Car shipping cost by distance
Car shipping cost per mile falls as the trip gets longer, because loading and empty miles are spread over more road. A short trip breaks that math. The carrier still has to reach you, load the car, and often reposition an empty trailer. Use the distance bands below, then your own cities.
Key facts
- What per mile is
- A band divided by miles. It is a comparison, not the way most trucks are hired.
- Why short trips look expensive per mile
- Loading, unloading, and empty miles to the pickup do not shrink with your route
- Driving time is capped
- No driving without 10 consecutive hours off first. Then at most 11 hours of driving, and no driving after 14 consecutive hours on duty.
- Source: 49 CFR 395.3
- Ocean miles
- Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico are not rows in the highway table
The sources are listed on this page.
Car shipping cost per mile is highest on short trips and lower on long ones. The reason is not a special short-haul penalty written in federal rules. The truck has a cost to reach your car, load it, and unload it. Those costs are divided by more miles when the delivery is far away. Divide a short band by a short distance and the per-mile figure looks high. That figure is a warning about the math, not a rate you should offer a driver.
The current national bands by distance are here. Read the date. Open and enclosed are not the same row.
| Approximate distance | Open transport | Enclosed transport | Estimated open cost per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 250 miles | $376–$573 | $564–$859 | $3.11 |
| 250–499 miles | $404–$616 | $606–$924 | $1.34 |
| 500–999 miles | $556–$848 | $834–$1,271 | $0.92 |
| 1,000–1,499 miles | $704–$1,072 | $1,056–$1,609 | $0.70 |
| 1,500–1,999 miles | $822–$1,252 | $1,233–$1,878 | $0.58 |
| 2,000–2,499 miles | $923–$1,406 | $1,384–$2,109 | $0.51 |
| 2,500 miles and over | $1,053–$1,605 | $1,580–$2,408 | $0.44 |
RideShipper estimate v1 for a running Sedan or compact car. Each row uses an example distance within that group. The per-mile figure uses the estimated midpoint. Distances are approximate. Based on prices reported in MoveAdvisor reviews. This is not a quote. As of 2026-11-09
RideShipper is not a carrier and not a broker. The bands come from a model owned by the comparison service World Media Group LLC operates. A carrier sets the price when it accepts the car. Companies that receive a quote request may pay RideShipper. The band is not that price.
How to do the per-mile math without fooling yourself
Pick one band. Take the low and the high. Divide each by the miles that band represents. You now have a per-mile span. Do the same for a longer band. The longer span is usually the smaller one per mile.
Then do the step that breaks a lazy quote. Take the long-haul per-mile span and multiply it by a short distance, the kind of trip that stays inside one or two states. You will get a number that often will not hire a truck. The carrier may have to drive empty miles, called deadhead, just to reach the pickup, and still has to load the car. Industry practice is to price that short job as a job, not as miles times the coast-to-coast rate. There is no single minimum dollar in federal rules. The minimum is whatever a carrier will accept that week, and it varies. The glossary note on per-mile pricing makes the same point.
Deadhead is why two customers with the same miles can pay different amounts. One pickup is on the way. The other requires a truck to leave a busy lane and come back empty. The model does not see that truck. Your quotes will.
Three bands, three jobs
Short. You are often paying for the visit as much as for the highway. A terminal meeting, if you accept one, can be cheaper because the truck does not thread a residential street, but you spend time and your own fuel to get there. Door-to-door is the default people expect. It is not free on a short haul. Compare the two ideas on door-to-door versus terminal when you have both kinds of quotes.
Medium. Several hundred miles is where the per-mile figure starts to calm down, and where a shared trailer can still be a good fit if your date is flexible. A same-week pickup on a thin route can jump out of the band. Flexibility is part of the price. See flexible dates versus shipping this week.
Cross-country. The miles dominate. Direction can still matter: a truck that delivered into a region needs a car going back. Same miles, different price, is backhaul and direction. Do not average eastbound and westbound into one number and call it the cost.
A live check for three different lengths, running sedan, open transport:
| Route | Open | Enclosed |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia, PA to Pittsburgh, PA | $376–$573 | $564–$859 |
| Dallas, TX to Phoenix, AZ | $653–$996 | $980–$1,494 |
| Seattle, WA to Miami, FL | $1,227–$1,870 | $1,841–$2,805 |
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is the short pattern. Dallas to Phoenix is a long regional haul. Seattle to Miami is the cross-country pattern. If your cities are not these, do not scale these ranges by hand. Use your own pair.
Time is not miles divided by 70
Price and days are different outputs. For a driver of a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle, 49 CFR 395.3 says the driver may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive after 14 consecutive hours on duty, and may drive a total of 11 hours in that 14-hour period. After more than 8 hours of driving, driving is not allowed until there is a consecutive 30-minute interruption, unless a short-haul exception in 49 CFR 395.1 applies. A driver may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days if the carrier does not operate every day, or after 70 hours on duty in 8 consecutive days if the carrier does. Either of those periods may end when an off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours begins.
Adverse driving conditions can allow not more than two additional hours in the cases 49 CFR 395.1 describes. None of that is a formula for how many days your car will take. A shared trailer stops for other vehicles. The transit time tool is a planning span. RideShipper does not promise on-time delivery.
What distance does not include
The diesel index, $6.127 per gallon, week of . Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly diesel U.S., release 2026-11-10., is a national weekly sample of on-highway diesel, collected by the Energy Information Administration on Monday mornings from retail outlets. It shifts bands over time. It is not a per-mile fuel receipt for your lane. Details are in diesel and shipping rates.
The highway table leaves out ocean. Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico need a ship or a barge for part of the move. Putting an ocean fare inside a road band would be a made-up number. Those trips are quoted on their own service pages, for example Hawaii and Alaska. Puerto Rico is the same kind of ocean problem.
Vehicle class still matters at every distance. An SUV, a long pickup, or a motorcycle is not the sedan row. A car that does not run is not the runner row. Enclosed is not open. Change one of those and you have left the band you just divided by miles.
Use your cities, not a national per-mile rate
Measure the driving distance if you want the miles in front of you: route distance. Then get the range for those cities. A per-mile number from a blog, multiplied by your miles, is how short trips get underpriced and how long trips get compared with the wrong trailer.
Car shipping cost calculator
Questions
Can I multiply a per-mile rate by my miles and get the price?
Only as a rough check, and it fails on short trips. Divide a long-haul band by its miles, then multiply by a 100-mile trip, and you will usually undershoot what a carrier needs to come get the car. Use the band for that distance, or the calculator for the real cities.
Is eastbound the same price as westbound?
Not always. The miles can match while the number of trucks that need a load in that direction does not. The model includes a direction factor on seasonal lanes. It is not a promise that your week matches the factor.
Do the bands include the driver's hotel?
No. The bands are shipping ranges. Hotels, meals, and fuel for a person driving the car are a different sum. That comparison is the ship-or-drive page.
How many days does a long trip take?
The hours-of-service rules limit how long a driver may drive. They do not state a door-to-door day count, because a shared trailer also stops for other cars. Use a transit span, not an arrival hour.