Linear Foot Moving Rate: The Number You Write Yourself

The quote said thirteen linear feet, and thirteen linear feet sounds like a description of a household. It is not. It is a description of a floor — thirteen feet of trailer deck, measured with a tape at the kerb, multiplied by a rate agreed to weeks earlier. Nobody weighs anything. Nobody counts the boxes.

Which means the final bill is settled in about four minutes, by whoever is standing at the back of the trailer when loading stops.

This page is about interstate moves. If both addresses sit in one state, your state regulator writes the rules and none of the federal sections below govern you. Regulation text quoted here came from the eCFR, title 49, retrieved 22 August 2026; the operator pages were read the same day. The tariff quoted throughout is ArcBest Tariff ARC 400, effective 15 March 2026, published as a PDF and linked below. It is used because it is public and unusually detailed, not because it is the only one — every linear-foot carrier files its own, and the clauses that decide your bill will be in yours rather than in this one.

A foot of that trailer is seventy-two cubic feet

Start with the object being sold. U-Pack's trailer size page gives external dimensions of 28' x 8' x 9' and internal dimensions of 27' x 8' x 9', a deck standing 48 inches off the ground, full capacity of "approximately 1,944 cubic feet," a legal haul of 22,500 lb, and an estimate that a trailer packed full of household goods weighs about 12,600 lb.

Do the arithmetic yourself, because it explains the entire pricing model. Eight feet wide by nine feet high is a 72-square-foot cross-section. One linear foot is therefore 72 cubic feet standing nine feet tall, and 27 x 72 = 1,944, which is exactly the published capacity. The number checks out, and it tells you what you are buying: a slice of deck, sold by the foot, with nine feet of it above your head.

You pay for the slice whether or not you fill it. Air above the sofa costs the same as a wall of boxes. Every inch of stacking height you leave unused is money spent on nothing, which is the reverse of how a weight-based move behaves, and the reason people who have done this twice arrive with a step stool and ratchet straps rather than a dolly.

The starting estimate comes off a chart. U-Pack's linear feet article publishes it:

Five feet is the floor. The same page says you pay only for the space used "down to a 5-foot minimum," and that if you use more or less than the estimate, "the price will adjust according to the per-foot rate on the reservation."

What that per-foot rate is, nobody publishes, and the third-party trackers that look as though they do repay a careful read. movebuddha's U-Pack cost page, updated 25 June 2026, gives two totals and no rate: a full trailer at "$3,064 if you need to reserve the entire moving trailer (not including the mileage cost to your new home)," and, short of that, "as little as seven feet in the trailer for around $1,600, depending on the mileage of your move." Divide each by its footage and the same page implies roughly $113 a foot and roughly $229 a foot. Both cannot be the marginal rate, and neither is — a booking is a base plus mileage plus footage, so a total divided by feet says nothing about what the fourteenth foot costs. The only number that behaves like a rate is the adjustment price per foot printed on your own confirmation agreement, and it moves with fuel, season, lane and equipment availability.

Who writes the number down, and what happens when it isn't you

Here the marketing page and the contract say different things, and the contract is the one that pays.

The U-Pack FAQ describes the moment passively: "The driver will measure the shipment and write the actual linear footage on the Bill of Lading to determine your final cost." Elsewhere it notes you need not attend pickup at all, though "we recommend being there to verify the linear footage in a trailer move."

The ARC 400 tariff puts the pen in your hand instead:

You agree to pay the price shown in your confirmation agreement, plus the adjustment price per foot for every linear foot of trailer space used (including bulkhead) beyond the requested trailer footage... You are responsible for entering the footage used on the bill of lading or other used shipping document. The footage used is subject to inspection by the transportation service provider... When service provider picks up trailer(s), ReloCube(s) or moving container(s) at origin location, if you have not entered the footage on the bill of lading, then, the driver shall enter the footage on the bill of lading and driver's indicated footage will be conclusively presumed correct.

Read that last clause twice. Not "presumed correct." Conclusively presumed correct. A blank box on a shipping document is not a neutral act — it hands the measurement to the other party and closes the argument before it starts. The same paragraph runs the other way too: the carrier "shall reduce the price, by the adjustment price per foot, for every linear foot not used," subject to the minimum charge. Space pricing really is two-directional. It is only the downward direction that requires somebody to write something down.

Three details decide which foot you land on.

The bulkhead counts. Those two words in parentheses — including bulkhead — mean the divider wall you install after loading sits inside the billed span. The bulkhead page also advises leaving "a few inches of space between your items and the bulkhead" because the panels are not built to take the weight of a load, so the last billed foot is partly air by design. Budget for it instead of discovering it.

Rounding goes to the nearest foot, in both directions. ARC 400's rounding rule: "the number shall be rounded to the nearest whole foot or cent, as applicable. If less than .5, reduce to the previous foot or cent. If .5 or more, increase to the next higher foot or cent." Thirteen feet five inches bills as thirteen. Thirteen feet seven inches bills as fourteen. Two inches of restacking can be worth a rounding step, and the minutes before the bulkhead goes in are the last minutes when restacking is free.

The ramp does not travel with you. It goes back outside the bulkhead for return to the service center, and the FAQ lists "you load the ramp behind the bulkhead wall with your belongings" among the reasons a bill comes back higher than the quote. Appendix A prices that particular nine-o'clock-at-night mistake at $250.00 to $1,000.00, "based on time ramp is out of service," with a lost or stolen ramp at $2,000.00. The ramp's own limit is 1,000 lb.

Space bills the opposite of weight, and there is no re-measure

A van line move is arithmetic on a scale: tare, gross, subtract. If the number looks wrong you have a right with a section number attached. 49 CFR 375.517 — "After you inform the individual shipper of the billing weight and total charges and before actually beginning to unload a shipment weighed at origin... the individual shipper may demand a re-weigh. You must base your freight bill charges upon the re-weigh weight." How to use that in time is worked through in Weight Tickets and the Re-Weigh.

None of it exists here. ARC 400 states outright that "ArcBest generally does not weigh personal effects or other commodities as we base our charges on space utilized in equipment," and that weighing on a certified scale can be arranged on request — Appendix A prices Certified Weight Tickets at $150.00 per shipment. There is no re-measure right in the document at all, and there could not usefully be one: after the bulkhead is locked and the trailer pulls out, the deck you were billed for has stopped existing as evidence.

The two models therefore fail in different places.

That last row deserves its own sentence. The 110 percent limit is a Part 375 creature, and a self-loaded trailer sits in the exclusion written into the definition of "household goods motor carrier" at 375.103 — that sentence, and what it does to the rest of your protections, is taken apart in Container Quotes vs Van Lines. ARC 400 does not hide any of this. It says its estimates are non-binding, that site surveys "generally do not produce better assessments of your needs than alternatives," and that the company "makes no representation or warranty of the accuracy or correctness of any survey/estimate of your shipment size." An estimate that disclaims its own accuracy is not the same animal as the documents in Binding, Non-Binding, Not-to-Exceed, and comparing the two totals as if they were the same kind of promise is where most of the disappointment comes from.

The practical translation is short. Books, tools, weight plates and boxed tile ride nearly free on a space-priced move and cost a fortune on a weighed one. Mattresses, sofas, plastic bins, patio furniture and lamps do the reverse. Taking a bed frame apart saves nothing on a scale and can save a foot on a deck. And weight almost never binds first here: against a published 22,500 lb legal capacity and roughly 12,600 lb for a full trailer of household goods, you run out of feet long before you run out of pounds.

Seven pounds a cubic foot, and where that formula comes back

If nothing was weighed, and the liability limit is stated per pound, where does the pound come from?

ARC 400 answers with a definition sitting quietly among its liability terms. Constructive Weight is "a weight based on (a) a formula of 7 pounds per cubic foot of properly loaded trailer or container space occupied by personal effects, or (b) the actual weight of an item of like material, construction, dimension and kind."

Seven pounds per cubic foot, against 72 cubic feet in a billed foot, is roughly 504 lb of assumed weight per linear foot. Across the full 1,944 cubic feet that comes to 13,608 lb — close to the carrier's own 12,600 lb estimate for a full trailer of household goods, which suggests the formula is descriptive rather than punitive.

Now run it through the coverage that arrives free. Basic Service Coverage under ARC 400 is limited to "$0.10 per pound per lost and/or damaged item up to $2,000 per trailer and $250 per ReloCube," for carrier negligence in transit only. A dresser occupying about 24 cubic feet constructs to roughly 168 lb, which is $16.80. Buy the dollar tier — Appendix A: $75.00 for $1.00/lb up to $20,000, $125.00 for $2.00/lb up to $40,000, $175.00 for $3.00/lb up to $60,000 — and the same dresser becomes $168. The $3.00/lb Catastrophic layer bundled into the quote is reserved for fire, vehicle collision, vehicle overturn or complete theft of the equipment, and does not apply "if your actions or inactions partially caused" the event.

Over all of it sits the carve-out that defines this product category: because you packed and loaded, damage caused by packing, loading or unloading — by you or by labour you hired — falls outside the coverage entirely. Coverage also has to be bought before the equipment drop date rather than while you are loading. Whichever tier you land on, get it in writing which basis was used to weigh a damaged item: the 7 lb/cu ft formula, or a like-item comparison. On a claim of a few hundred dollars, that choice is most of the argument.

The paperwork rule that outlives Part 375

Fall outside the household goods rules and you keep more than people assume, because Part 373 is written for motor carriers generally rather than for household goods carriers specifically.

49 CFR 373.100 applies the subpart to motor carriers subject to 49 U.S.C. subtitle IV, part B — no household goods qualifier — and § 373.101 then requires every such carrier to issue a receipt or bill of lading containing the names of consignor and consignee, origin and destination points, number of packages, description of freight, and "(e) Weight, volume, or measurement of freight (if applicable to the rating of the freight)."

Paragraph (e) is your linear footage. The measurement used to rate the shipment belongs on the bill of lading as a matter of federal rule rather than as a courtesy, which is exactly why the tariff makes entering it your job.

§ 373.103 does the same work on the invoice side. The freight or expense bill must show that measurement, the "Exact rate(s) assessed," and "Total charges due, including the nature and amount of any charges for special service and the points at which such service was rendered." So when the final invoice lands you are entitled to see the per-foot rate that produced it, and you can hold that rate against the adjustment price per foot on your confirmation agreement. If those two disagree you have a documented dispute rather than a feeling.

One more status question is worth asking out loud. ARC 400 opens by describing ArcBest II, Inc. as "a property and household goods freight forwarder and broker under the United States Department of Transportation Number 2946400," arranging transportation "pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 13102(12)(C) or 49 C.F.R. § 375.103," and states that as a freight forwarder it is "subject to the provisions of 49 U.S.C. § 14706(c)(1)(A)." Forwarders carry their own document rule at § 373.201: a receipt or through bill of lading covering transportation from origin to ultimate destination. So ask which entity holds the authority for your leg, and check the number yourself on FMCSA's SAFER company snapshot. Claims under that tariff must be filed within nine months, measured from "the date of completion of the last service provided to you" rather than from delivery day — not always the same date.

And here is a live demonstration of why the contract outranks the website — a narrow one, so take it narrowly. Both documents answer the same question: what you owe for holding the equipment past the three business days ARC 400 allows at each end. The FAQ, in that same list of reasons a bill outgrows a quote, says "detention and storage accrues at $50/day per ReloCube and $250/day per trailer." Appendix A of ARC 400 lists the Equipment Detention Fee as "$250.00 per day per trailer; $150.00 per day per ReloCube or other moving container." On the trailer — the equipment this page is about — the two agree exactly. It is the ReloCube line that differs, threefold, with the tariff holding the higher number. Both pages were read on 22 August 2026.

Neither figure is a ceiling in any case. The clause immediately following, which covers a shipment held at the destination service center past two free business days, says Appendix A "provides the minimum applicable detention fee, however, an increased detention fee may be applicable and shall be provided on the bill of lading or reservation confirmation," and that your signature there "shall be deemed as your acceptance of the increased detention fee." A published charge that a document you sign at the kerb can raise is a floor, not a price. ARC 400 settles the ranking outright: "If there is a conflict or dispute between this Tariff and the confirmation agreement, then, the confirmation agreement shall govern." A frequently-asked-questions page is not on that list at all, and quoting one back at a billing department has never moved a number.

The four minutes at the back of the trailer

Everything above collapses into one moment, and it happens while a driver waits with the engine running.

• Be there. Attendance is optional and expensive to skip. Bring your own tape measure.
• Measure the span they bill — nose wall to the face of the installed bulkhead — before you call for pickup.
• Restack the last foot if it is mostly air. Rounding runs to the nearest foot, so five inches of slack is sometimes a whole foot of charge, and this is the last minute restacking costs nothing.
• Ramp outside the bulkhead, then returned the way the tariff requires.
• Write the footage in the box yourself, on the bill of lading, in your own hand. Leave it blank and the driver's figure is conclusive.
• Lock the bulkhead and keep the key — the FAQ's own phrase, though the lock is yours to supply: it asks for an outdoor-rated lock with a shank at least 2 inches long and 1/4 inch or less in diameter for a trailer bulkhead. Photograph the loaded face, the lock, and the completed footage box on the document.
• Keep your signed copy. Under 373.101(e) the measurement used for rating belongs on it.
• When the invoice arrives, compare the exact rate assessed against the adjustment price per foot on the confirmation agreement, as 373.103 entitles you to do.

Half of what is on this page has a shelf life. The Appendix A charges, the per-foot rates, the three-day loading window and the coverage tiers all live in a tariff the carrier reserves the right to modify "at any time," and ARC 400 will carry an effective date later than 15 March 2026 soon enough. The section numbers will not move. So find the tariff your own carrier files, read the paragraph about who enters the footage first, and read the paragraph about price second. What this site is — and the several things it is not — is set out on the about page.