How to start a moving company in Illinois: the ICC license, the hearing, what it costs, and what to do this week

Illinois licenses movers through the Illinois Commerce Commission, and it is one of the few states that makes you prove a public need at a hearing, pass a written exam and file a rate tariff before the first paid move. What the license costs, the insurance it requires, the rules on estimates and liability, and the work you can take before any of it.

Illinois is a big moving market with one of the most formal licensing processes in the country. Most states hand you a certificate when the paperwork and insurance are in order. Illinois makes you publish a notice, appear at a hearing, pass a written exam and show there is a public need for one more mover before it issues a license at all.

That sounds like a wall. It is more like a gate with a line in front of it, and the line keeps the market from filling up with unlicensed pickups, which is good news for anyone who gets through. This is the order we would do it in. We run a licensed carrier in New York, not Illinois, so read the Illinois Commerce Commission's own applicant handbook before you take a job that needs the license, and call them when a page is unclear. They answer this question every week.

What needs the license and what does not

The Illinois Commerce Commission (the ICC, not to be confused with the old federal one) licenses anyone doing "the transportation of household property on a for-hire basis" between points in Illinois. The trigger is transport: your vehicle, their belongings, money changing hands. Vehicle size does not matter, and the consumer guide the ICC publishes tells customers that hiring an unlicensed mover is against the law for them too.

• A paid move in any vehicle you drive, pickup or 26-foot box truck: ICC household goods license required.
• Labor-only work, loading or unloading a truck, trailer or container the customer rented: you are not transporting anything, so the household goods license is about the vehicle you do not have. This is the work to start with. Confirm with the ICC that your exact setup is outside the license, then take the job. How to price it and find the first customers.
• In-home moves, room to room or floor to floor: no transport, same answer.
• Moves that cross a state line, including the Chicago-to-Indiana and Chicago-to-Wisconsin runs that make up a lot of the city's work: 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 Illinois it matters twice, because the license takes months and the application asks for a financial statement. Real jobs on the books are the best evidence you can bring.

Step one, before the ICC: a USDOT number

The application asks whether you have a USDOT number and, if you do, for your federal safety profile. 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. The ICC says the same thing about its own forms: file through its portal or download them, and ignore the third-party sites that charge to do it for you.

Step two: the ICC household goods license

This is where Illinois is different from almost everywhere else. The application, form HHG-1, is not a registration. It is a petition, and the Commission has to find three things before it grants it: that you are fit, that there is a public need for your service, and that licensing you serves the public convenience and necessity.

What that looks like in practice:

1. The application and fee. A non-refundable $900, by check or money order, with the completed form. The form asks for your business structure, your vehicles, your safety program, any convictions or past violations, whether you have ever moved household goods without authority, and a financial statement: a balance sheet plus a projected income statement for the first year. A real accountant's statement can substitute. You will be asked at the hearing to explain where the projections came from.
2. The published notice. Once the application is accepted, the Commission sends you forms to publish notice of it one time in the official state newspaper, and it can require more.
3. The hearing. An oral hearing is required by statute on every household goods application. This is the part people do not expect. If you apply as anything other than a sole proprietorship, you need an attorney to represent you at it, so budget for one. This is also where the "public need" standard lives: the Commission considers demographic statistics and whatever evidence you bring. The labor-only jobs you already did, the calls you turned away because you had no truck, and the counties you intend to serve are the kind of evidence that answers the question.
4. The exam and the seminar. Part of proving you are fit is attending a Commission-approved seminar on its regulations and scoring 75 percent or better on the Commission's written exam about the rules. The applicant handbook is the study guide, and it is a plain-English document. Read it twice.
5. Temporary authority. If the Commission finds need and fitness, it issues a temporary certificate. You then have 60 days to file your tariff, proof of liability, cargo and workers' comp insurance, and the per-truck franchise fees. Miss the 60 days and the order is vacated and the application dismissed.
6. The audit. You can run on temporary authority for up to a year. During that year the Commission audits you: insurance, claims and complaints, estimates, bills of lading, inventories, truck markings, advertising and tariffs. Pass and you move toward a permanent certificate. Fail on something substantial and you have 30 days to ask for a six-month extension, a hearing, or both.

Plan on months, not weeks, from filing to the first legal move. Nothing in that sequence is fast, and nothing in it is hidden either. The handbook tells you what the exam covers and what the audit checks, which is more than most states give you.

What it costs, as of the ICC forms current at this writing:

• Application: $900, non-refundable
• An attorney for the hearing, if you are an LLC or corporation: your quote, not theirs
• Franchise fees per truck under temporary authority, and cab cards for each vehicle every year after, bought by December 31
• An annual report to the Commission by May 15

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

The insurance the ICC requires

Illinois sets its floors higher than most states, which tells you something about how it views the business.

• Public liability and property damage: $750,000 minimum. That is two and a half times what Texas asks and the same figure the federal government asks of interstate movers. Your insurer files proof directly with the Commission.
• Cargo: $10,000 minimum, filed on the Commission's Form H. A carrier that promises in a sworn affidavit never to carry more than $5,000 of goods in a vehicle can skip the cargo filing. Do not do that. A single two-bedroom load is worth far more than $5,000 to the family that owns it, and the affidavit is a promise you would break on your first real job.
• Workers' compensation, with the policy or a certificate on file with the Commission. Illinois requires it the day you have one employee, even part time, even a relative. The fine for knowingly going without is up to $500 a day with a $10,000 minimum, and officers can be charged with a misdemeanor.

The handbook adds one line worth underlining: if your insurance or your tariff lapses, you stop operating immediately, with no hearing, until it is back in force. What moving insurance actually covers and what we carry.

The tariff: Illinois makes you publish your prices

Every licensed Illinois mover files a tariff, a list of every service and its price, and the tariff is public. A customer can ask to see the page at your office or call the Commission to confirm it is on file. You may not provide a service that is not in it, may not charge more or less than it says, and may not discount unless the discount itself is in the tariff. Changes take 15 days' notice.

Three rules shape how an Illinois moving company prices:

Hourly rates are allowed only locally. Moves of 50 miles or less, or moves that begin and end within Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, can be priced by the hour. Everything longer is priced by weight and distance, in cents per hundred pounds, with the truck weighed empty and loaded on a certified scale. For a new local mover that is fine: price hourly, publish the rate, and say it plainly on the phone.

The rate-exempt zone. A move that stays inside a single municipality plus ten air miles around it, outside Cook County and the other counties over a million people, is "rate exempt." You do not have to follow your tariff's rates on it, but you still need the license and you still follow every other rule in the tariff. Inside Cook County, every move is governed by the tariff. Most downstate towns are rate-exempt for local work; most of Chicago is not.

Minimum charges have to be disclosed in advance, in writing. You can set a minimum. You cannot collect it from a customer who was not told about it before the job. Our three-hour minimum is on our homepage for exactly this reason.

Note the pattern. Published rates, a written minimum, and no surprise line items are the whole reason our company grew. In Illinois they are the law, which makes it easier to compete against the guy with an unmarked truck and a Facebook page.

What every Illinois move has to include

The ICC's rules for the job itself are the same habits that make a customer trust you anyway. The audit during your temporary year checks all of them.

1. A free written estimate before the move, on a Commission-approved form headed "Estimate of Charges," signed by you and handed to the customer before the truck is loaded. For an hourly job it shows the crew, the equipment, the hourly rate and the estimated hours including travel time. Estimates can be based on an in-person or virtual walkthrough or on the customer's description, but a description given by phone has to be confirmed in writing before the job. How we run that walkthrough and say the number.
2. The 110 percent rule. An estimate is not binding, but it has teeth. If the final bill exceeds the estimate by more than 10 percent, the customer is entitled to 30 days to pay the part above 110 percent, and you have to tell them so. Skip the written estimate entirely and the customer gets 30 days' credit on the whole bill.
3. A numbered bill of lading, which is the contract, with the agreed dates, the crew and rate, the start and end times for loading and unloading, every accessorial charge, and a liability statement.
4. Valuation in writing. Your base rates assume liability of 60 cents per pound per article. The customer picks that or declares a lump sum, initials the choice on the bill of lading, and pays the valuation charge if they chose the lump sum. No initials and no payment means 60 cents a pound. How we handle the deposit and the agreement.
5. Your legal name and ICC license number on the truck and in every ad, including the website.
6. Claims: acknowledge in writing within 30 days, resolve overcharge claims within 60 days and loss or damage claims within 120.

The business side

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

• An LLC, filed with the Illinois Secretary of State for $150, with a $75 annual report after that. Form it when the first few labor-only jobs have paid for it. Remember the hearing rule: an LLC needs a lawyer in the room, a sole proprietor does not. We would still form the LLC. A few hundred dollars of attorney time is cheap next to personal liability for a truck.
• An EIN from the IRS, free, the same day.
• General liability insurance before the first job with furniture in it, and workers' comp the day you have an employee, which in Illinois is also a license condition.
• A safety, training and maintenance program on paper. The fitness standard asks for it. A two-page document that says how you train a new helper, how you inspect the truck and who checks the straps is enough to start, and it is a document you should have anyway. 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 USDOT number, the LLC, general liability.
3. When you can show a year of projected income with a straight face: the ICC application, the published notice, the seminar and the exam, the hearing. Keep doing labor-only jobs while it runs, because the wait is months and the jobs are evidence of public need.
4. Within 60 days of temporary authority: the tariff, the Form H cargo filing, the $750,000 liability filing, workers' comp on file, franchise fees, the name and license number on the truck.
5. Before the first employee: workers' comp, which you will already have because the Commission asked for it first.
6. Before the first job into Indiana or Wisconsin: 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, Ohio, Georgia, 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 Illinois Commerce Commission's Applicant's Handbook for Household Goods Moving Service, its HHG-1 application form and its consumer guide, as published on icc.illinois.gov in October 2026, and from 92 Ill. Adm. Code 1457. Check the ICC's household goods page before you file, because fees change and this page will not always catch it.