The U.S. moving industry supports roughly 482,000 jobs and generates $92.2 billion in total economic activity, according to the American Trucking Associations’ Moving & Storage Conference — yet Americans are moving at the lowest rate ever recorded. Only 11.2% of the population changed residences in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the lowest mobility rate since the American Community Survey began tracking it. The industry is growing in dollar terms while its actual customer base shrinks — that contradiction defines moving in 2026.
Quick answer: The U.S. Moving Services industry is worth $25.7 billion in 2026, according to IBISWorld, spread across roughly 9,430 businesses. The broader moving and storage sector’s total economic footprint — including indirect and induced activity — reaches $92.2 billion and supports nearly 482,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who moved in 2024 fell to 11.2%, a record low in data going back to 1948.
Market Size: A $25.7 Billion Industry in 2026
According to IBISWorld’s industry analysis, the Moving Services industry in the United States is valued at $25.7 billion in 2026, spread across approximately 9,430 businesses — a business count that has grown at a compound annual rate of 1.3% since 2021, while industry revenue itself has expanded faster, at roughly 2.1% CAGR over the same period. That’s a highly fragmented market: with fewer than 10,000 businesses splitting $25.7 billion, most operators are small regional carriers, local movers, and franchise agents rather than a handful of dominant national players.
The Full Economic Footprint: $92.2 Billion and 482,000 Jobs
IBISWorld’s figure only captures direct moving-services revenue. The broader moving and storage sector’s total footprint is larger once indirect and induced economic activity is included. The most detailed breakdown comes from the American Trucking Associations’ Moving & Storage Conference — the trade group formed when the American Moving & Storage Association (AMSA) was absorbed into ATA in 2020. Its economic impact study found the industry directly generated $32.2 billion in economic activity, rising to $92.2 billion once indirect and induced effects are counted. On the employment side, the industry directly supported 186,382 jobs, with another 121,968 supported indirectly and 173,420 induced — a total impact of 481,770 jobs. The same study found the industry paid $12.8 billion in wages and $10.6 billion in state and federal business taxes.
The Paradox: Fewer Americans Are Moving Than Ever Recorded
Here’s the tension running through the entire industry in 2026: the dollar figures above describe a business sector generating real, measurable economic output — but the pool of people actually moving keeps shrinking. Census Bureau data shows just 11.2% of Americans changed residences in 2024 (roughly 14.8 million households), the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking geographic mobility in 1948. That’s down from 12.1% in 2023, roughly 14% a decade ago, and about 20% back in the 1960s — a long, steady decline rather than a single bad year.
Breaking the 2024 figure down further: 8.9% of movers relocated within the same state, while only 2.1% moved across state lines — both figures down from the year before (9.1% and 2.3%, respectively). Interstate moves, the segment this industry depends on most for higher-margin long-distance jobs, are shrinking even faster than moving overall.
Why the Industry Grows in Dollars While Participation Shrinks
Several forces explain how industry revenue keeps climbing even as the share of Americans moving keeps falling. First, the moves that do happen increasingly skew long-distance and higher-value: a cross-country relocation bills far more than a move across town, so total industry revenue can grow even with fewer total moves. Second, the mortgage rate “lock-in effect” — homeowners holding pre-2022 rates below 3% who would face sharply higher payments on any new mortgage — has suppressed exactly the kind of routine, discretionary moves that used to make up industry volume, concentrating remaining demand among renters, job-relocators, and life-event movers with less price sensitivity. Third, general price inflation across labor, fuel, and packing materials has pushed up the average cost per move independent of volume.
Put differently: the industry isn’t growing because more people are moving. It’s growing because the people who are still moving represent a more concentrated, less discretionary, and more expensive-per-job slice of the population than in previous decades — retirees relocating for retirement communities, employees required to relocate for a new role, and renters without the mortgage lock-in constraint that now keeps millions of homeowners from listing their house at all.
Where the Moves That Do Happen Are Going
The shrinking pool of movers isn’t distributing evenly across the map. Carrier studies from United Van Lines and Atlas Van Lines, along with Census Bureau state-to-state migration data, consistently point to the same handful of destination states — Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee posted the largest net population gains from domestic migration in 2024. But even those perennial Sun Belt winners are showing signs of deceleration: Atlanta flipped from a net migration gain to a net loss, and Tampa’s domestic inflow fell by roughly 70% year over year, reflecting the same national mobility slowdown showing up in the aggregate Census numbers.
The Adjacent Market: Employee Relocation Services at $13.5 Billion
Separate from general moving services, IBISWorld’s Employee Relocation Services industry data tracks the specific business of managing employer-sponsored moves — everything from home-sale assistance to destination services for relocating employees. That segment is valued at $13.5 billion in 2026, spread across 14,871 businesses, and has grown at a 3.8% revenue CAGR (3.7% for business count) since 2021 — modestly faster growth than general moving services, consistent with employer-paid relocation proving more resilient to the affordability pressures suppressing self-funded household moves.
That resilience shows up in industry survey data too: separate corporate mobility research has found a majority of organizations reporting increased relocation volume and growing relocation budgets even as overall consumer moving activity slows, alongside a documented shift toward AI-assisted relocation management and more personalized, budget-conscious relocation packages.
Self-Storage: The Industry’s $39.2 Billion Overflow Valve
Self-storage is technically a separate industry from moving services, but the two are functionally linked — many interstate and long-distance moves involve a temporary storage stopover between origin and destination. IBISWorld’s Storage & Warehouse Leasing industry data puts that market at $39.2 billion in 2026, having grown at a 3.8% CAGR since 2021, with Public Storage holding the largest share of any single operator. At more than 50% larger than the direct moving-services industry itself, storage has effectively become a parallel — and in dollar terms, bigger — business built on the same underlying activity of Americans relocating their belongings.
Industry Structure: Fragmented, Not Consolidated
Despite decades of household-name marketing from major van lines, the moving industry remains structurally fragmented. UniGroup (parent of United Van Lines and Mayflower), Atlas Van Lines, and SIRVA (parent of Allied and North American Van Lines) operate primarily as network franchisors, contracting with thousands of independently owned local agents who do the actual truck driving and labor under a shared brand. That structure explains why the same national “study” from a carrier like United Van Lines or Atlas is really an aggregation of thousands of individually owned small businesses’ booking data, not the output of one centrally managed company. Alongside the franchised full-service carriers, U-Haul and similar operators serve an entirely separate do-it-yourself segment built on one-way truck and trailer rentals rather than labor. With roughly 9,430 total businesses in the space per IBISWorld’s count, no single company controls a dominant share of the overall U.S. moving market — a structural fact that also explains why different carriers’ annual migration studies can rank the same states so differently: each is only seeing the slice of the market that its own network of agents happens to serve.
That fragmentation has practical implications for consumers, too. Because no single company dominates, pricing, service quality, and availability can vary significantly by region and by which local agent happens to hold a given carrier’s franchise in a given metro area — a dynamic that’s harder to see from national marketing than it is from the underlying business structure.
One quick way to use this data: if you’re evaluating the moving industry as a market — for investment, competitive research, or business planning — separate the “dollar growth” story from the “mobility rate” story. Revenue and business counts can climb even in a year when fewer Americans move overall, because the moves that remain are longer, pricier, and less price-sensitive on average.
Frequently Asked Questions About the U.S. Moving Industry in 2026
Q: How big is the U.S. moving industry in 2026?
A: IBISWorld values the direct Moving Services industry at $25.7 billion in 2026. Including indirect and induced economic activity, the American Trucking Associations’ Moving & Storage Conference puts the sector’s total economic footprint at $92.2 billion, based on its most recent published economic impact study.
Q: How many people work in the moving industry?
A: The ATA Moving & Storage Conference’s economic impact study found the industry directly supports 186,382 jobs, with a total impact — including indirect and induced employment — of 481,770 jobs nationally.
Q: What percentage of Americans move each year?
A: Just 11.2% of Americans changed residences in 2024, according to Census Bureau data — a record low since the American Community Survey began tracking mobility in 1948, and down from roughly 14% a decade ago and 20% in the 1960s.
Q: Is the moving industry growing or shrinking in 2026?
A: Both, depending on the measure. Industry revenue and business counts are growing (IBISWorld cites roughly 2.1% revenue CAGR from 2021–2026), even as the overall share of Americans who move each year keeps falling to record lows.
Q: How many moving companies are there in the U.S.?
A: IBISWorld counts approximately 9,430 businesses in the Moving Services industry as of 2026, reflecting a highly fragmented market of mostly small regional operators and franchised agents rather than a few dominant national companies.
Q: Why are interstate moves declining faster than moves overall?
A: Census data shows interstate moves fell to 2.1% of the population in 2024 from 2.3% in 2023 — a steeper drop than same-state moves. Higher mortgage rates and the resulting “lock-in effect” on homeowners disproportionately discourage the larger, more disruptive decision to relocate across state lines.
Q: Is the corporate relocation market growing faster than consumer moving?
A: Yes. IBISWorld’s Employee Relocation Services industry data shows 3.8% revenue CAGR from 2021–2026, compared to roughly 2.1% for general Moving Services — consistent with employer-funded relocation proving more resilient to the affordability pressures reducing self-funded household moves.
Q: How does self-storage relate to the moving industry?
A: They’re tracked as separate industries, but functionally linked — many long-distance moves involve temporary storage. IBISWorld values the Storage & Warehouse Leasing industry at $39.2 billion in 2026, more than 50% larger than the direct Moving Services industry itself.
Q: What’s the difference between the moving industry and the self-storage industry?
A: They’re classified as separate industries by research firms like IBISWorld, but they’re functionally connected — a large share of long-distance moves involve a temporary storage stopover, and self-storage’s $39.2 billion market in 2026 is now considerably larger in dollar terms than the direct moving services industry itself.
The honest 2026 picture: this is a genuinely large, multi-billion-dollar industry with real employment impact — and, at the same time, an industry serving a shrinking share of the population that’s willing or able to pack up and move. Both facts are true, and neither cancels the other out.
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