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Move and Care strives to satisfy our client's needs 100%. Our company is well-reviewed in Boston, so we are not shy about showing over 1,400 reviews from across the Greater Boston area! Explore the reviews and get an idea of our company.
Read Move and Care ReviewsThe company with a reputation
Two Massachusetts offices, one downtown at 24 School Street and the original depot north of the city in Woburn, both working under MA DPU #31854 for moves inside the state and USDOT #3212621 across state lines. Every one of those numbers is public and worth checking before you book anyone.
Check Our Licenses and AwardsMoving Services We Provide
Local Moving Services
Navigate through Boston with ease. Our seasoned team knows every corner of our city, ensuring a swift, hassle-free local move.
Local Moving
Long Distance Moves
Move beyond boundaries with confidence. Our extensive network and expertise guarantee a smooth transition, no matter the distance.
Long Distance
Packing & Supplies
Protect your belongings with our premium packing services and high-quality supplies, ensuring safe and secure transport.
Packing
Storage Solutions
Find a home for your items, whenever you need it. Our secure, accessible storage solutions offer flexibility and peace of mind during transitions.
StorageMoving Services Specific to Boston
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Benefits of
choosing Move and Care
Your perfect move in and around Boston will be supported by Move and Care when you choose us as your Boston movers. Local expertise, professional excellence, and a sincere dedication to customer satisfaction all come together to create a seamless, expertly-managed moving experience.
Fully Licensed & Insured
For a Boston move the licenses that matter are MA DPU #31854 for work inside Massachusetts, and USDOT #3212621 with MC #1018431 for work across state lines. Both are public records you can check before you sign anything.
Cost Efficiency
Our service is characterized by great flexibility. Therefore, we can easily adjust to your budget and needs through customization of services.
Full-Service
We cover the entire moving process. If you want to turn a stressful event into a journey, choose Move and Care.
Safety
Basic insurance is included in our services by default. Packing is handled by professionals and our tractors are also equipped with GPS tracking sensors.
Our Licenses & Awards
Over the years, Move and Care has achieved a hallmark of trust and excellence in the moving industry. Our journey is adorned with satisfied customers, successful long-distance relocations, and a strong reputation in Boston area. Each milestone motivates us to continue delivering seamless and reliable moving services, making every move a memorable, stress-free experience for our clients.
Why Choose us?
Choose Move and Care for your Boston move to gain a trustworthy partner who combines unmatched local knowledge with true community spirit to make sure your move is not only seamless but also deeply rooted in Boston's unique culture.
New to the city? Start with our guide on what to know before moving to Boston, which covers neighborhoods, rents, parking and the September 1st move-in rush in one place.
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What local movers in Boston actually have to plan around
Boston is one of the harder cities in the country to move in, and almost none of the difficulty is about distance. It is about where a truck can legally stand, what a building demands before it lets a crew in, and which week of the year you picked.
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The street permit. Optional, and worth having anyway. The city's own wording is that a moving truck permit is not required but guarantees you a legal parking spot for the day. A standard permit holds two spaces from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and costs $69, or $109 where the spaces are metered. Online applications open 15 days to 8 weeks before the move, and the signs have to be up 48 hours ahead. We file it and post the signs. The application is on the Parking Clerk's page, Reserve a Parking Spot for Your Moving Truck, and our permit guide walks through each step.
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Whatever your building asks for. If yours wants a certificate of insurance before it lets a crew past the lobby, we issue one naming whoever it needs to name. If it wants the service elevator booked to a window or the loading dock reserved, tell us the window and we size the crew to finish inside it. Ring your property manager early rather than late, though: this is the item that most often holds up an otherwise ready move.
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Doorways older than the country. On Beacon Hill, in the North End and on the older South End blocks, the constraint is the building itself: narrow treads, tight landing turns, banisters that do not come off, and door frames that were never sized for a modern sectional. We measure the awkward piece before the day instead of on it, and our fleet runs 16, 20 and 26 foot trucks so the vehicle can be matched to the street.
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September 1. The city's lease calendar puts an enormous share of its moves on one date, and the surrounding week is the hardest of the year to book, the slowest to drive and the dearest to move in. Flexible date? Midweek and mid-month costs less and buys a wider arrival window. Fixed date? Book it early, because the crews go first.
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Winter. A permit does not override a snow emergency, so a move booked on a posted snow emergency artery in January needs a fallback street agreed before the day. Once the city ends an emergency, a shoveled spot can be held with a space saver for 48 hours, and space savers are banned outright in the South End and Bay Village. The rules are on the city's Winter in Boston page. If the city declares a snow emergency for your date, call us as soon as it is announced and we will re-plan where the truck stands.
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Fragile and high-value items. Packing is optional and priced separately, so you can hand us everything or just the kitchen and the artwork. For pieces that need more than blankets there is white-glove moving, art and antique moving for anything that should not travel in a stack, and piano movers in Boston at the published $160 for an upright and $240 for a baby grand.
Feel free: Your first consultation with us will be absolutely free! We help you plan your move by guiding you in the service to go for while considering your needs and budget.
How much do Move and Care movers cost in Boston?
Local moves in Boston are billed at an hourly rate set by how many movers the job needs, with a three-hour minimum and 15-minute increments after that. Two movers and a truck run roughly $100 to $200 an hour, three movers $150 to $240, and four movers $200 to $280. The figures below are planning estimates from our own cost of movers in Boston guide rather than a quote.
| Home size | Crew | Typical hours | Estimated total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 2 movers | 3 hours | $300 to $500 |
| 1-bedroom apartment | 2 to 3 movers | 4 to 5 hours | $500 to $1,000 |
| 2-bedroom home | 3 movers | 5 to 7 hours | $900 to $1,500 |
| 3-bedroom home | 3 to 4 movers | 6 to 9 hours | $1,500 to $2,500 |
| 4-bedroom home | 4 movers | 8 to 10 hours | $2,200 to $3,500+ |
The rate covers the movers, the truck, gas, tolls, loading tools, furniture taken apart and put back together, and basic coverage in transit. Billed on top: packing materials, a $50 equipment charge, and hoisting at $40 per item per flight where a piece will not make the stairwell. Specialty items have published figures too, at $160 for an upright piano, $240 for a baby grand, and from $60 for anything over 200 pounds. Packing and storage are itemized separately in your quote.
Two Boston jobs with identical inventory can come in hours apart, and the variable is almost never the square footage. The fast version is a building with a loading dock and the service elevator booked to your window. The slow version is a fourth-floor walk-up in Allston where nobody pulled a street permit, so every carton makes the same long walk from wherever the truck could legally stop. Tell us the building and the street when you ask for a quote and the estimate will land much closer to the invoice.
Office moves in Boston are quoted as a separate job, usually for an evening or a weekend so the business does not lose a working day, with the freight elevator reserved and a certificate of insurance filed with the building ahead of time. The commercial movers in Boston page covers how we plan one.
Long-distance moves are done on a flat-rate basis, ensuring your price remains fixed, regardless of how long it takes. You receive a detailed quote of all costs just as you would with a local move, so you know what to expect.
If you want to learn more about how much movers cost on average in the Boston area and what you get when hiring a Boston mover you can read our article "How much do movers cost in Boston"
More About PricingMoving in Boston's neighborhoods
The city officially recognizes 24 neighborhoods. A moving crew treats them as about four different problems, and which one you live in matters more to your quote than how many rooms you have.
At Boston prices the typical job is an apartment, a condo or one floor of a multi-family house rather than a detached house with a driveway, and the quote follows the stairs and the curb more than the square footage.
$850K
$736
$3,790
24
Beacon Hill, the North End and the older South End
The jobs where the building sets the pace. Beacon Hill has been a protected historic district since 1955, and the city's own description is the one that matters to us: narrow streets lined with brick sidewalks and gas lamps, packed into about a square mile. Beacon Hill alone holds well over a thousand of Boston's 2,800 gas lights. The North End is the same story a few centuries older, one of colonial Boston's three original neighborhoods and once its densest, over 40,000 residents in the 1920s against roughly 10,000 today. When the city refused on-street dining permits there, it cited the narrow streets and sidewalks by name.
In practice the truck often cannot get close, the permit earns its keep here more than anywhere, and the staircases were built for furniture that no longer exists. We measure the awkward piece beforehand and bring the truck that fits the street rather than the biggest one available.
Triple-decker Boston: Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain
Between 1880 and 1930 Boston and the cities around it put up an estimated 15,000 triple-deckers, and something like 10,000 still stand. They are why a Boston crew counts flights rather than rooms. A third-floor unit with a straight-run staircase and a tight landing turn takes longer than a larger apartment with a lift, which is why the estimate follows the access and not the floor area.
Even the rooflines run by neighborhood, with South Boston mostly flat and Roxbury mostly pitched. If you are on a third floor, say so when you book: it changes the crew size we quote.
Allston, Fenway-Kenmore and Mission Hill: the student belt
Boston had 162,458 students enrolled as of autumn 2024, and 39,012 of them live in off-campus private housing. They are heavily concentrated: Fenway-Kenmore, Allston, the Longwood Medical area and Mission Hill together account for 61% of every off-campus student in the city.
Move in or out of those neighborhoods in late August and you are competing with all of them for the same curb on the same weekend, and the city adds its own temporary parking restrictions on named streets around the universities during move-in week. College and student moves have their own page.
Downtown, the Seaport and the waterfront towers
Here the constraint flips. The stairs stop being the problem and the schedule becomes it: a service elevator released for a fixed window, a loading dock with a booking, and a certificate of insurance on file before the crew reaches the lobby. These are the jobs that go wrong on paperwork rather than on muscle, which is why we ask for the building's requirements at the point of booking.
Metered parking is dearest in these areas too, $3.75 an hour in Back Bay and the South Boston Waterfront against $2.00 across most of the city, and that feeds straight into whether your street permit costs $69 or $109.
Where the truck can stand, neighborhood by neighborhood
The streets below are the ones our crews work most often. The right-hand column is what actually moves the estimate in each part of the city.
| Neighborhood | Streets we work most | What changes the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Back Bay and the South End | Commonwealth Avenue, Newbury Street, Beacon Street, Tremont Street, Columbus Avenue | Back Bay meters run $3.75 an hour, so a permit on a metered block costs $109 instead of $69. Brownstone stoops and tight stairwells add carry time. |
| Beacon Hill and the North End | Charles Street, Mount Vernon Street, Pinckney Street, Hanover Street, Salem Street, Commercial Street | Protected historic streets with brick sidewalks. We send the 16 or 20 foot truck rather than the 26, and the permit earns its keep here more than anywhere in the city. |
| Fenway-Kenmore and Mission Hill | Boylston Street, Park Drive | Meters at $2.50 an hour. The student lease cycle puts most moves here in the last week of August, when the city adds temporary parking restrictions around the colleges. |
| Allston and Brighton | Commonwealth Avenue, Harvard Avenue, Brighton Avenue | Walk-ups without elevators and the September 1 turnover. The truck often stops around the corner unless a permit puts it at the door. |
| Charlestown | Main Street, Bunker Hill Street | Short blocks near the Navy Yard where a full-size truck blocks the street. We size the truck to the block and pull the permit. |
| Jamaica Plain and Roslindale | Centre Street | Two-families and triple-deckers. The number of flights, not the number of rooms, sets the crew size. |
| Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park | Dorchester Avenue | Triple-decker country. A third-floor unit with a straight-run staircase takes longer than a larger apartment with a lift. |
| South Boston | East Broadway, West Broadway | Flat-roofed triple-deckers inland; on City-owned streets in the South Boston Waterfront the meters run $3.75 an hour. |
| Downtown, the Seaport and the waterfront towers | Seaport Boulevard, Congress Street | Loading docks, elevator reservations and a certificate of insurance on file before the crew reaches the lobby. Paperwork sets the pace, not muscle. |
| East Boston | Bennington Street, Maverick Square | Reached by tunnel or the Tobin Bridge, so the drive counts even from downtown. Triple-deckers and two-families on narrow one-way streets. |
Neighborhoods we work
Allston
Back Bay
Bay Village
Beacon Hill
Brighton
Charlestown
Chinatown-Leather District
Dorchester
Mid-Dorchester
Downtown
East Boston
Fenway-Kenmore
Hyde Park
Jamaica Plain
Mattapan
Mission Hill
North End
Roslindale
Roxbury
South Boston
South End
West End
West Roxbury
Wharf District
Do not put a moving truck on Storrow Drive. The city's own moving guidance is blunt about it: you cannot drive moving trucks on Storrow Drive because of the low clearance, and the height limit is 10 feet. Every year rental trucks hit those bridges anyway, to the point that Bostonians have a verb for it. The same goes for Soldiers Field Road and Memorial Drive. Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue and the Turnpike are the routes that take a box truck. If you are driving your own rental, measure it and plan the route before September 1. The city's moving guide says it in one line: you cannot drive moving trucks on Storrow Drive, and the height limit is 10 feet.
September 1, in numbers
4,500+
2,500+
39,012
10 ft
Most Boston leases turn over at the start of September, and those permit numbers are what it looks like from the inside. That is the week to book early or to avoid entirely. Between August 31 and September 2 the city also blocks off some common moving locations for truck drop-offs, and those spots do not need a permit. When a lease ends on August 31 and the next one starts on September 1, moving and storage in Boston is booked as one job: we load, hold the goods overnight or for the month, and the same crew delivers. One thing people forget until the last morning: the city will not take mattresses or box springs with the curbside trash, and collection has to be booked as an appointment, for buildings of six units or fewer only.
What you get by hiring Move and Care?
Loading and Unloading
We will load into the truck and unload at a new place all of
your items.
Gas, Tolls
Our moving company rates include all the charges, no hidden
fees.
Dedicated Manager
Our dedicated manager will walk you through the whole moving
process.
Transportation
Our Company makes sure all of your belongings are safe during
delivery.
Moving Insurance
Insurance coverage helps save your items from unexpected
damages.
Assemble and Disassemble
We make sure your furniture is Assembled and Disassembled.
F.A.Q. about Movers in Boston
Two movers and a truck run roughly $100 to $200 an hour in Boston, three movers $150 to $240, and four movers $200 to $280. Every local job carries a three-hour minimum, and after that the clock runs in 15-minute steps. That hourly figure pays for the crew, the truck, fuel and tolls, the loading gear, taking furniture apart and putting it back together, and basic coverage while it travels. Extras are itemized: packing materials, a $50 equipment charge, and hoisting where a piece will not fit the stairwell, at $40 per item per flight. Two things swing a Boston total more than the inventory does: whether a street permit puts the truck at your door instead of around the corner, and whether the building hands you an elevator or a staircase. Our cost of movers in Boston guide breaks the figures down further.
No. The City of Boston says a moving truck permit is not required, but it is the only way to guarantee a legal spot at your door on the day. A standard permit from the Parking Clerk reserves two spaces from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and costs $69, or $109 if the spaces are metered. Apply online 15 days to 8 weeks ahead, or in person at City Hall at least 3 days ahead, and the signs go up 48 hours before the move. We file the permit and post the signs for you. A permit does not override a snow emergency, a construction zone, an accessible space or a no-stopping zone. Between August 31 and September 2 the city also blocks off some common moving locations for truck drop-offs, and those spots need no permit at all.
A Tuesday or Wednesday in the middle of the month, outside the last week of August. Boston demand stacks onto weekends, the turn of each month and the days around September 1, when most of the city's leases turn over, and crews are committed weeks ahead for those dates. Prices follow that demand: our cheapest day to hire movers in Boston guide puts midweek and mid-month dates well below weekends and month-end, and winter below summer. Around September 1 the question is usually not price but whether a crew is free at all, so if your date can move a week either way, it should.
Stairs are billed as time, not as a separate line. A Boston move is priced by the hour, so a third-floor walk-up in a triple-decker costs more because it takes longer than the same apartment with an elevator, not because a fee is added per flight. The itemized exception is hoisting, at $40 per item per flight, for a sofa or a piece of furniture that will not make the stairwell and has to come in through a window or over a railing. Tell us the floor, the number of flights and whether the building has an elevator when you book; that is what sets the crew size and the estimate.
A studio is usually the three-hour minimum. A one-bedroom apartment runs four to five hours with two or three movers, a two-bedroom five to seven hours with three, a three-bedroom six to nine hours with three or four, and a four-bedroom house eight to ten hours with four movers. Those are planning estimates from our Boston cost guide, not quotes. The Boston variables that stretch a day are a truck parked around the corner instead of at the door, a walk-up instead of an elevator, and a September date when every crew in the city is on the road at the same time.
Nobody should take that answer from the company being asked, so here is a test you can run instead. Ask three questions a mover who really works Boston can answer immediately and an out-of-town operator cannot: who pulls the street permit for your address and when do the signs go up, can you issue a certificate of insurance that names my building and its management company, and what exactly does the hourly rate include. Then verify the credentials rather than the adjectives, since Massachusetts licenses intrastate household movers and the federal government registers interstate ones; ours are MA DPU #31854, USDOT #3212621 and MC #1018431. Finally, read the reviews for detail rather than for the star rating, because one review that names a stairwell, a permit or a specific street tells you more than fifty that say "great job".
Start with the Boston-specific one, because it catches out-of-town operators fast: ask how the moving truck permit works, who files it and when the signs go up. A company that works the city can answer in a sentence, including the detail that the permit is optional but worth having. One that cannot is going to park wherever it can and bill you for the walk. After that, the national warning signs apply here as anywhere. An estimate produced without a single question about stairs, elevators or access is a guess in a nicer font. A large up-front deposit is a bad sign, as is any reluctance to put the crew size, the hourly rate and the coverage into a written estimate before the day. Check that the DPU and USDOT numbers exist and belong to the company on the invoice.
Yes, and the earlier the better. Most Boston leases turn over at the start of September, and the city reported issuing more than 4,500 moving truck permits in August 2025, over 2,500 of them for August 29 to September 1 alone, so crews across the city are committed weeks ahead. For a fixed September 1 date, book as soon as the lease is signed and get the permit application in at least 15 days before the move, since that is the city's online deadline. For any other date, the earlier you book the more arrival windows you can choose from, and midweek dates outside the summer are the easiest to get.
Cities and towns we move around Boston
The downtown office covers Boston itself, and our Woburn depot covers the towns north and west of the city. A good share of the work is a move between two of these places rather than inside one, so if your pickup or delivery is outside the city, the page for that town will tell you more about its own parking rules and housing than this one can.
Long distance moves out of Boston
Moves over 150 miles are quoted as a flat rate on weight and mileage, so the price is settled before the truck is loaded. Interstate work runs under USDOT #3212621 and MC #1018431, and on the routes where we have our own offices, in Austin, San Antonio, Charlotte and Irvine, the crew unloading at the other end is ours. Long distance movers in Boston covers how the process works end to end.
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325A New Boston St, Unit 2, Woburn, MA 01801
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