Movers from Boston to Philadelphia We treat your belongings like our own

Worth knowing early: this is one of the few lanes where WellKnown has crews at both ends. Boston and Philadelphia are both company markets, so the crew that loads your home works for the same company as the one carrying it up the stairs at the other end.

Two curbs, two deadlines

Both ends of this lane run a real permit system, and the difference between them is the thing that catches people out.

• Boston. $69 buys a day's hold on two spaces from the Office of the Parking Clerk, 7am to 5pm, rising to $109 where the curb is metered. The online cut-off is 15 days out; a walk-in application is accepted up to three days before. Signs are yours to put up, 48 hours minimum, and the cars around the space need a flier two days ahead.
• Philadelphia. The Department of Streets issues a temporary no parking permit at $50 per 40 feet of curb per day in Center City and University City, and $25 per 40 feet everywhere else. Forty feet is about two spaces. You need to apply at least four business days ahead, and the police district hands you the signs to post, at least 24 hours before you need the space.

Neither permit is something we can pull for you. We plan around whatever you secure, and if you tell us the address and the date we will tell you how much curb the crew actually needs. Skipping it will not change your rate, since a long-distance move is priced as a binding flat rate. What it changes is how long loading takes, and loading is what your delivery window is measured from.

Philadelphia's streets are narrower than its permit fee suggests

Philadelphia has two access problems and they do not overlap. In the rowhouse blocks, Old City, Society Hill, Queen Village, Fishtown and much of South Philadelphia, the street itself is the constraint: one-way, parked solid both sides, and often too tight for a large truck to sit square against the curb. The permit matters more here than anywhere, because there is no informal place to put a truck.

In Center City and University City the street gets easier and the building gets harder. Mid-rise and high-rise buildings there typically want a freight elevator booked, a service entrance agreed, and a certificate of insurance naming the building before a crew is allowed up. It is not universal. The practical step is to get the building's requirements out of the management office in writing, well before move week, and forward them to us: the exact coverage limits, the wording they want on the additional insured line, the building's name as it should appear, and the date. The certificate comes from us once we have those.

Boston's September problem

If you are moving out of Boston in late August or early September, the calendar is against you. September is when the bulk of the city's leases change hands, something Boston publishes its own guidance about, and permits, elevators and crews all thin out across the same two-week stretch. Counting backwards from the 15-day online deadline is the only reliable way to plan around it.

The same guidance carries a rule worth repeating: a ten-foot clearance keeps moving trucks off Storrow Drive entirely. Trucks still hit those bridges every summer. Our routing already accounts for it, though it matters more if you are driving a rental yourself.

Who does what

On us: the crew and the truck, wrapping and protection, basic disassembly and reassembly, loading, the drive, unloading into the rooms you nominate, and issuing a certificate of insurance when a building asks for one.

On you: confirming the inventory, deciding what needs packing, securing the permit at each end, booking any elevator or service entrance, and passing on building paperwork and deadlines. None of that is us being hands-off. It is the part of the move only the resident or the leaseholder can actually authorize, and telling us early is what lets us plan around it.

The paperwork on an interstate move is different

Crossing a state line changes who regulates the job, and therefore what you should expect to be given. A move that stayed inside Pennsylvania would fall to the Pennsylvania PUC, and one that stayed inside Massachusetts to the Massachusetts DPU. This one answers to neither. It is federal, which means a written estimate, a bill of lading before the truck leaves, and a carrier whose USDOT number you can check yourself.

Ask for all three from anyone quoting this lane. If a company will not give you a USDOT number, that is the end of the conversation.

Where we deliver around Philadelphia

Across the city and the suburbs: Center City, Rittenhouse, Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Graduate Hospital, Fairmount, University City, Manayunk and South Philadelphia, plus King of Prussia, Ardmore, Conshohocken, Bala Cynwyd and Cherry Hill over the bridge. Philadelphia movers covers moves that stay inside the metro, and we run this lane in reverse as well: Philadelphia to Boston. If you are weighing other destinations from Boston, Boston to DC and Boston to Raleigh use the same flat-rate model, and Boston movers handles anything under 50 miles.

What makes an estimate accurate

Three inputs, all of them things only you can supply. What is actually coming, listed by room, with anything heavier than 200 pounds called out. The access at each end, meaning which floor, stairs or elevator, and how tight the doorways are. And where the closest legal truck space sits relative to each front door. With those three in hand a written estimate normally lands back with you inside a business day. Note that packing and storage are priced as their own lines and show separately on the estimate, so flag either if you want it, then send it through.