The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 40 household goods registrants whose physical address is in Salem, OR, and 12 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. BestMovers.info holds no Salem price measurement, only the Oregon range on the Oregon page. Moves that stay inside Oregon are licensed by the Oregon Department of Transportation, Commerce and Compliance Division.
Key facts
Local rate, two movers
$100 to $150 per hour
2-bedroom interstate
$3,000 to $7,000
Intrastate regulator
Oregon Department of Transportation, Commerce and Compliance Division
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 Salem. The companies below are headquartered elsewhere in Oregon, shown separately from movers that publish nationwide service.
Common service neighborhoods: Downtown, South Salem, Keizer, West Salem.
Get a personalized estimate before any sales call. Editorial estimate based on broader national moving-cost data; BestMovers.info does not maintain a separate Salem transaction-price dataset.
IRS county migration data for filing years 2022 to 2023 records 9,297 returns moving out of Marion County and Polk County, the counties Salem sits in, and 9,139 moving in. A return approximates a household rather than a person. Those filings cover 15,480 individuals leaving and 14,968 arriving.
Salem spans 2 counties, so these figures cover all of them: Marion County and Polk County; returns moving between those counties are removed rather than counted as moves out of Salem.
The counties receiving the most households from Marion County and Polk County were Clackamas County (810 returns), Linn County (799 returns) and Multnomah County (737 returns).
Arrivals came mainly from Clackamas County (884 returns), Washington County (778 returns) and Multnomah County (664 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 Salem?
The FMCSA motor carrier census lists 40 registrants carrying household goods whose physical address is in Salem, and 12 of those are classified by FMCSA as interstate operations. That figure counts companies whose federal registration lists an address in Salem. 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 Salem may not.
Moving crews quoting Salem work Downtown, South Salem, Keizer, West Salem and the surrounding areas.
Who licenses movers operating in Salem
Movers working inside Salem are licensed by the Oregon Department of Transportation, Commerce and Compliance Division, whose licence, lookup route and complaint channel are set out on the Oregon page.
Lile has served Pacific Northwest customers since 1959 and today files federally as Lile International Companies Inc at 8060 SW Pfaffle St in Tigard, Oregon, the corporate address published on its own site, with household goods and general freight cargo entries and household goods authority on the licensing record. The census reports one power unit and one driver against that registration, which is the shape of an agent operation whose long hauls travel on van-line equipment. A second Oregon registration under the same name holds no household goods authority and no trucks, and an older Tigard filing is inactive, so neither is presented here. Interstate work runs inside the northAmerican Van Lines network under that van line's own separate registration.
Why is this company shown here?
Lile Moving & Storage is headquartered elsewhere in OR. That does not by itself confirm an office in Salem, and no service claim is made here.
O'Neill Transfer & Storage files from the Portland metropolitan area in Oregon under its own federal registration, carrying docket MC-111617. The registration is the company's own: the corporate registration of Wheaton Van Lines is a separate federal record belonging to a separate registrant, and it is not stored here even though third-party directories have attached the van line's corporate USDOT to this brand. That is a directory error and it is not repeated. The company states first-party that it is a Wheaton agency; an agency relationship is recorded as a relationship and the van line's identifiers stay outside this record. No federal safety rating is on file, which is neither a positive nor a negative signal. The company states first-party that it has served the region since 1920. A separate first-party phrase describing more than a hundred years of service is a less precise statement of the same history rather than a competing year, so it is not recorded as a source conflict and the founding year is published as stated.
Why is this company shown here?
O'Neill Transfer & Storage is headquartered elsewhere in OR. That does not by itself confirm an office in Salem, and no service claim is made here.
One of the oldest moving brands in the US, Bekins runs an agent-affiliate model similar to Allied, with interstate shipments booked under the Bekins registration and performed by affiliated agents.
Why is this company shown here?
Bekins Moving Solutions 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 2256609Indianapolis, IN2BR est. $3,000–$7,000
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.
5 companies with a Salem 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.
45 active registrants in Salem tick household goods among their cargo types on the census form, and 17 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 Salem: a company based elsewhere may serve the city, and a registered address is not a service area.
JJ & C MOVERS LLC
USDOT 1241033 · 935 17TH ST NE, SALEM, OR 97301
It filed 3 power units, registered with the FMCSA on April 27, 2004, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC881943.
USDOT 3311673 · 4931 INDIAN SCHOOL RD NE, SALEM, OR 97305
It filed 15 power units, registered with the FMCSA on July 17, 2019, and holds granted federal household goods authority under docket MC1052087, 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 Oregon licence?
No. Federal registration and Oregon authorisation are separate. The list above shows the federal record only, and we have not verified whether any company listed holds a Oregon licence or permit.
A mover operating inside Oregon needs the Oregon Intrastate Certificate to Transport Household Goods from the Oregon Department of Transportation, Commerce and Compliance Division.
Peak demand across Oregon 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 Salem. 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 Salem, 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 Salem 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 Salem?
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 Salem:
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 Salem. 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 Salem is estimated at $3,000–$7,000. Final price depends on distance, packing services, and date.
When is the busiest moving season in Salem?
Late May through August is the peak window in Salem, 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 Salem 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 Salem 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 Salem move take?
A 1-bedroom local move in Salem 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 Salem 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
