Texas to Florida Car Shipping

For a standard car on an open carrier, our own book since 2023 holds 20 Texas to Florida open-carrier car orders and the middle half of them ran $700 to $950. That is well under a dollar a mile for a 1,000 to 1,300 mile run and noticeably below the Florida to Texas direction, because the eastbound trucks run full and price to fill. Full-size pickups and three-row SUVs land at the top of the band or past it; enclosed has run about a third more than open.

Eastbound, the truck is usually found inside a week. On the car moves we have dispatched since 2023 the median was 4 days from booking to an assigned carrier, and a quarter waited 12 days or more, almost all of them single-day dates. The road, 1,000 to 1,300 miles of Interstate 10 and then the peninsula, with other cars loading and unloading on the way, is typically three to five days from Dallas to the Treasure Coast. That on-road figure is a distance estimate; our records log the assignment, not the drive.

Interstate 10 east from Houston through Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile and Tallahassee to Jacksonville. Dallas and Fort Worth pickups come down Interstate 45 to Houston or across Interstate 20 to Shreveport and Interstate 49 to the corridor; Austin and San Antonio join Interstate 10 directly. In Florida the truck takes Interstate 95 or the Turnpike for the Atlantic coast and the Treasure Coast, Interstate 4 for Orlando and St. Cloud, or Interstate 75 for Tampa, St. Petersburg and Fort Myers.

Open for most, a trailer for a quarter. Of the 16 Texas to Florida car moves we have dispatched since 2023, 12 went open and 4 went enclosed, a higher enclosed share than the westbound direction because winter residents are sending the car they care about. Enclosed adds roughly a third and earns it on a new, collector or low-clearance car facing four days of Gulf coast weather; on a commuter it does not, and we will say so.

Because our Texas to Florida book is unusual. Of the 53 moves we have dispatched on this lane since 2023, only 16 were cars; 29 were golf carts, almost all on dealer orders out of Austin that travel enclosed by the trailer load, and the rest were equipment, trailers, an ATV and a motorcycle. Blending a dealer’s enclosed cart loads into a household quote would misstate both the enclosed share and the wait. The band, the wait and the busy months on this page were computed from the 16 car moves and nothing else.

Dallas is our most frequent Texas pickup for cars on this lane, with Houston, Frisco, Grapevine, Huntsville and Angleton behind it. In Florida, Stuart is the most frequent delivery point, followed by Jupiter, Palm City, Coral Springs, Margate, St. Cloud and St. Petersburg. Dallas suburbs take the truck at the door; Treasure Coast gates usually mean the clubhouse lot or a plaza outside, agreed with the driver by phone the day before.

April has been our busiest booking month for cars on this lane since 2023, with May, June, July and November behind it: spring relocations and dealer purchases, then the summer moves and the first winter residents. The whole East Coast ships into Florida from October to January, but the Texas trucks are less affected than the Interstate 95 ones. A fixed single-day pickup still costs more than a window; give the driver three to five days.