Moving a piano costs $250 to $800 as an add-on to a local move in 2026 for most uprights and grands, and $800 to $1,500 or more for a concert grand that needs a specialist crew. This guide is for a homeowner or downsizer checking whether a quote is fair, and for a 1-to-5-truck local moving operator deciding how to price specialty work or whether to take it at all. The number most people never check is the coverage: under federal rules for interstate moves, the default liability is 60 cents per pound per article, which means an 802 lb Steinway Model B is covered for about $481 no matter what it was worth. Below: real ranges by piano type, what actually sets the price, why an upright can be a harder job than a baby grand, what your coverage pays when something goes wrong, and when an operator should hand the job to a specialist.
- Uprights run $250 to $500 as an add-on to a local move. Baby grands and grands run $400 to $800. Concert grands are specialist work at $800 to $1,500 and up.
- Weight is not the whole story. A 650 lb Steinway K-52 upright up four exterior stairs is often a harder job than an 802 lb Model B grand on a flat first floor.
- Released Value, the default liability on interstate moves, pays 60 cents per pound per article. On a Model B that is $481 total.
- That 60-cent default is a federal interstate rule. Most local piano moves are intrastate, where your state sets the rules and the default is not automatically the same.
- If your mover quotes a piano without asking about stairs, doorway width, and whether it is a grand, the quote is a guess and it will change on move day.
How much does it cost to move a piano?
Moving a piano costs $250 to $1,500 depending on the instrument and the path out of the house, with most local upright moves landing between $250 and $500. The ranges below are add-on surcharges layered onto a normal local move, not standalone prices, which is how nearly every local mover bills specialty items.
| Piano type | Typical weight | Add-on cost |
|---|---|---|
| Spinet or console upright | 300 to 500 lbs | $250 to $400 |
| Studio or professional upright | 500 to 800 lbs | $300 to $500 |
| Baby grand | 500 to 650 lbs | $400 to $650 |
| Grand | 650 to 900 lbs | $500 to $800 |
| Concert grand | 900 to 1,100 lbs | $800 to $1,500, specialist only |
Those weights are not estimates. Steinway publishes 650 lbs for the K-52 upright, 802 lbs for the Model B grand, and 1,064 lbs for the Model D concert grand. Consumer-brand spinets and consoles sit well below those figures, which is why the bottom of the table is a genuinely different job from the top.
The derivation is straightforward. A piano adds crew and time to a move that would otherwise run with two movers. At the $40 to $60 per mover-hour that local movers charge in most metros, adding a third mover for two hours is $80 to $120 of billed labor, and adding a fourth for a grand pushes it to $160 to $240 before equipment and risk. That labor is the floor, not the whole surcharge. On top of it sit the piano board, straps and skid, the specialist crew a grand needs, and a risk premium for carrying an object that cannot be set down mid-flight. Those are the pieces that take a concert grand from a few hundred dollars of extra labor to four figures, and they are priced per company rather than per formula. Our full breakdown of what movers cost covers how those hourly rates work on the rest of the job.
What actually determines a piano moving price?
Five things set a piano price: crew count, access, disassembly, distance, and risk. Weight only matters because it drives the first two.
Crew count is the largest single line. An upright is a three-person lift in most homes. A grand is four, because the instrument gets tipped onto its bass side, the legs and lyre come off, and it travels on a padded skid board that needs a person at each corner.
Access is what turns a routine job into an expensive one. Stair count, doorway width, turn radius at a landing, and whether the truck can park close all change the labor. This is the variable that most often makes a quote wrong, because it is the one movers cannot see over the phone.
Disassembly applies to grands and to some uprights with removable trim. Legs, lyre, and pedal assembly come off on a grand, and they go back on at the other end, which is skilled time rather than muscle time.
Distance matters differently for local and long moves. A local move bills hourly, so distance shows up as drive time. An interstate move is weight-and-distance based under federal tariff rules, so a 900 lb grand is priced as 900 lbs of freight plus the specialty handling.
Risk is real and it is priced. A piano is the one household item where a single mistake can exceed the value of the entire rest of the move, and the coverage section below is where that becomes concrete.
Why is an upright sometimes harder to move than a grand?
An upright is often the harder job because its weight sits high and it cannot be broken down, while a grand comes apart and travels low on a skid. A 650 lb Steinway K-52 stands 52 inches tall with all of that mass concentrated above knee height, so on stairs it wants to tip and the crew is fighting that top-heavy mass the whole way. An 802 lb Model B, once the legs are off and it is strapped to a board, is heavier but lower, more stable, and can be pivoted.
This is why a per-pound price makes no sense on pianos and why the table above is organized by type rather than by weight. Four exterior stairs and a 90-degree turn at the landing can add more to an upright job than 150 lbs of extra instrument adds to a grand on a flat entry. When you call for a quote, the stair count and the turn are more useful information than the brand.
What does your mover’s coverage actually pay if the piano is damaged?
On an interstate move, the default coverage pays 60 cents per pound per article, which is almost never what the piano is worth. This is the part homeowners most consistently misunderstand, and it is written into federal regulation rather than into any individual mover’s fine print. 49 CFR Appendix A to Part 375, the rule that contains the consumer booklet your mover is required to give you, states that under Released Value “the mover assumes liability for no more than 60 cents per pound, per article,” and illustrates it with a 10 lb stereo component worth $1,000 that the mover would owe $6.00 for.
Run that arithmetic on a piano and the gap is stark:
| Instrument | Weight | Released Value payout |
|---|---|---|
| Steinway K-52 upright | 650 lbs | $390 |
| Steinway Model B grand | 802 lbs | $481 |
| Steinway Model D concert grand | 1,064 lbs | $638 |
Released Value costs you nothing, which is exactly why it is the default. The alternative the same rule requires movers to offer is Full Value Protection, under which the mover must repair the article, replace it with one of like kind and quality, or pay the cost of replacement, subject to the exceptions in that mover’s tariff. Full Value Protection costs extra, and on a piano it is usually the only sane choice.
One critical qualifier that most pages get wrong: the 60-cent rule is a federal interstate rule. Appendix A governs the transportation of household goods in interstate commerce. Most piano moves are local and intrastate, where your state’s rules govern instead and the default liability is not automatically the same number. Ask your mover, in writing, what the default liability is on your specific move and what Full Value Protection costs on top. If the piano is worth more than the rest of your household goods combined, which is common, a separate rider through your own insurer is worth pricing too. We break down what movers carry and why in our guide to moving company insurance.
When should a moving company subcontract a piano?
A local moving company should subcontract a piano when the job needs a fourth mover it does not have, a skid board its crew has not trained on, or a grand disassembly nobody on the truck has done before. The honest operator math: a $500 grand surcharge is attractive until you weigh it against a damage claim on an instrument worth $30,000 or more, and against the way cargo coverage is structured: the federal interstate minimums are written per vehicle and per occurrence rather than per instrument, and most state intrastate requirements follow a similar shape. Check what your own policy actually pays on a single high-value item.
Take the job when it is an upright, on a ground floor or a short flight, with a crew that has moved one before. Hand it off when it is a grand, when there are more than a few stairs, or when the customer describes the instrument by name rather than by size, because a named instrument usually means a valuable one and a customer who will notice every scuff. Subcontracting to a piano specialist and taking a referral fee is worth more than a claim.
Two record-keeping notes for operators. Federal identifiers changed recently: since October 1, 2025, FMCSA no longer issues MC numbers, and your USDOT number is the sole federal identifier with operating authority attached to it. And if you operate in California, intrastate household goods movers are licensed by the Bureau of Household Goods and Services, which took over mover regulation from the CPUC. Both details matter here because a piano claim is exactly the situation where somebody asks to see your authority. Our guide to moving company software covers keeping the surcharge, the stair count, and the coverage election on one record so the quote and the claim tell the same story. Service Anchor ships with a moving price book preloaded and one pipeline from lead to paid invoice, so a piano surcharge is a line item rather than something remembered on the drive over.
What to do next
If you are hiring: measure the doorway, count the stairs including any exterior steps, and note whether there is a turn at a landing. Tell the mover the piano type and whether it is a grand before you take a quote, and ask specifically what the default liability is on your move and what Full Value Protection would cost. A mover who does not ask those questions has not priced your job; they have guessed at it, and the number will move on the day.
If you are operating: put a per-type piano surcharge in your price book rather than quoting from memory, make stair count a required field on the estimate, and decide your subcontract threshold before a grand shows up on the calendar. See our full guide to moving costs for how specialty surcharges sit inside the rest of the estimate.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to move a piano? Moving a piano costs $250 to $800 as an add-on to a local move in 2026, depending on type and access. Uprights sit at the low end, grands at the high end, and concert grands are specialist work that typically runs $800 to $1,500 or more.
How much does it cost to move a piano upstairs? Stairs are the single largest access surcharge on a piano move, because they add crew time and risk rather than distance. Expect the surcharge to rise toward the top of the range for your piano type, and expect any mover quoting without asking your stair count to revise the number on move day.
Do I need special movers for a piano? Uprights on a ground floor are within the ability of most experienced local moving crews. Grands, concert grands, and any piano with a difficult stair path are specialist work, because the instrument has to be tipped, disassembled, and skidded rather than carried.
What does a mover pay if they damage my piano? On an interstate move, the default Released Value coverage pays no more than 60 cents per pound per article, which works out to $481 on an 802 lb grand regardless of its value. Full Value Protection is the alternative your mover is required to offer, and it costs extra. On a local intrastate move, your state’s rules govern and the default may differ.
How much does a piano weigh? Steinway publishes 650 lbs for its K-52 upright, 802 lbs for the Model B grand, and 1,064 lbs for the Model D concert grand. Consumer spinets and consoles are lighter, generally 300 to 500 lbs.
Is it cheaper to move a piano yourself? Moving a piano yourself avoids the surcharge but carries the risk of an instrument that can cost more to repair than the entire move cost. A piano tips, it concentrates weight high on an upright, and it cannot be set down mid-flight on a staircase, which is why this is the item where DIY goes wrong most expensively.
Will my piano need tuning after the move? Pianos generally need tuning after a move, because changes in humidity and temperature at the new location shift the soundboard more than the transport itself does. Ask your technician how long to wait, since letting the instrument settle into the new environment first is common practice.
Last updated: August 2026. First publish; weights sourced to Steinway’s published model specifications, liability figures to 49 CFR Appendix A to Part 375.
