Moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles: 2026 Cost & Time

This in-state I-5 run between California's two biggest metros is short enough that most crews price it as a dedicated one-day job. High two-way volume keeps it competitive, your quote hinges more on building access than on the miles.

Cost by home size

What affects your San Francisco → Los Angeles cost

• Around 382 miles, San Francisco to Los Angeles sits in the middle per-mile tier, so distance and home size pull on the price about equally.
• Booking 3–4 weeks out, and avoiding the last five days of the month, is the simplest way to lower this quote.
• Full packing and specialty items (piano, gym equipment, oversized furniture) are the add-ons most likely to change your final number.

Where the money goes on this move

Movers do not price this lane as one number. They price handling — the crew hours at both ends — and they price the 382 miles, and the ratio between the two is what makes one household's quote look nothing like another's. For a 2-bedroom household, transport is about 53% of the pre-adjustment total here, and 49% at five bedrooms.

The per-mile rate falls as the distance grows, so a move twice as far is never twice the price. Averaged over 382 miles a 2-bedroom load works out near $2.97 a mile — a figure that would be higher on a shorter lane and lower on a longer one. This route's final mile falls in the 100–500 mi band.

Crew rates at each end of this move

Loading happens in one labor market and unloading in another. Below are the rates each of those markets carries, which are the numbers you would pay outright if either end of this were a local job.

San Francisco is the more expensive labor market of the two, at $223 an hour for a 3-mover crew against $216 in Los Angeles — a $7 an hour gap that would matter a great deal if this were a local move at that end, and matters much less on a tariff-priced interstate job.

Rates are only half of it. What the buildings make a crew do is the other half, and it is specific to each end. San Francisco: This is the hardest access market in the country: Victorian walk-ups with four flights and no elevator, streets too narrow for a full-size truck, and permitted parking that has to be reserved with the city days ahead. Many jobs need a shuttle.

Los Angeles: Hillside addresses in Silver Lake, Echo Park, and the canyons come with long stair carries and streets no full-size truck can turn on, which routinely forces a shuttle. Westside and downtown towers add COI paperwork and reserved elevators.

What changes this number

These are the levers, priced. A percentage would be the same on every page on this site, so the figures here are computed against this lane's own base.

Peak season and an end-of-month date compound, so a late-July pickup carries both and lands roughly $494 over the off-peak baseline. It is the largest figure on this page you can change for free.

How this lane prices against its neighbours

The neighbouring lanes, priced on the same basis. A destination two hundred miles further away is often the cheaper move, and only a cost-ranked list shows you that.

Estimates, not quotes: every figure is computed from one published model at $62 per mover per hour plus tiered mileage, and none is attributed to a named company. See the method.