The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 35 household goods registrants whose physical address is in Des Moines, IA, and 9 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. BestMovers.info holds no Des Moines price measurement, only the Iowa range on the Iowa page. Moves that stay inside Iowa are licensed by the Iowa Department of Transportation, Office of Motor Carrier Services.
Key facts
Local rate, two movers
$80 to $125 per hour
2-bedroom interstate
$2,400 to $5,700
Intrastate regulator
Iowa Department of Transportation, Office of Motor Carrier Services
Interstate licensing
FMCSA USDOT and MC authority
Company profiles shown
4
Pricing data as of
May 2026
Quick answer
We do not yet hold a company profile documented as based in Des Moines. The companies below are headquartered elsewhere in Iowa, shown separately from movers that publish nationwide service.
Common service neighborhoods: East Village, Beaverdale, Downtown, Sherman Hill.
How far is Des Moines from the places people move to most?
Des Moines to Chicago, IL is 334 driving miles, about 6 hours behind the wheel, with a typical transit of 2 to 4 days.
Driving distances and transit windows from the routes dataset; transit days are carrier delivery spreads, not guarantees.
Estimate your Des Moines moving cost
Get a personalized estimate before any sales call. Editorial estimate based on broader national moving-cost data; BestMovers.info does not maintain a separate Des Moines transaction-price dataset.
IRS county migration data for filing years 2022 to 2023 records 12,421 returns moving out of Polk County and Warren County, the counties Des Moines sits in, and 13,191 moving in. A return approximates a household rather than a person. Those filings cover 20,037 individuals leaving and 20,831 arriving.
Des Moines spans 2 counties, so these figures cover all of them: Polk County and Warren County; returns moving between those counties are removed rather than counted as moves out of Des Moines.
The counties receiving the most households from Polk County and Warren County were Dallas County (2,663 returns), Story County (638 returns) and Jasper County (333 returns).
Arrivals came mainly from Dallas County (2,290 returns), Story County (905 returns) and Jasper County (361 returns).
These figures come from federal tax return data and cover all household moves, not only those using professional movers.
How many licensed moving companies are registered in Des Moines?
The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 35 registrants carrying household goods whose physical address is in Des Moines, and 9 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. That figure counts companies whose federal registration lists an address in Des Moines. It is not the number of companies that will serve a move there: a mover registered in a neighbouring city can take the job, and a company registered in Des Moines may not.
Moving crews quoting Des Moines work East Village, Beaverdale, Downtown, Sherman Hill and the surrounding areas.
Who licenses movers operating in Des Moines
Movers working inside Des Moines are licensed by the Iowa Department of Transportation, Office of Motor Carrier Services, whose licence, lookup route and complaint channel are set out on the Iowa page.
Maher Brothers Transfer & Storage files from Cedar Rapids, Iowa as a single federal registrant with thirty-two power units and twenty-six drivers on the federal file. The company prints its own federal number on its website as 087390; that is zero-padding of the same registration this profile describes, not a competing identifier, and it is recorded as agreement rather than as a conflict. The company is an Allied Van Lines agent, and every Allied corporate identifier is held as a van-line number and is never recorded as a Maher identifier. The exact operating-authority classes on the registration were not readable in the sources reviewed, so none is asserted and none is ruled out. The federal file carries a Satisfactory safety rating dated 18 March 2009, which is a dated snapshot rather than a current certification. The company states first-party that the moving and storage business was founded in 1922.
Why is this company shown here?
Maher Brothers Transfer & Storage is headquartered elsewhere in IA. That does not by itself confirm an office in Des Moines, and no service claim is made here.
Mayflower Transit is the second large UniGroup brand alongside United Van Lines and runs full-service interstate moves through an agent network under its own federal registration.
Why is this company shown here?
Mayflower Transit publishes broad nationwide moving service on its own site. It is shown separately from companies based in this area and its presence here is not evidence of a local office.
North American Van Lines is part of SIRVA and moves interstate household goods through an agent-affiliate network. The federal registration shown here belongs to the van line, not to the local agent that loads the truck.
Why is this company shown here?
North American Van Lines publishes broad nationwide moving service on its own site. It is shown separately from companies based in this area and its presence here is not evidence of a local office.
United Van Lines is the largest brand under UniGroup and publishes the annual National Movers Study. It offers shipment tracking and a published claims process; we hold no dataset that compares its claims outcomes with other carriers.
Why is this company shown here?
United Van Lines publishes broad nationwide moving service on its own site. It is shown separately from companies based in this area and its presence here is not evidence of a local office.
Which movers are federally registered in Des Moines?
5 companies with a Des Moines address on their federal registration hold a granted household goods authority from the FMCSA, and 3 of those identify as a moving business in their legal or trade name. The 3 listed below are the ones registered with the agency longest, ordered by the federal registration date, earliest first. Registration age is the agency's own record. It is not a ranking, it is not a quality judgement and it is not a recommendation.
48 active registrants in Des Moines tick household goods among their cargo types on the census form, and 24 of those carry any authority row at all. The cargo tick box is filled in by the registrant, so this list uses the agency grant instead, then sets aside general freight, trucking, logistics and courier registrants that hold the authority without presenting themselves as household movers. It is not every mover serving Des Moines: a company based elsewhere may serve the city, and a registered address is not a service area.
LINT VAN LINES INC
USDOT 543541 · 4549 DELAWARE AVE, DES MOINES, IA 50313
It filed 27 power units, registered with the FMCSA on November 29, 1993, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC203490, active as common carrier.
USDOT 2468266 · 59 CLARK STREET, DES MOINES, IA 50314
It filed 2 power units, registered with the FMCSA on January 17, 2014, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC1058665, active as common carrier.
USDOT 3528959 · 1751 GUTHRIE AVE, DES MOINES, IA 50313
It filed 3 power units, registered with the FMCSA on December 1, 2020, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC1174147, active as common carrier.
Data as of 2026-08-15 from the FMCSA company census, with authority status as of 2026-08-16. The query behind this list. Information provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Does a federal registration mean a Iowa licence?
No. Federal registration and Iowa authorisation are separate. The list above shows the federal record only, and we have not verified whether any company listed holds a Iowa licence or permit.
A mover operating inside Iowa needs the Iowa intrastate motor carrier permit from the Iowa Department of Transportation, Office of Motor Carrier Services. Its rates sit in tariff filed, posted and approved by the Iowa Department of Transportation under Iowa Code 325A.7A before any household goods move may be performed.
Iowa does not publish a public register of intrastate permit holders that we have verified, so a permit is confirmed by asking the Office of Motor Carrier Services at OMCS@iowadot.us.
Peak demand across Iowa runs May–August. Dates outside that window, and dates away from the last and first few days of any month, are where carriers have spare capacity — and spare capacity is what makes a crew negotiable on price.
We do not publish a percentage saving for moving off-peak in Des Moines. We hold no month-by-month booking price data for this city, and a discount figure taken from a national average would not describe this market. What we can say is structural, and it holds in every market:
Mid-month beats month-end. Leases and closings cluster at the turn of the month, so that is when crews are fully booked and least flexible.
Mid-week beats the weekend. Saturday is the single most requested moving day; a Tuesday or Wednesday competes with far fewer households for the same trucks.
Off-peak beats May–August. Outside the peak window, carriers are trying to keep crews working rather than turning jobs away.
Flexibility is the lever, not the calendar alone. On an interstate move, giving the carrier a pickup window of several days rather than one fixed date is usually worth more than any single date choice, because it lets them combine your shipment with another on the same lane.
The only reliable way to price a specific date is to put the same date in front of several licensed carriers and compare written estimates. Ask each one what the same move costs two weeks earlier or later — the gap between those two numbers is your real off-peak saving in Des Moines, measured on your move rather than on an average.
A tip is never part of a written estimate and never part of a binding price. It is discretionary, it is paid per mover rather than per crew, and it is handed to each mover directly at the end of the job rather than to the foreman to divide. Our working guideline scales with hours rather than with the value of the shipment, because that is how moving labour is actually priced:
$10 to $20 per mover for a job of two hours or less.
$20 to $40 per mover for a local move under four hours.
$40 to $60 per mover for a full day, meaning six hours or longer.
These are a BestMovers.info editorial guideline, not a survey result. We hold no tipping survey for Des Moines and no federal record covers gratuities, so nothing here is a local figure. Read the full tipping guide for stairs, long carries, storage and interstate deliveries, where the crew that loads is not the crew that unloads.
Where can you get free moving boxes in Des Moines?
Free boxes come from businesses that receive stock in cartons and throw the cartons away, and from households that finished moving last week. The sources are the same in every city, including Des Moines:
Liquor stores, which have the sturdiest small boxes with dividers
Bookshops, for small boxes rated for weight
Grocery stores, for produce boxes
Offices, for paper boxes with lids
Appliance and furniture retailers, for large flat cartons
Buy Nothing groups and Facebook Marketplace
Craigslist free listings
The U-Haul box exchange
Anyone in your building who has moved in recently
Ask in the morning, when the overnight delivery has just been unpacked and the cartons have not yet been flattened. Skip anything damp, greasy or previously used for produce that leaked. The free boxes guide covers how many you need by home size — those counts are BestMovers.info planning estimates rather than measured figures — and which boxes are worth buying rather than scavenging.
Frequently asked questions
How much do movers cost in Des Moines?
There is no separate cost dataset for Des Moines. Using the national estimate, a one-bedroom local move is estimated at $420–$930 and a two-bedroom local move at $630–$1,395, while a two-bedroom interstate move from Des Moines is estimated at $3,000–$7,000. Final price depends on distance, packing services, and date.
When is the busiest moving season in Des Moines?
Late May through August is the peak window in Des Moines, with the heaviest volume around month-end weekends. Established companies commonly book out several weeks in advance during this period.
Should I get an in-home estimate or an online quote?
For local moves under 2,500 lb, an online or phone estimate is usually accurate. For interstate moves out of Des Moines or 3+ bedroom households, request a video survey or in-home estimate so the binding price reflects your actual inventory.
What's the most reliable way to verify a Des Moines mover?
Check the company's USDOT number on the FMCSA SAFER website, look at their BBB profile and current accreditation, and read recent reviews on Google and Yelp. Avoid any mover unwilling to share a USDOT number on request.
How long does a typical Des Moines move take?
A 1-bedroom local move in Des Moines usually takes 3–5 hours with two movers. A 3-bedroom local move runs 7–10 hours, and most movers won't book a same-day move past 4 PM start time.
How we evaluate Des Moines movers: we verify federal registration and operating authority against FMCSA records, record carrier or broker classification, and note state licensing where the state regulator publishes it. The list above is not ranked and carries no numeric score. Read the full methodology
