Military Car Shipping

What the military pays for, and what it does not

This is the part that catches most service members out, so it is worth stating plainly before anything else.

On an OCONUS move — overseas, including Alaska and Hawaii in most cases — the government ships one privately owned vehicle at its expense, through the official POV programme and its designated ports. That is a separate process from anything a commercial carrier does, and if it covers your move you should use it.

On a CONUS PCS between bases in the lower 48, the government generally does not ship your car. You are authorised mileage and travel allowances to drive it yourself. Shipping it commercially is your choice, paid out of pocket, and for a lot of families it still wins once you count the fuel, the hotel nights, the days of leave and the mileage put on a vehicle you intend to keep.

The second vehicle is the other common case. The programme covers one POV; a household with two cars ships the second commercially, or drives one and ships one.

Why PCS timing is the hard part

Orders move. Report dates shift. Housing falls through. That is normal, and it is the single biggest difference between a military shipment and a civilian one — the date is not really yours to control, and the carrier needs to know that up front rather than at dispatch.

What actually helps:

• Book on a window, not a day. A three-day pickup window is dramatically easier to dispatch than a named date, and it is usually what orders allow anyway.
• Tell us the report date, not just the pickup date. It changes which end of the window we aim for.
• Expect PCS season to be tight. Late spring through August is the heaviest relocation period in the country before you add the military cycle on top of it. Book earlier than feels necessary.
• Name a second contact. If you fly ahead and your spouse hands the car over, or a neighbour does, put that person on the order with a mobile number at booking.

Base access, and why the handover usually happens off post

A car hauler can be 75 feet long. Most installations will not admit one through a gate without an escort and prior arrangement, and a driver without a DBIDS credential cannot get on at all. In practice pickup and delivery happen at an agreed point just outside the installation — a shopping centre lot, a hotel car park, a wide cross-street — and that is still door-to-door service in the sense that matters: we come to you, not to a terminal in another city.

If you live in on-post housing, plan the meeting point when the driver calls ahead rather than on the day.

What it costs

A military move is priced exactly like any other: by corridor, distance, vehicle size, whether it runs, and how flexible the dates are. On our published lanes that is roughly $300-$550 for a short interstate hop, $450-$1,050 across a thousand miles, and $1,100-$1,700 coast to coast on an open carrier. Enclosed transport adds roughly 30-50% and is worth it for a collector vehicle, not for a daily driver.

Ask about the military discount when you book, and keep every document you are given. If you are executing a personally procured move, the invoice and the Bill of Lading are what a reimbursement claim is built from, so get them in writing rather than verbally.

Deployment, not just PCS

A deployment is a different problem from a move: the car is not going with you, it is going somewhere safe. Shipping it to family rather than paying for storage near the installation is often cheaper over a long rotation, and it puts the vehicle somewhere it can be started and driven occasionally rather than sitting for a year.

If the car is going into storage instead, it still has to get there, and the same rules about dates and handover points apply.

Preparing the vehicle

Standard preparation applies: wash it so existing damage is visible, photograph every panel in daylight, leave about a quarter tank, remove the toll transponder, and empty the interior — carriers are licensed to move vehicles, and cargo insurance does not cover the contents. Two things are specific to a PCS:

• Take the base decal and any gate access device out of the windscreen if you are clearing the installation.
• If the registration or insurance is about to change state, sort that before the car ships rather than after, so it is not sitting at the destination unregistered.

Where we ship

We book military moves across all 50 states, and the heaviest lanes are the ones you would expect: the Carolinas and Georgia to and from Texas and California, Virginia and Maryland to and from Florida and the Midwest, Washington State to and from the Southeast. See popular shipping routes for lane prices and transit windows, or get a free quote with your pickup and delivery ZIP codes.

For the full picture on how the POV programme, allowances and commercial shipping fit together, read the military PCS vehicle shipping guide.