California caps the hourly charge on a local household move and requires a written price ceiling before anything is loaded. This page sets those state maximums beside what Santa Clara County companies post for a two, three or four-person crew. It is market research, not a quote.
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Six boxes, about thirty seconds. You pick when to be called back, and that is when the phone rings.
Or call (408) 461-6238Maximum Rate Tariff 4, effective January 1, 2025, caps straight-time hourly charges on a California intrastate move of one hundred miles or less. Santa Clara County sits in Territory A. A single mover with the vehicle caps at $142.01 and each additional person adds $81.80.
Chargeable time on a local California move is loading plus unloading plus double the actual driving time between the two addresses. A forty-minute drive across the valley is eighty billable minutes, and it is written into the tariff rather than invented by the mover.
The Bureau of Household Goods and Services charges $500 to file for a household mover permit, $150 to transfer one and $15 quarterly, and requires combined single limit coverage of not less than $600,000 plus $20,000 of cargo protection per shipment.
The May 2025 median for 11,830 workers across San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, more than four dollars an hour above the same occupation in Orlando or Raleigh. Housing cost, not skill, is the reason.
Every range below is what companies working in San Jose publish for that job, gathered from the numbered price pages under the table. It spans what several of them show, so the figures move with the specifics of the property and with who does the work. Nothing here is a quote, and no business has set a price on this page. A real number comes from whoever looks at the job.
| The job | Range seen | Billed as | What moves it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two movers and a truck, hourly | $119–$2401234 | per hour, cash rate at the bottom | Several companies post two numbers, a cash figure and a card figure, and add a processing percentage on top of the card one. |
| Three movers and a truck, hourly | $159–$290124 | per hour, cash rate at the bottom | Third-floor apartments and Willow Glen homes with stairs at both ends are where the extra crew member pays for itself. |
| Four movers and a truck, hourly | $200–$350124 | per hour, cash rate at the bottom | The tariff caps a four-person crew well above these figures, so the market rate, not the ceiling, is what binds here. |
| Studio move, minimum hours plus doubled driving time | $360–$513125 | three-hour minimum, travel time included | Three hours at a posted two-mover rate, with the drive counted twice and a card processing percentage added at the end. |
| Two-bedroom apartment, staying inside San Jose | $400–$1,5004567 | finished job, two or three movers | The bottom assumes a short drive and an elevator. Parking a truck downtown, or a permit for the space, moves it up. |
| Three or four-bedroom house, local | $1,800–$3,50045 | finished job, three or four movers, eight hours or more | Eight hours of crew time plus doubled travel is the shape of this job, and packing is usually quoted apart from it. |
| Packing the house, added to the move | $300–$1,500467 | flat, quoted separately | Kitchens and garages drive this. Materials are billed by the piece, so wardrobe and television boxes show up as line items. |
Prices each of these companies publishes on its own site, read on the date shown in each listing. A published price can change without notice, so treat a number here as what was posted rather than what you will be told today.
The first is the hourly maximum. Maximum Rate Tariff 4, Item 320, effective January 1, 2025, caps straight-time charges on a move of one hundred miles or less. Santa Clara County falls in Territory A, where the ceiling is $142.01 an hour for a vehicle and one person, $228.01 for a vehicle and two, and $81.80 for each additional person. Time and a half caps at $181.84 and $307.65; double time at $228.01 and $387.55.
The second is the written agreement. Before service begins the mover completes an Agreement for Moving Services showing a Not to Exceed Price, raised only by a bona fide written change order. It cannot be preprinted and cannot be waived.
Note what these rules do not do: they cap the hourly rate, not the number of hours. Set the posted market rates in the table against the $228.01 ceiling and the ceiling binds almost nothing here. Competition sets the hourly figure in this valley. The tariff's real value is the Not to Exceed Price and the definition of billable time.
Item 36 defines chargeable time on a local move as loading plus unloading plus double the actual driving time between origin and destination. A twenty-five-minute run from Willow Glen to Santa Clara bills as fifty minutes. It is not a mover's invention but the state's way of paying a carrier for the empty return leg.
On a short in-town hop the doubled drive is trivial. On a job to Livermore or Santa Cruz, still inside the hundred-mile band, it adds over an hour of billing, so comparing rates without asking how travel is computed misjudges the total badly.
Freight and material movers in the San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara metro had a median wage of $22.63 an hour in May 2025 across 11,830 workers, per the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. That is roughly four dollars above the same occupation in Orlando or Raleigh, and it flows straight into a crew rate. On top of the wage sit state requirements: the Bureau of Household Goods and Services charges $500 to file for a household mover permit, $15 quarterly thereafter, and requires combined single limit coverage of not less than $600,000 with $20,000 of cargo protection per shipment.
Then there is access. Downtown high-rises need a service elevator reserved, and a truck in a metered or restricted space needs a tow-away permit the city advises requesting well in advance. Both burn crew hours no rate card mentions.
Most companies here publish two hourly figures, cash and card, with the card figure five to fifteen dollars higher and sometimes a processing percentage on top. A three-hour minimum at a card rate of $129 is $387, plus five percent processing, before doubled travel time is added. The same three hours at a $119 cash rate is $357.
Look for the Not to Exceed Price completed in writing, the Cal-T number, crew size, the hourly rate and the payment method it assumes, the minimum hours, and how travel is calculated under Item 36. Valuation should be named: sixty cents per pound released value is the default and it is not insurance. Packing, materials, storage, specialty handling and parking permits belong on the document as separate lines rather than appearing verbally on load day.
Published job totals assume elevator access or a short carry, a truck that can legally park near the door, and a boxed household. They exclude packing labor, cartons billed by the piece, shrink wrap, disassembly, appliance disconnection, a storage month between a closing and a key handover, and the parking permit itself. Cross a state line and this tariff stops applying, because federal estimate rules take over.
Set the move up around the addresses, inventory, access rules, and the correct state or federal paperwork. A written plan before loading protects the schedule, the belongings, and the price you agreed to.
Call (408) 461-6238Upfront pricing · No obligation · Local Santa Clara County crew