California to Florida Car Shipping

For a standard car on an open carrier, our own book since 2023 holds 39 California to Florida open-carrier car orders and the middle half of them ran $1,300 to $1,650. That sits a little above the westbound rate, because fewer cars leave California for Florida than the other way and the trucks are less full. Larger SUVs and pickups sit toward the top of that range and sometimes above it, and enclosed transport has run about a third more than open. Electric cars price within the band but at its upper half, on weight.

Eastbound, the truck takes longer to find than the drive takes to complete. On the moves we have dispatched since 2023 the median was 8 days from booking to an assigned carrier, and a quarter waited 17 days or more, nearly all of them Northern California pickups or single-day dates. The road itself, 2,400 to 2,700 miles of Interstate 10 with other cars loading and unloading along it, is typically seven to ten days from pickup to delivery. Treat that on-road range as a distance estimate rather than a measured figure; our records track carrier assignment, not transit.

Interstate 10 almost all the way. From Los Angeles and Orange County the truck runs through Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans and Mobile to Jacksonville. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and the Treasure Coast are reached down Interstate 95 or the Turnpike; Orlando and the Space Coast on Interstate 4 and Interstate 95; Tampa and the Gulf side on Interstate 75. Bay Area, Sacramento and foothill pickups come down Interstate 5 to Los Angeles first, which usually adds a day.

Open, with rare exceptions. Of the 15 California to Florida moves we have dispatched since 2023, only 1 went enclosed. On this direction the premium of roughly a third buys protection from nine days of desert sun followed by Gulf coast rain, which is worth it for a new car, a collector car or a low-clearance sports car and not for a commuter. Tell us what the car is and we will say which side of that line it falls on, rather than defaulting to the trailer.

Yes, and it is one of the more common requests on this lane. Electric cars ride ordinary open carriers. Send it at a moderate charge, roughly a third to a half, because it will sit for a week or more without charging and a full battery is neither needed nor ideal. Switch off sentry mode, summon and app-based locking so the driver can load it, and give the exact model, because the weight counts against the load. The complete pre-shipping list for an electric car is on our electric vehicle shipping page.

Los Angeles is our most frequent California pickup on this lane, with Orange County, the Inland Empire, the Bay Area and the Sierra foothills making up the rest. In Florida, Miami is the most frequent delivery point, followed by single deliveries spread from Jupiter and the Space Coast to Orlando, Jacksonville and the Gulf side. The truck comes to the address where it can and to an agreed lot where it cannot; gated communities on the Treasure Coast and hillside streets in Los Angeles are the two places that usually means a short drive to meet the driver.

April and August have been our busiest booking months on this lane since 2023, with July and December behind them. Spring is relocations and end-of-lease moves; late summer is families settling before the school year, and winter residents heading to Florida ahead of the season. None of it is as sharp as the fall snowbird rush on the East Coast lanes, but a fixed single-day pickup in April or August still costs more than a window. Give the driver three to five days and book two weeks ahead in those months.