Ship a car from California to Texas

For years now, a steady stream of Californians has moved to Texas, following employers that opened or moved offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, cheaper housing, or both. Many of those moves are paid for, at least in part, by an employer, and the car is often the last loose end once the movers have the furniture. That's what our corporate relocation car shipping is built around.

This is a long lane, roughly 1,250 to 1,950 miles. San Diego to San Antonio is the short end; the Bay Area to Houston the long end. California also has more electric cars than anywhere else in the country, so a lot of the cars headed for Texas are EVs, which have their own loading and charge-level rules. See EV shipping.

The route is decided mostly by where the car starts and which Texas metro it's headed for:

• Southern California to Houston, San Antonio or Austin: I-10 the whole way, from the Inland Empire past Palm Springs, through Phoenix, Tucson and El Paso, then across the long empty stretch of West Texas to San Antonio and Houston. Austin is a short run up I-35 or US-290.
• Southern California to Dallas–Fort Worth: I-10 to West Texas, where I-20 branches off near Kent and runs through Midland, Odessa and Abilene to Fort Worth. Some carriers take I-40 instead.
• The Bay Area, Sacramento or the Central Valley: south on I-5 or CA-99, over the Tehachapi Pass on CA-58 to Barstow, then I-40 through Flagstaff, Albuquerque and Amarillo, dropping into Dallas–Fort Worth on US-287.

Each corridor has its own weather risk. I-40 climbs to about 7,000 feet around Flagstaff, and winter storms there can close the highway for hours. I-10 stays low and mostly snow-free, but the summer desert is brutal on tires and air conditioning, and carriers plan around the heat. The empty miles between El Paso and San Antonio make it one of the longest gaps between big cities on any interstate, and drivers plan their federal rest hours around it.

Unlike the snowbird lanes, this one doesn't have a winter peak. It has a summer one. Families move between school years, so demand climbs in May and stays high through August. Month-end and quarter-end start dates bring their own small spikes as people try to arrive before day one at a new job. The rest of the year is steady, driven by job transfers that don't follow a calendar.

• Summer moves: give us two to three weeks' notice and try to avoid the last days of the month.
• Hard start dates: plan for the car to arrive a few days after you. Most people fly and use a rental or rideshare for the first week.
• Winter: the I-10 routes keep moving when I-40 is snowed in, so routing a Bay Area car to Houston by way of LA can be faster in January.

Open transport is the norm on this lane and handles everyday cars, Teslas and other EVs without trouble. The road exposure is different from the snowbird lanes: there's no salt, but there is dust, sun and the occasional sandstorm in West Texas. Enclosed transport makes sense for a classic, a lowered sports car, or any car whose paint you'd rather not have sandblasted. Our guide to car shipping costs explains how each choice moves the price on a lane this long.

California pickups are mostly about access. See our Los Angeles car shipping guide for the LA basin in detail. Across the state:

• Los Angeles apartments often park in gated subterranean garages that a car carrier can't enter. Drive the car up to street level or a nearby lot, and check the street-sweeping signs before you leave it there the night before.
• Hillside neighborhoods (the Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Laurel Canyon) are off limits for a full rig. Meet on a main boulevard like Sunset, Ventura or Glendale.
• Orange County master-planned communities in Irvine, Mission Viejo and Ladera Ranch often limit trucks on HOA streets, so the village entrance or a shopping center lot is the usual handoff.
• The Inland Empire, meaning Riverside, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, straddles I-10 and I-15 and is about as easy as a California pickup gets.
• San Diego: the beach communities are cramped; North County and I-15 suburbs such as Chula Vista load easily.
• The Bay Area: San Francisco's steep, narrow streets almost always mean a meeting point. San Jose, the South Bay and the East Bay suburbs are generally fine at the curb.
• The desert: Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley sit on the I-10 route east, so cars from there often join a truck already heading for Texas.

A large share of the cars we move to Texas land in master-planned suburbs. Around Houston that means Katy, Cypress, Sugar Land, Pearland and The Woodlands. Around Dallas–Fort Worth it means Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Prosper and the communities west of Fort Worth. These neighborhoods are newer and wider than most of California, but HOAs still sometimes keep tractor-trailers off residential streets, so ask before delivery day. In Austin, central neighborhoods like Hyde Park and Travis Heights are tight, while Round Rock, Cedar Park and Pflugerville are easy.

Once the car is in Texas, put registration on your to-do list. Texas currently gives new residents 30 days to register an out-of-state vehicle. Check the Texas DMV for the current requirements in your county.