Moving from Los Angeles to Sacramento

What movers from Los Angeles to Sacramento cost

Every move inside California is quoted against a written Not to Exceed price. It is a cap, not a deposit and not a guess: it is the most you can be charged for the inventory and services on the estimate. If you add a room of packing on the morning of the move, the cap moves, and we write down the new one. If the job simply runs slower than we expected, it does not.

The figures below are planning figures, to help you budget before you call. They are not quotes and they are not your Not to Exceed price, which can only be set for your own inventory after we have looked at it. They assume a standard walk-out or elevator building at both ends and no long carry.

Two things move these numbers more than anything else. The first is weight and distance: past 100 miles, California's rate rules price an in-state move on the shipment's weight and the distance it travels rather than on an hourly clock, and at roughly 385 miles this route is well past that line. The second is access. A third-floor walk-up in Los Feliz and a ground-floor unit with a loading zone hold the same furniture and do not cost the same to carry.

Separate charges worth knowing before you compare quotes. There is a $50 equipment charge covering blankets, dollies and tools. An upright piano is $160 and a baby grand $240. Single items over 200 lbs start at $60. Hoisting, when something will not go down a staircase, is $40 per item per flight. If you want us to supply materials, boxes start at $6.50, tape is $7 and shrink wrap is $10. Paying cash earns a 5% discount.

How the move runs, day by day

Before move day: the walkthrough and the estimate

A California move starts with someone looking at what is moving. We go room by room, in person or on video, and build the inventory from that, then the service plan on top of it: what we pack, what you pack, what needs crating, what the access looks like at each end. The written estimate comes out of that visit and carries the Not to Exceed price. Read the access section of it closely; it is where surprises come from.

Loading day in Los Angeles

The crew arrives inside the arrival window we confirmed with you, walks the home together, and protects the path before anything moves: floor runners, door jambs, banisters. Furniture gets padded and shrink-wrapped, beds and larger pieces come apart, and everything is inventoried as it goes on the truck. We load in reverse of how Sacramento needs it unloaded, which is why we want the destination floor plan before we pack the truck, not after.

Curb access is the part that decides how long this day takes. Los Angeles is the harder of the two ends, and it is the end you can actually do something about. See below.

The drive

About 385 miles, most of it I-5 north over the Grapevine and up the west side of the Central Valley. A car does it in about six hours; a loaded truck is capped at 55 mph on California highways, so plan on seven to eight. Winter is the one thing that changes this: the Tejon Pass closes to traffic in snow, and when it does, the alternative adds hours. We will tell you if the forecast is going that way rather than letting you find out on move day.

One question is worth putting to any moving company quoting this route: who actually performs the move. A broker sells the job on to a carrier you have not met and cannot check. We are not a broker. Move and Care runs its own trucks and its own trained crews, so the company you check the license of is the company that shows up. Ask whoever else you are comparing us against to tell you the same thing in writing.

Delivery in Sacramento

We unload to the room, rebuild what we took apart, and take the wrap and blankets away with us. Boxes go where you label them, so labeling by room rather than by contents is worth the hour it takes. Unpacking is a separate service. If you want it, book it on the estimate.

What is in the price, and what is not

The quoted price covers the crew, the truck, fuel, tolls, the drive itself, furniture protection in transit, and basic released-value coverage. Basic disassembly and reassembly of furniture is normally in scope when it is part of the plan.

Basic released-value protection is included at no extra cost, and it is worth understanding rather than assuming. At that level liability is limited to 60 cents per pound per article. That is a weight calculation, not a replacement value: a 10-pound laptop is covered for six dollars. It is not full insurance, and we do not describe it that way. On a move inside California you choose your level of protection on the moving agreement itself, so read that section rather than skipping it. Full Value Protection costs extra, and if you own anything where 60 cents a pound is obviously the wrong answer, raise it during the estimate.

These are confirmed separately, on the estimate, before they are part of your move: packing and unpacking, packing materials, custom crating, storage, extra stops, labor-only help, white glove service, piano and specialty items, heavy-item handling, hoisting, appliance preparation, a Certificate of Insurance, and any parking or elevator arrangement. Packing is billed hourly and materials are priced separately. Storage is available when it is built into the plan. It is not automatic and not free.

A few things we cannot do. Our crews do not disconnect water or gas lines, so appliances need to be prepared before we arrive. We cannot carry flammable liquids, firearms, explosives, or gasoline and propane containers. If something is damaged, tell the crew on the spot, and they can complete a Damage Report before leaving. If you find it later, call the office within 96 hours.

Parking and building access at both ends

This is the one part of the move that is yours to arrange, and on this route the two ends work completely differently. We will tell you exactly what to ask for. We do not pull the permits for you, and no moving company should tell you they will.

The Los Angeles end: there is a permit, and it takes lead time

LADOT issues a temporary no-parking permit that reserves curb space for a moving truck. The signs have to go up before the move, not on the day, and the city needs processing time on top of that, so start the application at least a week out and confirm the current lead time and fee with LADOT when you apply. Both change, and the posting time is the part people get wrong.

The trap is jurisdictional. LADOT only covers the City of Los Angeles. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Hollywood and Pasadena are separate cities with their own permits and their own lead times, and an LADOT permit is worth nothing on their streets. If your address is in one of those, apply to that city. Get this wrong and the truck parks down the block, the crew carries further, and the clock and the cost both go up.

The Sacramento end: check what applies to your block

Sacramento works differently from Los Angeles, and it catches people out. The city runs a Meter and Space Reservation, but it is scoped to construction projects and special events rather than household moves, so it is usually not the route to reserving a space for a move. Depending on the street there may be an encroachment or street-use permit that applies instead. Ask the city what covers your block before move day, because the answer is address-specific and we would rather you heard it from them than from us.

One local rule is worth knowing so it does not alarm you. Sacramento City Code section 10.36.120 restricts parking commercial vehicles rated at 10,000 lbs gross vehicle weight or more on residential streets, but the same section carves out vehicles making pickups or deliveries to a building on that street. A moving truck working your address sits inside that exception. What it does mean is that the truck cannot simply be left on a residential block outside the job, so on a narrow Midtown street we may stage nearer a corner or a wider cross street. Tell us the block and we will plan the approach.

If your Sacramento building is a managed property, ask the office early whether it requires a Certificate of Insurance and whether it holds elevator times. Not every building asks for a COI, but the ones that do want it days ahead, with exact wording. We can provide one when it is required; send us the building name, the property manager contact, the certificate-holder and additional-insured wording they want, the coverage limits, the date, the address and the email it goes to. Certificate holder and additional insured are not the same thing, and buildings usually want the second.

What is different about this route

Los Angeles to Sacramento is an inside-California move, and that changes the paperwork more than the driving. A cross-country move is governed by federal rules; this one is governed by California rules, which is why the price you are given is a written Not to Exceed price, and why the estimate follows a look at your inventory rather than a phone call. If a moving company quotes you a firm price for this route over the phone without seeing what is moving, that is the thing to ask about.

The two cities also load differently. A lot of Los Angeles housing is stacked over a garage or reached by an exterior staircase, and the carry from door to curb is often longer than the furniture suggests. Sacramento older central neighborhoods, Midtown and Alkali Flat and Boulevard Park, run to raised entries with a flight of steps up to the front door, which matters for anything heavy and is exactly the kind of thing hoisting charges attach to. Summer is the other factor: July highs in Sacramento average in the low nineties and the city clears 100 degrees around twenty days in a normal year, so mid-season deliveries get scheduled early in the day where we can.

Sacramento to Los Angeles, and the rest of the California routes

We run this lane in both directions. There is no separate Sacramento to Los Angeles page. The southbound move is quoted the same way, off the same walkthrough and the same Not to Exceed rules, with the permit work simply reversed: nothing to pull in Sacramento, and an LADOT application at the Los Angeles end.

If you are comparing California moves more broadly, we also run Los Angeles to San Francisco, Los Angeles to San Jose, Los Angeles to San Diego and San Francisco to Sacramento. For work inside either metro rather than between them, see our Los Angeles movers and Sacramento movers pages.