A customer asks why a 500-mile move costs more than double a 200-mile move even though the truck is half-empty either way. The honest answer is a formula, not a guess: weight times distance times a published rate, with a fuel surcharge layered on top. Most owners can explain "we charge by weight and distance" but can't actually walk through the math out loud, which is exactly the moment a customer starts wondering what else on the invoice is made up.
How Is a Moving Company's Linehaul Rate Actually Calculated?
Linehaul is net shipment weight, converted to hundredweight (CWT — 100 lbs per unit), multiplied by a published rate that varies by mileage band. The formula: Net Weight (CWT) × Tariff Rate = Linehaul Charge. An 8,000 lb shipment is 80 CWT. At $24.50 per CWT for a 1,200-mile move, that's 80 × $24.50 = $1,960 in linehaul, before a single accessorial or fuel surcharge is added. Net weight itself comes from certified truck scale tickets — tare weight (empty truck) subtracted from gross weight (loaded truck) — which is why federal rules require interstate carriers to provide customers with certified weight documentation, not an eyeballed estimate.
Every carrier publishes its own rate table, organized by weight bracket and mileage band, inside its tariff. Two movers can legally charge different published rates from each other — but a single mover can't quietly charge two different rates for the same weight and distance to two different customers. 49 U.S.C. § 13702(a) is explicit that a carrier "may not charge or receive a different compensation for the transportation or service than the rate specified in the tariff." Whatever's in your published table is what every customer at that weight and distance pays, full stop.
Why Does the Per-CWT Rate Drop as Weight and Distance Go Up?
Because fixed costs (dispatch, fuel to origin, crew mobilization) get spread across more billable weight and miles. A carrier's published rate table typically shows a higher $/CWT for a 2,000 lb shipment going 200 miles than for an 8,000 lb shipment going 1,200 miles, even though the second job's total invoice is much larger. This isn't a discount for big customers — it reflects that a heavier, longer shipment covers its fixed costs over a bigger base, so the marginal cost per hundredweight actually goes down. Most tariff templates organize this as a grid: rows for weight brackets, columns for mileage bands, with the rate declining as you move right and down the table.
The practical trap this creates: a rate table that hasn't been updated in a year or two often has stale mileage bands that no longer reflect current fuel and labor costs at the low end, where small local-ish interstate jobs get quietly undercharged relative to what they actually cost to run. DriveSales' profit margin benchmarks guide breaks down the cost-structure targets (crew labor, admin, truck costs as a share of revenue) that a rate table needs to clear at every bracket, not just the average job.
What's a Minimum Weight Charge, and Why Does It Exist?
Most interstate carriers set a floor — commonly 1,000 to 2,000 lbs — below which a small shipment gets billed as if it weighed the minimum, regardless of its actual weight. A studio apartment that weighs 700 lbs still gets billed at the 1,000 lb minimum if that's what the tariff specifies. This isn't a hidden fee; it's a published floor that exists because a full truck, crew, and fuel cost roughly the same whether the shipment is 700 lbs or 1,200 lbs, and a rate table with no floor would lose money on every small job. The floor has to be disclosed on the estimate as its own line item — "Minimum Weight Applied" — rather than silently baked into a bigger number, which is exactly the kind of surprise-at-delivery charge that drives billing disputes in the first place.
How Do Fuel Surcharges Get Added on Top of Linehaul?
As a percentage of the linehaul charge, tied to a diesel price index — but the specific formula is each carrier's own, not a government-set number. The U.S. Energy Information Administration collects and publishes the weekly average on-highway diesel fuel price every Tuesday — $4.319/gallon nationally for the week ending September 14, 2026, up 16 cents from the week before — but EIA is explicit that it does not calculate or endorse any surcharge methodology; shippers and carriers negotiate and publish their own formulas that reference EIA's price data as the input.
For a moving company, that typically means a published table in your own tariff mapping diesel price ranges to a surcharge percentage — DriveSales' linehaul charges glossary page documents a typical range of 5-25% of linehaul, moving up in bands as diesel prices rise. Continuing the example above: a $1,960 linehaul charge with an 18% fuel surcharge (a mid-range band at current diesel prices) adds $353, bringing the pre-accessorial total to $2,313. The surcharge percentage should be a single variable in your tariff and your estimating software, updated on the same cadence you check EIA's weekly number — not something a foreman guesses at on move day.
Can You Charge Two Customers Different Linehaul Rates for the Same Shipment?
No, not if it's the same weight and distance under the same published tariff. This is the part of § 13702(a) worth repeating on its own: the rate a customer pays has to come from your published table, not from what a salesperson thinks the customer will tolerate. FMCSA's own consumer-protection guidance backs this from the other direction — under a non-binding estimate, the final charges are based on "the mover's tariff provisions in effect," and "the charges contained in mover's tariffs are essentially the same for the same weight shipment moving the same distance," regardless of which mover a customer compares quotes against. Discretionary, negotiated linehaul pricing isn't just a bad look if a customer compares notes with a neighbor — it's the exact violation category DriveSales' tariff-compliance guide covers in more depth, including the FMCSA penalty schedule for it.
How Often Should a Moving Company Update Its Rate Table?
At minimum, every time your fuel surcharge bands need adjusting (weekly-to-monthly, tracked against the EIA index above) and at least annually for the base CWT rates themselves. Labor costs, insurance premiums, and truck payments don't stay flat, and a rate table that was accurate two years ago is quietly eating margin on every job today if it hasn't moved. The profit margin benchmarks guide's cost-structure targets are the check: if crew labor, fuel, and truck costs as a share of revenue have crept up since your rate table was last built, the table needs a refresh before the next busy season, not after it.
How Do You Keep Your Published Rate Table and Your Estimates in Sync?
By running both off the same engine instead of a static PDF and a separate quoting tool that can drift apart. The moment your published tariff rate and the number your estimating software actually quotes disagree, you're exposed exactly the way DriveSales' tariff-compliance guide describes — a charge that doesn't trace back to a published rate has no legal footing if a customer disputes it. DriveSales' moving estimates tooling runs linehaul, mileage bands, fuel surcharge percentages, and minimum weight floors through one Pricing Rules Engine, so every quote, invoice, and bill of lading pulls from the identical rate table — update the fuel surcharge band once when EIA's weekly number moves, and it applies to every open estimate automatically instead of requiring someone to manually patch a dozen spreadsheets.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a CWT (hundredweight) rate?
CWT stands for hundredweight — 100 pounds. Moving company tariffs price linehaul per CWT rather than per pound because it keeps the rate table's numbers in a more readable range (an 8,000 lb shipment is 80 CWT, not 8,000 individual pound-units), but the math is identical either way: net weight divided by 100, multiplied by the CWT rate.
How often do fuel surcharges actually change?
That depends on your own published tariff's surcharge table, not a fixed schedule — but most carriers tie their surcharge bands to EIA's weekly diesel price update, which comes out every Tuesday. Checking the current EIA number weekly and adjusting your surcharge tier when it crosses a published threshold keeps the charge defensible; letting it sit stale for months either overcharges customers when diesel drops or undercharges your own crew's fuel cost when it rises.
Does a minimum weight charge apply to local, intrastate moves too?
The federal minimum-weight mechanics described here apply specifically to interstate carriers' tariffs under FMCSA/Surface Transportation Board jurisdiction. Intrastate-only movers fall under state-specific pricing and disclosure rules instead, which vary by state — check your state's moving-industry regulator before assuming the same minimum-weight structure applies.
What's the difference between linehaul and the total price on my invoice?
Linehaul is the base transportation charge — weight times distance times rate. The total invoice adds accessorial charges (stairs, long carries, shuttle service, packing), the fuel surcharge, and any valuation coverage premium on top of that linehaul base. A well-itemized estimate always shows these as separate line items rather than one bundled number.
Can I change my linehaul rate table whenever I want?
Yes, but the change has to be identifiable and dated, not a silent edit — the same rule covered in DriveSales' tariff-compliance guide for tariff changes generally applies to rate table updates specifically. Version and date every rate change, and make sure your estimating software reflects the new table the same day the published tariff changes, so there's never a gap where quotes and the official rate table disagree.
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*A rate table that lives in a static spreadsheet drifts out of sync with what you're actually quoting the moment fuel prices move. See how DriveSales' Pricing Rules Engine keeps linehaul, fuel surcharges, and minimums synchronized across every estimate, or book a demo to run it against your own rate structure.*
