Tipping
Mover tip calculator
Tell it how long the crew was there and how many of them there were, and you get what to put in each person’s hand — not a percentage of a bill you already paid.
It also answers the question the invoice raises: the stair and long-carry fees on your quote are charges the company set, so they don’t come off what the crew gets. Each line is marked sourced or house judgment.
Per mover — local move
Have $180 in cash ready on moving day — $60 each, handed to each of the 3 movers rather than as one lump sum to the crew chief. The fees already on your quote don’t change that figure — those are charges the company set for services it agreed to do, not a tip to anyone.
| Why that much | Amount |
|---|---|
| 6 hours at $7.50 a hour, for each moverSourcedMove.org: “$5 to $10 per hour for each worker.” NerdWallet puts the same figure at “typically $4 to $15 per mover per hour.” We land at $7.50 because they were great on the day — still inside the published $5–$10. | $45 |
| Flights of stairs, at either end (2)House judgmentOurs: $5 a mover for each of 2 flights. No publication puts a tip figure on this. Federal moving rules name this one directly: a “flight charge” is “an additional charge for carrying items up or down flights of stairs.” That charge is the company’s, not the crew’s. | +$10 |
| Fees already itemised on your quoteSourcedNothing, and that is the point. Stair, long-carry, fuel and travel charges are accessorial services billed by the moving company for work it agreed to do. The IRS test is that a payment is a tip “only if the customer voluntarily decides to pay it and determines the amount” — a fee the company set and you had to pay is neither. You have not tipped anyone yet. | +$0 |
Informational only. Tipping a moving crew is customary in the US, not owed, and no mover may require it. The per-mover bands come from Move.org and NerdWallet; what counts as a fee rather than a tip is the federal moving rules’ own definition and the IRS’. Every line marked house judgment is ours — untick any of them.
Methodology
This tool runs the Kindhow Scale, version 1.0, in its baseline-and-adjustments form — the same shape as the wedding gift calculator. The difference is what the baseline is of: one mover, for the time they were with you. Everything else multiplies at the end, so the headline number is cash to withdraw and the figure under it is what goes in each hand.
The formula
one mover, for the time they were there:
local move $5-$10 an hour sourced (Move.org, NerdWallet)
long distance $50-$100 a day sourced (NerdWallet)
± how they did as booked / great / well beyond
± where you moved BEA price parity, as a nudge
→ a rate still inside the published band
+ stairs, per flight $5 judgment
+ the truck parked far $10 judgment
+ a piano or a safe $10 judgment
+ they packed for you $10 judgment
+ heat, snow or rain $5 judgment
your quote itemises fees $0 sourced — accessorial charges are
the company's, not the crew's
your quote says "gratuity" −all judgment — already collected; ask
─────────────
= per mover, rounded to a bill you can hand over (lib/giveable.js)
× the crew — twice on a long move, because the crew that loads you
is often a different local agent from the crew that deliversThe published bands — sourced
Two publications price this the same way and neither prices it as a percentage of the moving bill. Move.org publishes an hourly figure per worker; NerdWallet publishes a wider hourly figure and a separate per-day figure for long-distance moves. Where the two overlap we use the narrower band, so any figure this tool produces is one both publications support.
| Shape of move | What the publications say | We use |
|---|---|---|
| A local move — one crew, billed by the hour | Move.org: “$5 to $10 per hour for each worker.” NerdWallet puts the same figure at “typically $4 to $15 per mover per hour.” | $5–$10 a hour |
| A long-distance move — loaded one day, delivered another | NerdWallet: “typically $50 to $100 per day per mover” on a long-distance move. | $50–$100 a day |
A percentage of the moving bill is the other method you will see quoted, usually 10–20%. This tool does not use it, and that is deliberate: a $9,000 interstate bill is mostly line-haul mileage and fuel, which is not work anybody carried. Tying the crew’s tip to it pays a four-person crew four times more for the same eight hours because the truck drove further.
The fees on your quote are not a tip — and that is federal, not our opinion
A moving quote is full of line items that look like they cover the hard parts of the day. They do not cover the crew. The federal moving regulations define a flight charge as “an additional charge for carrying items up or down flights of stairs”, and name packing, unpacking, appliance servicing and piano carrying as accessorial services — services you requested and were billed for. A long carry is a charge “for carrying articles excessive distances between the mover’s vehicle and your residence.”
Those are payments to the moving company. The IRS’ test for what counts as a tip is that “a payment is a tip only if the customer voluntarily decides to pay it and determines the amount” — a fee the company set and you had to pay fails both halves, which makes it the business’s revenue. Whether the crew sees any of it is a question only the company can answer.
| What your quote says | What the line does | Tag |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing about gratuity or extra fees | Nothing. The published band, in full. | Sourced |
| It itemises fees — stairs, long carry, fuel, travel | Adds a line at $0 that stays on the ledger. Accessorial charges are the company’s, so the tip does not move. | Sourced |
| It says “gratuity included”, in writing | Takes the whole amount back off, and keeps every line above it visible so you can see what you would otherwise have given. | House judgment |
The last row is tagged as ours on purpose. No moving publication says a written gratuity line settles it the way The Knot does for wedding vendors, and the IRS reasoning above cuts the other way: a gratuity the company required and set is the company’s money until the company passes it on. Zeroing it is our call, and the tool tells you to ask the crew chief.
Two crews, not one
On a long-distance move, pick the long-distance setting and the tool asks twice how many movers there were. That is because federal moving rules define an agent as “a local moving company authorized to act on behalf of a larger national company”, and a van line routinely uses one at the origin and another at the destination. The crew that loads you is frequently not the crew that delivers you, so a single tip at the end reaches half the people who moved you. It is the one thing here that changes the shape of the answer rather than its size.
Where the judgment is
Two controls move the sourced figure, and both stay inside the published band, which is what lets that line keep calling itself sourced. Where inside is ours.
| Setting | Inside the published band | Local, per hour | Long, per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| They did the job | 15% of the way up | $5.75 | $57.50 |
| They were great | 50% of the way up | $7.50 | $75 |
| They went well beyond | 90% of the way up | $9.50 | $95 |
The regional bands come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parities for 2024, and nudge you up or down within the band — never outside it. A state ten points above the US average moves you a fifth of the way up. That inference is ours, not BEA’s: nobody has studied whether moving tips track regional price levels. Same rule as the holiday tipping list.
| Band | Published 2024 values | We use |
|---|---|---|
| A high-cost state — California, Hawaii, New Jersey | California 110.7, Hawaii 110.0, New Jersey 108.8 | 110 |
| About the US average | the US is 100 by definition | 100 |
| A low-cost state — Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa | Arkansas 86.9, Mississippi 87.0, Iowa 87.8 | 87 |
What made it a hard day — all house judgment
Every publication we found says a harder move deserves more and none of them puts a figure on it. So these are ours, flat, per mover, and each one says so on its own ledger line. The federal wording in the last column is why each is a real category rather than one we invented — it is also the reason none of them is already paid to the crew.
| What happened | Why it is a category at all | We add |
|---|---|---|
| Flights of stairs, at either end | Federal moving rules name this one directly: a “flight charge” is “an additional charge for carrying items up or down flights of stairs.” That charge is the company’s, not the crew’s. | $5 a flight |
| The truck couldn’t park close | A long carry is billed as an accessorial service — a charge “for carrying articles excessive distances between the mover’s vehicle and your residence.” | $10 |
| A piano, a safe, or something like it | “Piano carrying” is one of the federal regulation’s own examples of an accessorial service. | $10 |
| They packed your boxes too | Packing and unpacking are accessorial services under the federal rules — services you requested and were billed for. | $10 |
| It was in real heat, snow or rain | Neither of our sources names this one. It is entirely ours. | $5 |
Two last house numbers, both applied per mover after everything else: the result is rounded to a bill you can actually hand over (the rounding table), and it never falls below $5, because under that it stops reading as a tip.
What this tool will not do
- It will not tell you a tip is required. It is customary in the US and it is not owed. No mover may demand one, and a crew that was careless or hours late is a fair reason to give less or nothing. Every line here can be unticked or overridden.
- It cannot read your quote. The quote setting reports what you tell it. If the invoice is ambiguous — a “service fee” that might or might not be a gratuity — the tool’s answer is to ask the company in writing, and it says so on the line rather than quietly deciding for you.
- It does not handle damage claims. What a mover owes you for a broken table is set by the valuation coverage on your bill of lading, not by what you tip. Those are separate conversations and this tool only has an opinion about one of them.
- It does not model food, drinks or the truck rental. Lunch for the crew is common and genuinely appreciated; no publication prices it, and it is not a substitute for cash.
- It is US-only. The bands are American, and the federal definitions apply to interstate moves of household goods in the United States. Moving customs elsewhere are frequently different and sometimes absent entirely.
Sources
- Move.org — How Much Should You Tip Movers? — the per-worker hourly band, and that you tip each worker rather than handing a lump sum to the crew chief.
- NerdWallet — How Much to Tip Movers — a second published hourly band, and the separate per-day figure for long-distance moves.
- 49 CFR Part 375, Appendix A — Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move — the federal definitions of a flight charge, a long carry, accessorial services, and an agent.
- IRS — Tip recordkeeping and reporting (tips vs. service charges) — the test that separates a tip from a charge the business set.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities, 2024 — the regional price bands.
Informational only, not professional advice. The Kindhow Scale is a published model, not a standard, and the lines marked house judgment are our reasoning and nothing more. Nothing here is tax, legal or consumer-protection advice: the federal moving rules and the IRS material are quoted to explain what a charge on your invoice is, not to tell you or your mover how to treat one. Last reviewed: August 2026. Scale version 1.0. Figures that come from a publication are re-checked against their source on a monthly cycle; when one moves, the version number moves with it.
Frequently asked questions
How much do you tip movers?
Per mover, not per job — that is the part most answers get wrong. Move.org publishes "$5 to $10 per hour for each worker" and NerdWallet publishes "typically $4 to $15 per mover per hour", so a 6-hour local move lands around $7.50 an hour for each person on the crew. A three-person crew on that day is $60 each and $180 in total. Long-distance moves are priced by the day instead: NerdWallet puts those at "typically $50 to $100 per day per mover". Hand it to each mover individually rather than giving one lump sum to the crew chief — Move.org is explicit that you tip "each worker rather than giving the moving team supervisor a lump sum gratuity", and the chief has no obligation to split it evenly.
My quote already charges for stairs and a long carry. Have I tipped them?
No, and this is the most expensive misreading on a moving invoice. Those charges have a federal name: a "flight charge" is defined in the moving regulations as "an additional charge for carrying items up or down flights of stairs", and a long carry is a charge "for carrying articles excessive distances between the mover's vehicle and your residence". Both are accessorial services — work the company agreed to do and billed you for. Under the IRS test a payment is a tip "only if the customer voluntarily decides to pay it and determines the amount", and a fee the company set and you had to pay fails both halves. So it is the company's revenue, and whether any of it reaches the crew is up to the company. This tool shows that as a line on the ledger at $0, because seeing the zero is the point. The one case that genuinely does cancel the tip is a quote that says "gratuity included" in writing — set that and the whole thing comes back off.
Do you tip the loading crew and the delivery crew separately on a long-distance move?
Yes, and you usually have to. Federal moving rules define an "agent" as "a local moving company authorized to act on behalf of a larger national company", and a van line routinely uses one agent at the origin and a different one at the destination — so the people who carry your sofa out are often not the people who carry it in. One tip handed over at the end reaches only half of them. This tool asks for both crew sizes and splits the total into two envelope counts: 4 loading and 3 delivering at $80 each is $560 across the two days. If the same driver runs both ends, tip them at each, or once at delivery for both days.
Do you still tip movers if something got broken?
Damage and a tip are two separate conversations, and it is worth keeping them separate. A claim goes to the company under the valuation coverage on your bill of lading; a tip goes to the people who carried the boxes. If the crew was careful and something still broke, the "they did the job" setting on this tool is the bottom of the published band — $5.75 an hour a mover rather than $9.50 — not zero. If the crew was careless, rude, or hours late, tipping less or not at all is entirely reasonable and no publication we would cite says otherwise. Nothing here is required.
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