Your Car, Caravan, Boat and Motorbike Cost More to Move Than Your Whole House

Vehicle transport costs more than the interstate removalist

At Going Rate's prices, shipping a car ($1,400), a caravan ($2,750), a boat ($2,700) and a motorbike ($650) interstate comes to about $7,500. An interstate removalist for a whole home ($6,600) costs $900 less. The four vehicles cost about 14% more to move than every bed, box and fridge in the house.

Drop the motorbike and the gap almost disappears. Car, caravan and boat together come to about $6,850 at Going Rate's prices, roughly $250 or 4% above the whole-home removalist. A quote $250 cheaper on any one of the three would bring them level with the house. Car and caravan alone come to about $4,150, or 63% of the removalist's price.

For a household that owns all four vehicles, the full moving bill comes to about $14,100, and the vehicles account for 53% of it. Adding up the ABS state figures gives about 370,000 interstate arrivals in the year to 31 March 2026. The ABS counts people rather than households, so the number of moves is smaller.

Who moves interstate with a trailer behind them

Queensland took 98,121 interstate arrivals in the year to 31 March 2026, more than NSW's 85,880 despite NSW's larger population, the ABS says. After departures, Queensland gained 14,718 people from other states and WA gained 10,314, while NSW lost 20,818. In 2024-25, Brisbane and Perth were the only capital cities with net gains from internal migration, according to the ABS.

The towed vehicles are concentrated in the same places. BITRE counted 855,615 registered boat trailers in January 2025, and Queensland had 252,467 of them, more than NSW's 229,659. Queensland also had 29,945 registered campervans and motorhomes, not far behind NSW's 33,346. A family relocating to the Sunshine Coast or Perth with a boat on a trailer ($2,700) and a caravan ($2,750) is paying for two of the three most expensive items in this report.

Caravan transport costs nearly as much as two cars

Trucking a caravan interstate ($2,750) costs 1.96 times as much as shipping a car interstate ($1,400) at Going Rate's prices. Two cars would cost only slightly more than one caravan. Car and caravan together come to 63% of a whole-home interstate move ($6,600).

Caravans are heavy, and getting heavier. BITRE counted 834,220 registered caravans in January 2025, up 3.8% in a year. Of those, 22.2% weighed 2,001 to 2,500 kg tare and 12.4% weighed more than 2,500 kg, so 34.6% weigh over 2,000 kg before anyone loads them.

Imports are rising. The Caravan Industry Association says Australian manufacturers built 23,963 RVs in 2025, down 5%, while imports of caravan trailers and components rose 16% to 23,244 units. The association puts the registered RV fleet at about 937,000.

Boat transport and the width limits

Interstate boat transport, including oversize permits, pilot vehicles and marina lifts ($2,700) costs almost the same as a caravan and 1.93 times as much as a car at Going Rate's prices. The Boating Industry Association says Australia has close to 1 million registered vessels and that 85% of boats are under 6 m long.

Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads defines an over-width boat as one wider than 2.50 m and up to 2.90 m. Boats from 2.9 m to 3.3 m wide need a Vehicle Standards Exemption Permit (Form F4880) to be towed by a light vehicle, and anything wider than 3.3 m must go on a heavy vehicle. Over-width boats need four warning flags and a warning sign at the front and rear, and they are barred from highways, motorways and freeways over the Christmas, New Year and Easter holiday periods.

WA is stricter on its freeways. Main Roads WA says a boat wider than 2.5 m is prohibited from all freeways during the day. Where the move needs a heavy vehicle permit, the NHVR says its average end-to-end permit processing time fell from 7.9 days to 6.86 days between January and August 2025, so book boat transport at least a week before the moving date.

Car and motorbike transport sit at the cheap end

Shipping a motorbike interstate ($650) costs 46% of shipping a car ($1,400) at Going Rate's prices, so two motorbikes cost less than one car. Add the car to a whole-home removalist ($6,600) and the bill is about $8,000, with the car making up about 18% of it.

BITRE counted 982,067 registered motorcycles in January 2025, with NSW (289,375) and Queensland (239,905) holding the most. A record 1,241,037 new vehicles were sold in Australia in 2025, the third record year in a row, carsales reports from FCAI VFACTS data.

Moves to or from Tasmania add a ferry crossing. The federal Bass Strait Passenger Vehicle Equalisation Scheme assisted about 181,000 passenger vehicles in 2024-25, according to the Department of Infrastructure.

Pianos, pallets and shipping containers

Piano removal ($850) costs about the same as sending one pallet of interstate freight ($430) twice at Going Rate's prices. The piano price covers a removal and may not include an interstate leg, so treat the comparison as a guide to scale. One piano costs about 13% of a whole-home interstate move ($6,600), and the whole home costs about the same as 15 pallets.

Fewer Australians are buying acoustic pianos. The Australian Music Association says upright piano unit sales fell 33.8% in 2025, in line with a decline over five and ten years that coincides with growth in digital pianos.

Moving a shipping container from a port or yard ($1,050) costs about 75% of a car at Going Rate's prices, though that price spans metro trips through to long haul. Road does most of this work. BITRE says road carried 159.6 of the 200.0 billion tonne-kilometres of non-bulk freight in 2024-25, about 80%.

Diesel, drivers and removalist complaints

Diesel charges and prices have swung all year. The ATO says the heavy vehicle road user charge was set to zero from 1 April to 30 June 2026, rose to 16.4 cents a litre from 1 July and returned to 32.4 cents a litre from 3 August 2026. The NTC says the government deferred the next scheduled increase to 1 January 2027, and its October 2025 consultation report estimated heavy vehicle charges would need to rise 19% in 2026-27 to fully recover road costs. Sydney diesel averaged more than $2.50 a litre in early September 2026, Region Canberra reported from ACCC data.

Drivers are scarce too. The Australian Trucking Association says 28,000 truck driver roles are unfilled, and projects the gap will reach 78,000 by 2029.

Get a written quote for the removalist ($6,600) and each vehicle, and check whether a boat transport quote ($2,700) includes permits and pilot vehicles. In a 2022 warning, Consumer Protection WA said it had received 262 complaints about removalists in 18 months, and just over half were for property damage. It describes a common scam that starts with an hourly quote and ends with a large lump sum demanded up front on the day, with goods held until the customer pays. In Queensland, a Brisbane removalist, an associated transport company and their director were ordered to pay over $147,000 in fines and compensation in 2024 after pleading guilty to 11 breaches of the Australian Consumer Law.

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