you may not bill for any transportation or service it does not list.

Local moves are hourly. A move of 50 miles or less is billed by the hour, van and crew together, in regular hours on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.:

• Van and 2 men: $196.93 an hour
• 3 men: $253.90
• 4 men: $312.11
• 5 men: $369.08
• Each additional man: $56.97. An additional van and driver: $139.95.

Weekends and five holidays are overtime, $246.47 for a van and two men up to $486.74 for five, and only with the customer's prior written consent. Billing is by the quarter hour. The tariff sets the minimum too: two hours on weekdays, three on weekends and holidays. Travel time is up to one hour at the hourly rate.

For comparison, our two-mover rate at home is $200 an hour with a three-hour minimum. In Georgia that rate is a few dollars over the ceiling and that minimum is one hour over the tariff's on a weekday. Price at the maximum, publish it, and say it plainly on the phone. The customer who read the Moving Guide already knows the number.

Longer moves are by weight and distance, from the tariff's tables, with a fuel surcharge of no more than $1.51 per mile per vehicle on those moves only.

One thing to watch: a bill in the General Assembly, HB 204, would repeal the Department's power to set rates. As of this writing it has cleared a House committee and gone no further. If it passes, the ceiling goes away and the rest of the rules stay.

Published rates, a written minimum, and no surprise line items are the whole reason our company grew. In Georgia the state publishes the ceiling for you, which makes it easier to compete against the guy whose ad has no certificate number on it.

What every Georgia move has to include

The Department writes the forms, and its rules are the same habits that make a customer trust you anyway.

1. The Moving Guide, the Department's consumer booklet, handed to every customer as soon as reasonably possible after they contact you and before any charge, with their written acknowledgment that they got it. Keep proof. Without it the Department assumes you did not comply.
2. An estimate on the Department's form, if you give one. Estimates are optional in Georgia, which is unusual. If you give one it goes on the Uniform Estimated Cost of Services form, marked binding or non-binding. A non-binding estimate has teeth: on payment of no more than 110 percent of it you deliver, and the balance waits 30 days. A binding one caps the bill at the estimate. We would give one on every job. How we run that walkthrough and say the number.
3. The Uniform Household Goods Bill of Lading and Addendum, reviewed and signed before the work starts, copy to the customer, with your name, address, phone, email and certificate number, the addresses and dates, and every charge. On an hourly job it shows the start and stop times, the number of crew and vehicles, the hours and the rate. Without a bill of lading you have no right to withhold delivery.
4. Valuation in writing on the addendum, chosen before pickup. Released value at 60 cents per pound per article, free, or full value protection at $15.73 per $1,000 declared with no deductible, or $5.17 per $1,000 with a $300 deductible. You may require a declared value of at least $5,000 per room. No signed choice means full value protection at no charge, and waiver or release forms are prohibited outright. How we handle the deposit and the agreement.
5. No hostage loads. You may require payment before delivery and may store the goods if the customer does not pay. You may not refuse to finish delivery over charges that were not on the bill of lading, and a disclaimer that charges may rise does not excuse you. Deposits are allowed.
6. Your name and USDOT number on both sides of every truck, legible at 50 feet, and the cubic feet of storage space in the truck, also on both sides. Your name as it appears on the certificate, your physical address, phone and certificate number in every ad.
7. Claims in writing within 90 days of delivery, resolved within 90 days where feasible. You are liable for damage to the dwelling regardless of the valuation chosen, and not for articles worth more than $100 a pound unless they are listed on the bill of lading.

The business side

The certificate is not a business. Before the first full move you also want:

• An LLC, filed with the Georgia Secretary of State for $110, which is the $100 fee plus a $10 service charge, with a $60 annual registration due between January 1 and April 1 each year. Form it when the first few labor-only jobs have paid for it, because the Department wants the articles with the application.
• An EIN from the IRS, free, the same day.
• General liability insurance before the first job with furniture in it.
• Workers' comp the day you have an employee. Georgia's law requires it at three or more employees, part time included, and the application asks you to acknowledge the obligation. We would buy it at one. Why, from a company that has filed a claim, and what to set up before anyone starts.

The order we would do it in

1. This week: labor-only and in-home jobs, with a phone line, a Google Business Profile and a Craigslist post. The first job, step by step.
2. When the first jobs have paid for it: the LLC, the USDOT number, general liability.
3. When the financial statement shows $50,000 and the jobs show a need: the application, the background checks and driving records, the class, the ten-day notice, the Form E and Form H filings, the vehicle registration and its safety seminar. Keep doing labor-only jobs while it runs.
4. Before the first move under the interim certificate: the name, USDOT number and cubic feet on the truck, the Moving Guide printed, the bill of lading and addendum forms in the cab, your rates set at or under the tariff.
5. Before the first employee: workers' comp.
6. Before month twelve: records in order for the audit.
7. Before the first job into Florida, Alabama, Tennessee or the Carolinas: federal household goods authority.

Every step is paid for by the jobs before it. The full version of that order, with the numbers. The same guide exists for Texas, Florida, California, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona and Washington. If your situation does not fit these rows, bring it to the strategy call, and every term above is defined in the glossary.

Figures in this post come from the Georgia Department of Public Safety's household goods application form TR0006 and FAQ as published on gamccd.net in October 2026; Chapter 570-38 of the Department's rules, dated January 2020; Maximum Rate Tariff No. 7, published December 12, 2025 and effective January 13, 2026; the 2026 Moving Guide and the 2026 intrastate motor carrier registration form; O.C.G.A. sections 40-1-100 through 40-1-129; the State Board of Workers' Compensation's employer page; and the Secretary of State's filing fee schedule effective September 6, 2025. Check the Department's household goods page before you file, because the tariff is reissued and this page will not always catch it.