NAICS code for a moving company: 484210, and the codes for brokers, storage and truck rental

This page is for moving company owners and office managers who need a code for SAM.gov, an insurer, a lender, a fleet card or a tax return, and for sellers (moving software, truck dealers, insurers, packing supply companies) building lists of movers. It covers the code, the moving-adjacent businesses coded elsewhere, SIC equivalents, Census and FMCSA counts, size standards and where to find movers.

The moving code: 484210

The Census Bureau defines 484210 as establishments "primarily engaged in providing local or long-distance trucking of used household, used institutional, or used commercial furniture and equipment," adding that "incidental packing and storage activities are often provided." The index lists furniture moving, used household and office goods moving, motor freight carriers of used household goods, and van lines with moving and storage services.

The word that matters is used. Office relocations, lab moves and moves of school or hospital furniture are all 484210, because the goods are being relocated, not delivered new. Distance doesn't matter either: a local crew and an interstate van line share the code, unlike general freight, where NAICS splits local from long distance.

Moving businesses with other codes

The broker row is the one with a twist. 488510 covers establishments that arrange freight transportation between shippers and carriers without providing it, and its general size standard is $20.0 million, measured on revenue net of funds held for third parties. But SBA lists an exception within 488510 for "Non-Vessel Owning Common Carriers and Household Goods Forwarders" at $34.0 million, the same as movers, and the net-revenue rule in footnote 10 doesn't apply to the exception. A household goods forwarder bidding federal relocations should check which standard the solicitation names.

Federal regulation draws its own line. FMCSA's definition of a household goods motor carrier in 49 CFR 375.103 is a carrier that offers some of: binding or nonbinding estimates, inventorying, protective packing and unpacking, and loading and unloading at residences. It excludes carriers moving household goods "in containers or trailers that are entirely loaded and unloaded" by someone other than the carrier's employees or agents, which is how portable container services work.

The SIC codes for movers

The 1987 SIC system had no moving code. Household goods moving was a piece of three trucking codes, each of which also held other freight:

So use 4214 for a local mover that stores goods, 4212 for one that doesn't, and 4213 for long-distance and interstate movers. A list pulled by any of these SIC codes is mostly general freight carriers, not movers; converting to 484210 is cleaner. The SEC's list uses 4210 and 4213 for trucking and has no separate moving code.

How many moving companies there are

County Business Patterns counted 9,436 establishments in 484210 in 2023, employing 102,745 people with an annual payroll of $4.7 billion, about $45,600 per employee.

The bands sum to one less than the total because Census withholds the largest class. The top states are California (1,356), Florida (832), Texas (735), New York (643) and Illinois (374). CBP counts locations with paid employees, on a NAICS 2017 basis (484210 didn't change in 2022), so an agent of a van line with three branches counts three times.

FMCSA's registry tells a much bigger story. Its Company Census File, updated 28 October 2026, lists 135,108 active USDOT numbers whose registration includes household goods among the cargo carried: 61,245 interstate and 73,857 intrastate. Texas (5,346), California (4,767), Florida (3,753), Georgia (3,297) and Illinois (2,873) lead the interstate count. Carriers self-report cargo on Form MCS-150, and many that tick household goods also haul general freight or run one truck with no employees, so this is the outer bound of the market, and CBP's 9,436 the core of established employers.

Where the code is used

• Federal relocations. Agencies buy employee and household goods moves; a solicitation carries one NAICS code chosen for the principal purpose of the work (13 CFR 121.402), so check whether it names 484210 or the 488510 forwarder exception.
• Tax returns. The IRS business activity list has no 484210: movers use 484200, Specialized Freight Trucking.
• Insurance and fleet finance. Underwriters price cargo and liability by operation, so 484210 with a description of local, interstate or office moving gets a more accurate quote than a general freight code.

Finding moving companies

FMCSA's Company Census File, free on the Department of Transportation's open data portal, is the best public list: legal and DBA name, USDOT number, address, fleet size, drivers and cargo types for every registered carrier. Filter to active carriers with household goods cargo and a fleet of three or more power units to find established movers. The list of trucking companies explains how to work with the file, and the trucking code page covers the freight codes movers sit beside.

Public companies are scarce: the large van lines are private, and EDGAR's trucking codes are freight carriers. The closest listed name is U-Haul Holding (SEC SIC 7510, Reno, NV), whose truck rental and self-storage businesses sit in 532120 and 531130, with $6.04 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026. Bebop can search for private movers by description, such as residential movers in Colorado with five to 20 trucks that do interstate moves, and explain why each fits.

Worked example

Illustrative example. The company and figures are invented.

Front Range Movers (frontrange.example) has 14 trucks and 46 employees. Last year's $7.9 million in revenue came from residential moves (62%), office and lab relocations (21%), storage-in-transit in its own warehouse (9%) and brokered long-distance moves it booked and handed to a partner van line (8%).

Its primary code is 484210; office moves and storage-in-transit are part of the same code because the storage is incidental to its moves. It adds 488510 as a secondary code for the brokered work. Its FMCSA registration lists household goods as cargo, and its tax return uses 484200.

With five-year average receipts of $6.8 million, it's small under both 484210 and the forwarder exception ($34.0 million). If a federal agency solicits relocation services under the general 488510 standard ($20.0 million), it's small there too; on brokered moves that standard counts the commissions it keeps, not the full price passed to the van line.

Next step: pull movers by fleet size and state from FMCSA's records with the list of trucking companies.