To ship an RV you measure it, choose a method, price the route, vet the carrier, prep the coach, and document the condition at both ends. The whole thing takes about two weeks from first call to delivery, and the part that goes wrong is almost never the driving.
Shipping an RV is a different animal from shipping a car, and the people who struggle with it are usually the ones who assumed otherwise. A car is a standard size, fits standard equipment, and any carrier can take it. Your RV might be 8'6" wide and 13'4" tall and 42 feet long, which narrows the trucks that can legally move it down to a fraction of the market. The steps below are the same ones dispatch walks through on every RV move, in the order they actually happen.
The Whole Process at a Glance
Measure the RV
Height, width, length, weight, and whether it runs. Nothing accurate happens before this.Pick the method
Bumper pull, drive-away, or flatbed. The coach decides this, not your budget.Price the move
An all-in price that comes with its reasoning attached.Vet who's hauling it
Insurance, authority, safety record, equipment. This is the step people skip.Prep the RV
About an hour of work that prevents most of what goes wrong.Pickup day
Photos, signatures, and a condition report you keep.Delivery
Walk it before you sign. Signing closes the claim window.
Step 1: Measure the RV
Four numbers decide everything downstream, and guessing at them is how quotes fall apart at pickup. Get them off the door sticker, the title, or a tape measure, and write them down before you talk to anybody.
Height
Measured to the tallest thing on the roof, antenna and A/C shroud included. On a trailer, add the deck height. This is what hits bridges.
Width
Mirror to mirror. Federal rules cap vehicles at 8 feet 6 inches on the National Network, and most RVs are built right at that line.
Length
Bumper to bumper, hitch included. Length decides which trucks and which routes qualify.
Weight
Loaded, not dry. Dry weight is a brochure number. Weight decides the pool of equipment that can legally take you.
Add one more thing that isn't a measurement: whether it runs, steers, and brakes. A motorhome that rolls loads in minutes. One that doesn't needs a winch or a deck, and that changes both the method and the price.
Step 2: Pick the Method
Three ways an RV moves, and the coach picks for you. Bumper pull is a hauler towing your towable, which is the baseline for trailers and 5th wheels. Drive-away puts a professional driver behind the wheel of your motorhome, which is usually the cheapest way to move anything drivable and the tradeoff is real miles on your odometer. Flatbed is the answer for anything that can't roll or shouldn't, and it costs the most because the deck and the loading equipment cost the most. The full breakdown of what each method suits lives on our RV shipping service page.
Step 3: Price the Move
Once you know the numbers and the method, a real price takes about a minute to produce. RV moves in 2026 run between $1.90 and $3.60 per mile all-in, with short hauls at the top of that spread and cross-country runs at the bottom, which surprises people until they understand that loading time and deadhead miles cost the same regardless of trip length. The band-by-band math and real shipments behind it sit in our 2026 RV transport pricing guide, and the quote calculator prices your specific route without a phone call. Any quote produced before somebody asked for your height and weight is a guess wearing a number.
Step 4: Vet Who's Hauling It
This is the step that separates a shipment from a story. The truck that shows up is the entire product, and you are allowed to know everything about it before it arrives. Below is the checklist dispatch clears before any carrier touches an RV we move, and it works word for word on any company you're considering.
- Did they verify the carrier's insurance certificate is active and adequate for the load?
- Did they review the carrier's DOT authority and history?
- Did they review FMCSA safety records and out-of-service rates?
- Did they verify the equipment can actually haul this specific RV?
- Did they obtain truck and trailer photos before dispatch?
- Is the company name visible on the truck that shows up?
- Did they confirm the driver communicates clearly, in English, before pickup?
- Does communication continue after dispatch, through delivery?
If the answers come slowly or vaguely, that's your information. Our guide to judging RV transport companies goes deeper on what the good answers sound like, and our breakdown of RV shipping scams shows what happens to people who skip this step entirely.
Step 5: Prep the RV
About an hour of work the week before pickup, and it prevents most of the damage claims we've ever seen. None of it is complicated. All of it gets forgotten.
- Empty it out. Weight is money, and your belongings aren't covered by the carrier's cargo policy.
- Retract the awnings, slides, and antenna, and latch everything that swings.
- Secure or remove anything on the roof that a driver could catch on a bridge.
- Top off the tires and the battery. A soft tire on a towable is a blowout at 65.
- Drain the tanks. Water sloshing at speed is weight that moves.
- Photograph every side, the roof, and the interior with the date visible.
- Leave a quarter tank of fuel in a drive-away, and no more.
- Have a spare key ready and label it.
Step 6: Pickup Day
The driver walks the coach with you and fills out a condition report, photographing every panel and noting existing damage. Read it before you sign, because that document is the baseline that any future claim gets measured against. If the driver's photos and your photos agree, you have nothing to worry about for the rest of the trip. Get the driver's cell number, confirm the delivery window, and let them work.
Step 7: Delivery and the Walkaround
Do the same walk in reverse before you sign anything. Compare what's in front of you to the pickup report, check the roof if you can get eyes on it, and open the slides to confirm they still seat. Signing the delivery report says the RV arrived as documented, which is exactly why nobody should rush you through it. If something is wrong, note it on the report before the signature goes down, because a claim filed against a clean signed report is a much harder conversation.
Questions First-Timers Ask
How long does it take to ship an RV?
Plan on about two weeks from first call to delivery. Roughly three to seven days to assign the right truck depending on your route and coach, then a day of driving per 500 miles or so. Snowbird season stretches the assignment side, because half the country's RVs move the same direction at once.
Can I leave my belongings inside?
Some carriers allow a small amount of secured weight. None of it is covered by the cargo policy, and all of it counts against the load. The honest answer is that an empty coach ships cheaper, safer, and with fewer arguments.
Can you ship an RV that doesn't run?
Yes. It changes the method to a winch load or a flatbed and it changes the price, because the equipment and the labor change. Say so up front. A non-running motorhome discovered at pickup is a canceled shipment.
Do I have to be there for pickup and delivery?
Somebody does. It can be a friend, a neighbor, or the dealer, as long as they're authorized to sign and willing to actually walk the coach instead of waving from the porch. That signature carries real weight at both ends.
Is shipping an RV cheaper than driving it myself?
Run the real math before you assume. Fuel at 8 miles per gallon, two or three nights of lodging, food, and the wear you put on a coach you plan to keep. On long moves, shipping frequently wins outright, and on short ones driving usually does. The calculator gives you the number to compare against.
Zach Asher owns and operates Amerigo Auto Transport, a veteran-founded, family-run brokerage in Fort Lauderdale. Working all over the country in this marketplace, he has walked first-time shippers through this exact sequence thousands of times, and the steps above are the ones he'd give a family member.