The US moving industry, by the numbers
87,977 companies hold federal authority to move household goods between states as of 2026-08-11. The median company runs 2 trucks. 1,359 are missing a required insurance or bond filing, and 5,833 have had their authority involuntarily suspended at least once. Every figure on this page comes from the federal register, with the method published below.
An industry of two-truck companies
53,121 of the 86,003 companies that report a fleet (61.8%) run one or two trucks. Only 16.5% run ten or more. The household name van lines are statistical outliers: the industry that actually shows up on moving day is overwhelmingly small operators.
Why it matters: capacity. A two-truck company that loses one truck in July has lost half its fleet, which is how peak-season jobs end up brokered to carriers the customer never chose. Fleet size is a registration fact, not a quality score, but it is the single best predictor of whether your mover has slack when something goes wrong.
The red flags, counted
Of the 67,326 companies with an insurance record, 1,359 (2%) show a required filing absent. Of the 67,741 with an authority history, 1,205 (1.8%) have had authority revoked at least once, and 5,833 (8.6%) have been involuntarily suspended, most commonly for lapsed insurance.
Bars are drawn on a shared scale of 12.5% for comparability between the three rates. The suspension figure is the one the industry does not talk about: it is nearly five times the revocation count, and a suspension for lapsed insurance is invisible in a company's marketing. All three are checkable per company, free, in the mover check.
Brokers are rarer than the warnings suggest, and that is the trap
3,432 companies (3.9%) hold broker authority. But only 3 in the whole country hold broker authority alone: 3,429 of the 3,432 also hold carrier authority. The company that answers the phone with its own trucks can still legally book your job under its broker authority and resell it. The question that protects you is not "are you a broker" but "which authority is my job booked under", in writing.
Broker share by state
- UT8.1%
- WI8%
- AR6.9%
- MI6.7%
- NE6.6%
- IN5.8%
- AL5.3%
- KS5.3%
Highest eight of the 36 states with at least 500 registered companies. Smaller states are excluded because a percentage over a small denominator is noise.
State by state
Every state with at least 500 registered companies, ordered by company count. Each state links to its full directory page.
| State | Companies | Broker share | Missing filing | Revoked at least once |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CA | 13,294 | 2% | 199 (1.5%) | 136 |
| TX | 8,765 | 3.8% | 141 (1.6%) | 115 |
| IL | 6,234 | 3.3% | 83 (1.3%) | 69 |
| FL | 5,154 | 4.1% | 83 (1.6%) | 72 |
| OH | 4,234 | 4.3% | 64 (1.5%) | 68 |
| PA | 4,142 | 3.8% | 69 (1.7%) | 43 |
| GA | 3,351 | 3.8% | 45 (1.3%) | 56 |
| NC | 2,938 | 3.5% | 46 (1.6%) | 47 |
| NJ | 2,696 | 3.2% | 49 (1.8%) | 47 |
| IN | 2,531 | 5.8% | 36 (1.4%) | 53 |
| WA | 2,143 | 4.3% | 27 (1.3%) | 27 |
| MN | 1,903 | 3.9% | 33 (1.7%) | 28 |
| NY | 1,891 | 4.9% | 17 (0.9%) | 27 |
| MI | 1,841 | 6.7% | 34 (1.8%) | 24 |
| VA | 1,771 | 4.1% | 26 (1.5%) | 33 |
| TN | 1,701 | 5.2% | 26 (1.5%) | 26 |
| MD | 1,678 | 3.5% | 23 (1.4%) | 17 |
| MO | 1,561 | 5% | 20 (1.3%) | 23 |
| AZ | 1,403 | 3.6% | 26 (1.9%) | 17 |
| WI | 1,318 | 8% | 29 (2.2%) | 25 |
| SC | 1,267 | 4% | 18 (1.4%) | 14 |
| CO | 1,205 | 3.7% | 19 (1.6%) | 9 |
| MA | 1,165 | 3.3% | 14 (1.2%) | 8 |
| KY | 986 | 3% | 19 (1.9%) | 11 |
| AL | 969 | 5.3% | 17 (1.8%) | 22 |
| IA | 929 | 5.1% | 15 (1.6%) | 17 |
| OK | 900 | 4.6% | 11 (1.2%) | 18 |
| OR | 812 | 4.4% | 13 (1.6%) | 8 |
| UT | 806 | 8.1% | 15 (1.9%) | 15 |
| MS | 795 | 3.8% | 14 (1.8%) | 24 |
| NV | 772 | 3.2% | 10 (1.3%) | 11 |
| KS | 731 | 5.3% | 9 (1.2%) | 11 |
| CT | 699 | 3.3% | 15 (2.1%) | 6 |
| NE | 685 | 6.6% | 5 (0.7%) | 10 |
| ID | 600 | 4.7% | 10 (1.7%) | 7 |
| AR | 578 | 6.9% | 13 (2.2%) | 17 |
Method, sources, and how to cite this
Sources. FMCSA Company Census File and the MOTUS Carrier, AuthHist and RevokeSuspend files, published by the US Department of Transportation at data.transportation.gov. US government works, public domain under 17 USC 105. Snapshot date for every figure on this page: 2026-08-11.
Population. Companies with an active USDOT registration, interstate operation, and household goods cargo or active household goods operating authority: 87,977 companies. Intrastate-only movers register with their states and are not counted.
Definitions. "Missing a required filing" means the federal record marks an insurance or bond filing as required and shows none on file: a company with no filing record at all is never counted, because absent data is not evidence of a missing filing. Revocations and involuntary suspensions are counted from authority lifecycle events per USDOT number. Fleet figures use registered power units, reported by 86,003 of 87,977 companies. Per-state rates are published only for states with at least 500 companies.
Citing. Any figure on this page may be quoted freely with a link. Cite as: "BestMoving.us analysis of the FMCSA register, 2026-08-11". The underlying federal data is public domain; the aggregation is reproducible from the definitions above.
Check any of these companies before you pay a deposit
Licence status, carrier vs broker, insurance filings and revocation history: free, from the same federal record this study is built on.
Check a mover free