The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 172 household goods registrants whose physical address is in Rochester, NY, and 15 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. BestMovers.info holds no Rochester price measurement, only the New York range on the New York page. Moves that stay inside New York are licensed by the New York State Department of Transportation, Office of Modal Safety and Security.
Key facts
Local rate, two movers
$125 to $195 per hour
2-bedroom interstate
$3,400 to $8,000
Intrastate regulator
New York State Department of Transportation, Office of Modal Safety and Security
Interstate licensing
FMCSA USDOT and MC authority
Company profiles shown
5
Pricing data as of
May 2026
Quick answer
Clark Moving & Storage is based in Rochester. Companies below are grouped by where they are documented to be located: companies based in or near Rochester, companies based elsewhere in New York, and movers that publish nationwide service. No numeric ranking is applied.
Common service neighborhoods: East Avenue, Park Avenue, South Wedge, Corn Hill.
Get a personalized estimate before any sales call. Editorial estimate based on broader national moving-cost data; BestMovers.info does not maintain a separate Rochester transaction-price dataset.
IRS county migration data for filing years 2022 to 2023 records 13,455 returns moving out of Monroe County, the county Rochester sits in, and 11,410 moving in. A return approximates a household rather than a person. Those filings cover 20,472 individuals leaving and 17,305 arriving.
The counties receiving the most households from Monroe County were Ontario County (911 returns), Wayne County (796 returns) and Erie County (566 returns).
Arrivals came mainly from Ontario County (818 returns), Wayne County (693 returns) and Erie County (556 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 Rochester?
The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 172 registrants carrying household goods whose physical address is in Rochester, and 15 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. That figure counts companies whose federal registration lists an address in Rochester. 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 Rochester may not.
Moving crews quoting Rochester work East Avenue, Park Avenue, South Wedge, Corn Hill and the surrounding areas.
Who licenses movers operating in Rochester
Movers working inside Rochester are licensed by the New York State Department of Transportation, Office of Modal Safety and Security, whose licence, lookup route and complaint channel are set out on the New York page.
These companies have a documented headquarters or company location in Rochester or its metro. Placement is based on documented location information, not a numeric ranking.
Editorially independent, funded by referral fees. We may be paid when you request a quote from a company listed here. Payment does not decide who is listed or the order they appear in, and we publish no score or star rating. Advertising disclosure
Clark Moving & Storage Inc files from 3680 Buffalo Road in Rochester, New York, active on the federal census with 11 power units, nine drivers, general freight and household goods cargo entries and an MCS-150 filed 12 February 2024. The registration is filed as intrastate only for non-hazardous cargo and carries no MC, MX or FF docket. That is a description of what the filing contains, not a finding about the company's right to operate: an intrastate New York operation does not require interstate authority. The company states first-party that it is an agent of Mayflower Transit and has been a Mayflower agency for more than 35 years; Mayflower Transit LLC is a separate registrant and its USDOT number is recorded as a van-line identifier rather than stored on this record. No federal safety rating is on file. A separate Albany-area registrant carrying the Albany form of the name was returned during verification, and with no bridge established it is held as an unresolved same-name candidate rather than attached here. The company's own site states no founding year, so none is published.
Why is this company shown here?
Clark Moving & Storage publishes its headquarters in Rochester, NY.
NYC-based long-distance moving broker. Useful as a comparison quote alongside direct carrier estimates.
Why is this company shown here?
All Around Moving Services is headquartered elsewhere in NY. That does not by itself confirm an office in Rochester, and no service claim is made here.
Budd Van Lines Inc is an independent nationwide carrier rather than an agent of a national van line, which is rare at this size: the federal census records 124 power units and 102 drivers filed from Somerset, New Jersey. Because the company holds its own active common and contract authority with household goods on the licensing record and no broker authority, the entity you contract with is the entity that hauls the shipment. The company's own history pages date the business to 1975.
Why is this company shown here?
Budd 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.
Colonial Van Lines Inc files from 1441 SW 29th Avenue in Pompano Beach, Florida, active on the federal census with 25 power units, 25 drivers and an MCS-150 filed 21 March 2025. The licensing record carries motor carrier of household goods authority granted 31 March 2010 and motor carrier of property authority recorded as reinstated on 27 June 2025, both active at the time of reading; no broker authority is carried on this registration. The federal file records a Satisfactory safety rating dated 28 June 2021 alongside a compliance review dated 3 October 2012. A safety rating is a dated federal snapshot of the review that produced it, not a current assessment of the company. The company publishes this USDOT number and MC docket in its own website footer, which is how the registration and the brand were joined. Two further registrations filing from the same address, one under the identical legal name and one under a Texas corporate name, are disclosed separately as related registrations rather than merged into this record. The company states it was founded in 2003.
Why is this company shown here?
Colonial 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.
USDOT 1434373Pompano Beach, FL2BR est. $2,200–$6,500
Which movers are federally registered in Rochester?
20 companies with a Rochester address on their federal registration hold a granted household goods authority from the FMCSA, and 9 of those identify as a moving business in their legal or trade name. The 9 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.
195 active registrants in Rochester tick household goods among their cargo types on the census form, and 46 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 Rochester: a company based elsewhere may serve the city, and a registered address is not a service area.
BAUER MOVING INC
USDOT 348429 · 434 ELMGROVE RD, ROCHESTER, NY 14606
It filed 1 power unit, registered with the FMCSA on March 29, 1989, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC217988.
USDOT 1203584 · 2436 INNOVATION WAY-BUILDING 10, ROCHESTER, NY 14624
It filed 19 power units, registered with the FMCSA on January 23, 2004, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC489094, active as common carrier.
USDOT 1498819 · 157 LAGRANGE AVE, ROCHESTER, NY 14613
It filed 6 power units, registered with the FMCSA on May 9, 2006, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC600823, active as common carrier.
USDOT 1543241 · 75 S CLINTON AVE SUITE 510, ROCHESTER, NY 14604
It filed 9 power units, registered with the FMCSA on August 16, 2006, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC573935, active as common carrier.
USDOT 2643923 · 936 EXCHANGE STREET, ROCHESTER, NY 14608
It filed 4 power units, registered with the FMCSA on June 11, 2015, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC1458048, active as common carrier.
USDOT 4155668 · 379 RANSFORD AVE, ROCHESTER, NY 14622
It filed 1 power unit, registered with the FMCSA on November 10, 2023, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC1759380, 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 New York licence?
No. Federal registration and New York authorisation are separate. The list above shows the federal record only, and we have not verified whether any company listed holds a New York licence or permit.
The public carrier search on the New York CarCert portal is marked as under development, so verification runs by phone on 518-457-6512 or by email to nymoving@dot.ny.gov.
Peak demand across New York runs May–September. 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 Rochester. 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–September. 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 Rochester, 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 Rochester 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 Rochester?
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 Rochester:
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.
There is no separate cost dataset for Rochester. 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 Rochester is estimated at $3,000–$7,000. Final price depends on distance, packing services, and date.
When is the busiest moving season in Rochester?
Late May through August is the peak window in Rochester, 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 Rochester 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 Rochester 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 Rochester move take?
A 1-bedroom local move in Rochester 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 Rochester 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
