Door-to-door auto transport to and from Miami with vetted, insured carriers, upfront pricing, and no deposit to book.
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Miami is one of the busiest auto transport markets in the country. Vehicles move in and out of South Florida year-round for relocations, seasonal residents, dealership and auction purchases, and college and military moves.
Quick answerShipping a standard sedan to or from Miami typically costs $450–$1,600 on open transport depending on distance, with pickup usually within 1–5 days of booking and delivery in 1–10 days by route. Enclosed transport runs roughly 40–60% more. During snowbird season (Oct–Dec southbound, Apr–May northbound), rates in the peak direction rise 20–40% — get an exact price for your route in about two minutes.
Ship Guy arranges car shipping to and from Miami and the surrounding Florida metro area. We match your vehicle with a vetted, insured carrier running your route, coordinate a pickup window that works for your schedule, and stay with the shipment through final delivery.
Because South Florida is a seasonal market, timing affects both price and availability. Rates and carrier supply shift with snowbird demand, so the earlier you book around those peak windows, the more flexibility you generally have.
Popular Miami Car Shipping Routes
Common lanes to and from Miami. Distances and transit times are estimates — your quote confirms the details for your route and dates.
RouteApprox. distanceEst. transitEst. open rate*
Miami, FL → New York, NY~1,280 mi3–5 days$700–$1,050Get price
*Estimated ranges for a standard sedan in running condition, updated July 2026. SUVs and trucks typically add 10–25%; inoperable vehicles add $100–$200 for winch loading. Your quote confirms the exact price for your vehicle and dates.
What Shapes Your Miami Auto Transport Price
Five factors set most of your quote: distance and route popularity, vehicle size and weight, open vs. enclosed transport, season, and date flexibility. The I-95 corridor is Florida's cheapest lane per mile because carriers run it constantly — and if your pickup window can flex by two or three days, we can usually place your vehicle at a lower rate than a guaranteed-date booking.
Southbound peak • Oct–Dec
Seasonal residents ship cars into South Florida ahead of winter. Southbound rates rise 20–40%, while northbound trucks leave half-empty at a discount.
Northbound peak • Apr–May
The migration reverses in spring. Northbound prices spike as vehicles head home, and southbound becomes the bargain direction.
What it means for you: shipping against the seasonal flow often costs well under the averages above. Shipping with it? Book 2–3 weeks ahead — waiting until the week you fly out is the most expensive mistake snowbirds make. See our snowbird shipping guide →
Open vs. Enclosed Auto Transport: Which Is Right for Your Miami Shipment?
It's the first real decision you'll make, and in Miami the answer isn't always obvious — this market ships more high-value vehicles than almost any other city in the country.
Most popular • ~90% of shipments
Open Transport
The two-level carriers you see delivering to dealerships. Your vehicle rides exposed to weather and road dust but fully secured — the same method manufacturers use to move brand-new cars from the factory. A brief South Florida rain shower in transit is a car wash issue, not a damage issue.
Best for daily drivers, SUVs, trucks, and most family vehicles
Lowest price on every lane, and fastest pickup — far more open trucks run I-95 than enclosed
Typical carrier cargo insurance: $100K–$250K per load
Premium protection
Enclosed Transport
A fully covered trailer, usually with a hydraulic liftgate for low-clearance vehicles. Enclosed demand in Miami is unusually high — between the exotics in Brickell, the collector garages in Coral Gables, and auction buys headed to restoration shops, we place enclosed loads on South Florida lanes every week.
Best for exotics, classics, restored vehicles, and anything low to the ground
Runs roughly 40–60% above open rates
Higher cargo insurance limits, typically $250K–$1M
Our honest rule of thumb: if you'd drive it in a rainstorm without thinking twice, ship it open and keep the difference. If the vehicle is worth well into six figures, sits low enough to scrape a driveway apron, or just left a restoration shop, the enclosed premium is cheap insurance. Compare details on our open transport and enclosed transport pages, or ask us — we'll tell you straight if enclosed is overkill for your vehicle.
Car Shipping Services in Miami
Every Ship Guy service is available for pickup and delivery across the Miami area.
Tell us your pickup and delivery locations and what you're shipping for an upfront price.
Schedule Pickup
We match your vehicle with a vetted, insured carrier and confirm your Miami pickup window.
Track Delivery
Follow your vehicle in transit with support all the way through final delivery.
What Actually Happens at Pickup and Delivery
The three steps above are the short version. Here's the part most companies don't explain until the truck is outside.
The day before pickup
Your assigned driver calls to confirm a window — usually two to four hours, not a precise minute, because they're working a multi-stop route through South Florida traffic. If your street can't fit a 75-foot rig, this is when you'll agree on a nearby meeting spot: a shopping plaza on US-1, a wide side street, wherever is safe and legal to load.
At pickup: the Bill of Lading
Before your car goes on the truck, the driver walks around it and records its condition — every existing scratch, ding, and scuff — with photos, on a document called the Bill of Lading. Walk the car with them. This document is your protection: it's the before picture that any damage claim gets measured against. Take your own photos too, in good light, all four corners plus the roof. Then hand over one key (keep your spare), and the driver loads and secures the vehicle.
During transit
You'll have the driver's direct cell number. Long-haul drivers legally drive up to 11 hours a day, so a Miami-to-New-York run genuinely takes about three days — radio silence for a few hours usually means they're driving, not that something's wrong. Ship Guy stays reachable the whole way if you'd rather check in with us.
At delivery: inspect before you sign
Walk the car again against the pickup Bill of Lading, in daylight if at all possible. If everything matches — and the overwhelming majority of the time it does — you sign, settle any balance due with the driver by the method confirmed at booking, and you're done. If something doesn't match, note it on the Bill of Lading before signing and photograph it. That notation is what activates the carrier's cargo insurance; signing clean first and calling about damage later makes a claim far harder to win.
Preparing Your Car for Transport: The Miami Checklist
Ten minutes of prep prevents ninety percent of shipping headaches. A few of these are Florida-specific.
Pull your SunPass or toll transponder. The single most common Florida shipping mistake. If it stays on the windshield, it can get read at every toll gantry the carrier passes on the Turnpike and beyond — and those charges land on your account. Take it out, or at minimum seal it in the foil bag it came with.
Wash the car before pickup. Not for vanity — a clean car makes the Bill of Lading inspection accurate. Existing scratches get documented properly, and new damage (rare) can't hide under a layer of dirt.
Leave about a quarter tank of gas. Enough to load, unload, and drive off at delivery. A full tank adds weight the carrier doesn't want and you don't need to pay to move.
Remove or secure everything loose. Garage remotes, parking placards, dash cams, and anything in door pockets. Fold in your mirrors if they don't do it automatically, and retract the antenna if yours is the old-school kind.
Disable the alarm, or show the driver how to kill it. An alarm that triggers on trailer vibration somewhere in Georgia is nobody's favorite phone call.
Flag any quirks in writing. Weak battery, tricky ignition, leak, aftermarket kill switch, air suspension that needs to be in transport mode — tell us at booking and remind the driver at pickup so they can load it safely.
Photograph everything, including the odometer. Your photos plus the driver's Bill of Lading photos means there's never an argument about condition or mileage.
Shipping something unusual, inoperable, or heavily modified? See our full vehicle preparation guide or call us and we'll walk you through it.
Miami Areas We Cover
We arrange pickup and delivery throughout Miami-Dade and the surrounding communities.
South Florida demand climbs as seasonal residents head south in the fall and back north in the spring. Booking ahead of those peaks usually means better rates and more pickup flexibility. See snowbird car shipping →
Condo or high-rise delivery?
Many Miami buildings prohibit commercial trucks in garages and porte-cochères, and a 75-foot carrier can't fit down every street in Brickell or Miami Beach. Drivers simply arrange a nearby wide street or large lot — it takes minutes to set up. Not in town yet? Any adult you authorize (a building manager, family member, or friend) can release or accept the vehicle for you.
Hurricane season (June–November)
Atlantic storms occasionally delay pickups a day or two as carriers reroute, and we never dispatch into an evacuation zone. When a named storm approaches South Florida we communicate proactively about timing — and if you're shipping a vehicle out ahead of a storm, book immediately, because outbound capacity disappears fast. Shipping overseas via PortMiami or Port Everglades? Tell us up front and we'll deliver directly to your freight forwarder or port warehouse.
Shipping Through PortMiami and Port Everglades
Miami isn't just a domestic shipping hub — it's the departure point for a huge share of vehicles headed to the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Europe. If your car's final destination is overseas, the domestic leg still has to happen first: the vehicle needs to reach your freight forwarder's warehouse or the port terminal, on time, with the right paperwork ready.
Ship Guy handles that domestic leg. We arrange pickup anywhere in the U.S. and deliver directly to your forwarder at PortMiami or Port Everglades — just tell us at booking that the vehicle is exporting, because port and warehouse deliveries have receiving hours and check-in procedures a residential delivery doesn't. Your freight forwarder handles the ocean booking, the title and customs documentation, and the overseas leg; we make sure the car is standing at their dock when they need it. Buying at a Florida auction from abroad? The same flow works in reverse order — we collect from the auction lot and deliver to your exporter, often within a couple of days.
Why Ship with Ship Guy in Miami
Licensed & insured
Ship Guy is an FMCSA-registered, bonded auto transport broker, and every carrier we assign is verified and insured.
Upfront pricing
Your quote is all-in, with no hidden fees added later and no deposit required to book.
Vetted Miami carriers
We check operating authority, insurance, and safety history before a carrier is assigned to your vehicle.
24/7 U.S. support
Real people you can reach from first quote through final delivery.
We also serve nearby South Florida areas
Fort LauderdaleHollywoodPembroke PinesBoca RatonWest Palm BeachNaplesFort MyersPort St. Lucie
How to Vet Any Auto Transport Company (Including Us)
Miami's shipping volume attracts good operators and bad ones. Whether you book with Ship Guy or anyone else, run these checks — they take five minutes and they're free.
Verify the license, don't take the website's word for it
Every legitimate broker and carrier has an MC number registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Look it up yourself in the FMCSA SAFER database: confirm the authority is active, the company name matches who you're actually talking to, and — for brokers — the required $75,000 surety bond is on file. That bond exists specifically to protect you if a broker takes your money and fails to perform. A company that gets cagey when you ask for its MC number has answered your question.
Be suspicious of the lowest quote, not the highest
The classic bait works like this: quote $300 under everyone else, collect the booking, then let the order sit because no real carrier will run the lane at that price. A week later comes the call — "we found a truck, but it's going to be a bit more." You've lost your pickup window and your leverage. If one quote is dramatically below the pack, it isn't a deal; it's a number designed to win your booking, not to ship your car. Real Miami lane rates cluster in a fairly tight band at any given moment, which is exactly why we publish estimated ranges on this page.
Three more red flags worth walking away from
A large deposit demanded before a carrier is assigned. The industry-standard structure charges you nothing, or next to nothing, until there's an actual truck with your vehicle's name on it.
No written insurance certificate on request. You're entitled to see the assigned carrier's cargo insurance certificate before pickup. "Don't worry, everything's covered" is not a certificate.
Reviews that only exist on the company's own website. Check Google, BBB, and Transport Reviews, and read the one-star reviews specifically — how a company behaves when something goes wrong tells you more than a hundred five-star summaries.
Six Ways to Pay Less for Auto Transport in Miami
Flex your dates by two or three days. The single biggest lever you control. A flexible pickup window lets us place your car on a truck that's already running your lane instead of paying a premium to pull one in.
Ship against the snowbird current. Northbound out of Miami is discounted October through December; southbound is the bargain in April and May. If your move can happen off-cycle, the calendar does the negotiating for you.
Book 2–3 weeks ahead of peak windows — but not months ahead. Carriers price loads close to the run date, so booking half a year early doesn't lock in a better rate. Two to three weeks out hits the sweet spot of choice and price during busy season.
Meet the truck somewhere easy. If you're in a high-rise or on a tight street, offering to meet at a big lot near a highway exit makes your load more attractive to carriers — and cheaper to serve.
Skip guaranteed-date pricing unless you truly need it. A guaranteed pickup date is a real product with a real premium. If "sometime Tuesday to Thursday" works for your life, don't pay for "Tuesday at 10 a.m."
Compare all-in numbers, not teaser numbers. When you shop quotes, ask each company one question: "Is this the total I'll pay, including the driver's portion at delivery?" It's remarkable how many low quotes grow when that question gets asked.
Visit Ship Guy in Coconut Grove
We're a real Miami company with a real Miami address — on Commodore Plaza in the heart of the Grove. Prefer to talk through a shipment in person or on a local line? We're here seven days a week.
How much does it cost to ship a car to or from Miami?
For a standard sedan on open transport, typical ranges are $450–$700 to the Southeast, $700–$1,100 to the Northeast or Midwest, and $1,100–$1,600 cross-country. Enclosed transport runs roughly 40–60% more. Your exact price depends on vehicle size, address accessibility, and season — South Florida rates move with snowbird demand. The fastest way to get an accurate number is to request a free quote.
How long does it take to ship a car to Miami?
Transit time depends mainly on distance. A move from Atlanta typically runs a couple of days, the Northeast is usually in the three-to-six day range, and a cross-country trip from the West Coast generally takes about a week or more. Weather, traffic, and route availability can shift these estimates.
Do you offer door-to-door pickup in Miami?
Yes. Whenever possible we arrange door-to-door pickup and delivery at your Miami address. Some areas — narrow streets in Coconut Grove or Little Havana, gated communities, and low-clearance parking garages downtown or in Brickell — can't safely fit a full-size carrier, so the driver will arrange a nearby meeting point such as a large lot.
When is the busiest season for car shipping in South Florida?
Demand peaks around the snowbird season. Vehicles move south into Florida heading into the fall and winter, and back north in the spring. Booking earlier during those windows generally means better pricing and more scheduling flexibility. See our snowbird car shipping page for details.
Can you ship a car that doesn't run?
Yes, but the carrier needs to know in advance. A non-running vehicle requires equipment such as a winch and a driver prepared to load it, so mention it when you request your quote and we'll match you with a carrier set up for inoperable vehicles.
Do you ship anything besides cars in Miami?
Yes. Along with vehicles, Ship Guy arranges transport for motorcycles, boats, freight and pallets, furniture, household goods, heavy equipment, and oversized items to and from the Miami area.
Can I put personal items in the car?
Most carriers allow up to about 100 lbs of items packed in the trunk or below window level. Personal items aren't covered by the carrier's cargo insurance, so never ship valuables, documents, or anything irreplaceable inside the vehicle.
Do I need to be present for pickup or delivery?
No. Any adult you authorize — a family member, friend, or building manager — can release or accept the vehicle and sign the inspection paperwork, which is why many snowbird customers ship their car a week before or after they fly.
Is my vehicle insured during transport?
Yes. The assigned carrier's cargo insurance covers your vehicle in transit, and the driver documents its condition with photos on the Bill of Lading at pickup and delivery. You can request the carrier's insurance certificate before pickup, and your own auto policy typically remains secondary coverage.
Where is Ship Guy located in Miami?
Our office is at 3162 Commodore Plaza #407 in Coconut Grove, Miami, FL 33133. We're open seven days a week from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM ET — reach us locally at (786) 284-6972 or toll-free at (866) 280-3481.
Ship Guy is a licensed, bonded auto transport broker (MC #[XXXXXX] • USDOT #[XXXXXX]) located at 3162 Commodore Plaza #407, Coconut Grove, Miami, FL 33133 • (786) 284-6972 • open 7 days, 6 AM–11 PM ET, serving Miami and all of South Florida. Verify our operating authority anytime in the FMCSA SAFER database. Rate estimates on this page reflect current Miami lane conditions and are refreshed quarterly.
Written & reviewed by [Full Name], [Title], [X] years in vehicle logistics • Last updated:
