Everything people ask us about getting into the moving business.

It depends on what you move and where. Moving household goods across state lines requires federal operating authority from the FMCSA and a USDOT number, full stop. Moving them within one state is regulated by that state: many, including New York, require a household goods permit from the state transportation department, some require nothing, and a few have their own insurance minimums. Labor-only work, loading and unloading a truck the customer rented, is usually outside those rules, which is why it is the first job most people can take this week. Search your state's name plus "household goods mover permit" and read the actual page, not a forum.

Before you take a full-house move, yes. Before you carry a box for $75, no. An LLC separates your personal assets from the business, which matters the first time a customer's antique breaks or someone slips on a ramp. It costs somewhere between $50 and $500 depending on the state, takes a week or two, and you can file it yourself without paying a service. Get the EIN from the IRS the same day, free, so the bank account and the insurance are in the company's name from the start.

Three kinds, in this order. General liability covers damage to the customer's home and injuries to the customer, and it is the one every landlord, building and Google LSA will ask for a certificate of. Cargo coverage covers the customer's belongings while you have them, and your state permit may set a minimum. Commercial auto covers the truck if you own one; if you rent, rent from a commercial desk, get the coverage that comes with the truck in writing, and ask your agent about hired auto liability for rented vehicles. Expect general liability to run roughly $50 to $150 a month for a small operation. Buy it before the first job with furniture in it, and put "insured" on the profile the day the policy starts.

A USDOT number is the federal identifier for commercial vehicle operators. You need one to move across state lines, and many states also use it to register trucks that only operate in-state. It is free and takes about ten minutes online. Interstate household goods moving additionally requires FMCSA operating authority, which costs a filing fee and requires proof of insurance. Neither is needed for a rental truck on a local labor job, and a 26-foot rental truck does not require a commercial driver's license. Do not pay a third-party site to file any of this for you.

You pay for it, fairly and fast, and it goes on the agreement before it happens. The industry's basic valuation is 60 cents per pound per item, which is what federal rules require interstate movers to include for free, and it means a 30-pound television is worth $18. Most customers do not know that until something breaks, which is why the agreement should say it plainly and offer full-value coverage as an option. In practice, on a small company's local job, a broken lamp is a $40 credit on the invoice and an apology, and the review is still five stars. The damage you cannot afford is the one you argued about.

In most states, including ours, you need it the day you have an employee, and the fines for not having it are far larger than the premiums. Some new movers pay helpers as contractors to avoid it. For someone you schedule, direct on the job and pay by the hour, that usually does not hold up, and an injured helper without coverage is the fastest way to lose the company. Get a quote before you hire. For a two-person operation it is a manageable monthly cost, and it is priced into every hourly rate on the calculator.

Three places, in order: a free Google Business Profile, a Craigslist ad in the labor and moving section, and a text to twenty people you already know saying you are doing this now. That is it. Our first customers came from exactly those three, and the first review came from a $75 job. The first job page has the ad word for word, the profile fields, the text, and the three photos you need before any of it goes up. Paid ads come later, once there are reviews for them to land on.

Thumbtack can get you a first job or two, and it is expensive and a race to the bottom, because every lead is sent to five companies and the one who answers cheapest and fastest wins. Use it if you have nothing else, keep the budget small, and treat every job as a review you are buying. A better first paid channel is HireAHelper, listed with a truck and the truck marked as rented, or Moving Help for labor-only. Google Local Services Ads is the best paid channel there is, but it needs a general liability certificate first, so it is a stage-three tool. All of this is laid out by stage on the tools page.

Not for the first ten jobs. Your Google Business Profile is your website at the start: it has your number, your photos, your reviews and a button that calls you, and it ranks above any site you could build. Build a real one once the profile has reviews and you have photos of your own crew to put on it, because a site with stock photos of smiling strangers hurts more than no site. When you do build one, a single fast page with a quote form that texts you beats anything with a "services" menu. Ours started as a template and stayed that way for a year.

Take small jobs and ask at the truck. The single-item and labor-only jobs you can take this week each end with a person standing in front of you who just watched you work. That is the moment. "If you have thirty seconds, a Google review helps us more than anything," with the link already texted to them. The first five reviews are the hardest and matter more than the next fifty, because they are the difference between a listing with no stars and a real company. Never buy reviews and never write your own. Google notices and so do customers.

You do not have to. The national van lines want the $8,000 interstate job with a corporate relocation behind it. You want the one-bedroom in town on Saturday, and you can answer that customer's text in four minutes with a price, which they cannot. Speed, a real person's name on the phone, a flat number and photos of your own crew win the local job almost every time. Our fastest-growing months were never about beating a big company. They were about answering faster than the other two-truck outfit across town.

When you are turning down jobs because there are not enough of you, and not before. The first hire is a foreman, not a helper: someone who can run a job, drive the truck and talk to the customer without you. Pay at the top of your range to get that person, because a good foreman is the single reason you are not on the truck. Before the hire, have workers' comp, a way to pay hourly and track time, and a written checklist of how a job runs so the standard does not depend on you being there. Connecteam is free under ten employees and is what we use for scheduling and time.

When the rentals for one month would have covered a payment and insurance for that month, three months in a row, with money in the bank. For us that was 2026, our third year, and what we bought was a pickup and a trailer, not a box truck. Buying one earlier feels like progress and is actually a fixed cost that makes you take the $400 job on a Tuesday to feed it. Rent, then a trailer behind a pickup if you have one, then a used box truck bought with cash from jobs already done. The order matters more than the truck.

It runs the front office. On an ordinary job of ours, the AI drafts the reply to the web form, the follow-up asking for photos, the estimate from the photos and our rates, the agreement email, the confirmation text, the calendar briefing for the crew and the invoice. A person reads every one before it goes out and makes every decision that involves a number. That is why one person can run the whole company from a phone, and why the one job page shows a customer with a price thirty minutes after she filled out a form. The setup is the biggest part of what we teach.

When a job bills enough to pay a full crew and still leave the company more than you would have earned carrying it yourself. On a three-mover local move that is the day your rate is high enough to cover roughly $500 in wages and $150 in truck costs and leave the rest, which at our rates is every job. What actually keeps owners on the truck longer is not money, it is trust: not having a foreman they believe in. Hire that person first, ride along for ten jobs, and then stay home. Our August was fifty-two jobs and neither of us carried a box.

Honestly, for most people, into the second year. Our first year was $85,000 gross with Jacob on every job himself, which is not even one good salary. The second was $120,000. The third is pacing $750,000, and the jump came from pricing correctly, hiring a crew, and moving the front office onto systems, not from working harder. If you price right from the first job instead of the second year, you skip the slowest part. That is the whole reason this site exists.