Moving to the United States

Why move to United States

People move to the US for reasons that cluster around a handful of things: the depth and pay of the job market in tech, finance, healthcare and academia; the pull of a specific employer or graduate program; family already settled there; or simply wanting to try a country large enough that "moving to America" barely describes a single place. What changes day to day depends enormously on where you land. A move to Seattle has almost nothing in common with a move to Miami beyond the passport stamp and the currency, which is exactly why this guide stays at the national level and leaves climate, rent and commute details to the individual city guides. What catches people off guard almost every time is healthcare: there's no default national system, so a job offer's benefits package (or your own insurance shopping) needs to be sorted before you need a doctor, not after. Newcomers also underestimate how much of daily bureaucracy runs at the state level, not the federal one, so a driving licence, a professional certification, or even how income tax gets deducted can look completely different two states apart. Shipping a full household is generally worth it only for a move expected to last a few years or longer; anyone on a shorter contract usually does better renting furnished and shipping less.

• One of the world's deepest job markets across tech, healthcare, finance and academia
• No national healthcare system — insurance has to be arranged before you land
• Daily-life rules (driving, tax withholding, licensing) vary sharply by state
• Enormous internal diversity — climate, cost and culture shift completely city to city
• Multiple visa and green card routes exist, but none are quick — plan a year or more ahead
• A genuinely huge domestic market for anyone building a career or a business

United States is famous for

• Its sheer economic scale

  The US remains the world's largest national economy by output, with finance, professional services and manufacturing the biggest single contributors.

• A 50-state patchwork of law

  Tax rates, licensing rules and even some consumer protections differ by state, which is why so much practical detail in this guide gets pushed down to the city level.

• World-leading universities and research institutions

  A large share of skilled-worker and student immigration into the country is tied to specific universities and research hubs rather than the country as a whole.

• Its geographic range

  The contiguous states alone span nine distinct climate regions, from humid subtropical Gulf Coast summers to high desert in the Southwest.

• A car-dependent built environment outside a handful of cities

  Most US metros were built around driving, so a US driving licence (or at least a temporary route to one) is close to essential outside a short list of transit-dense cities.

• A deep, competitive freight and logistics network

  Ports on both coasts and the Gulf handle some of the highest container volumes on earth, which keeps international shipping options into the US relatively plentiful compared with smaller countries.

Regions & cities

The US is organized into 50 states plus federal territories and the District of Columbia, and which state you land in matters more than almost anything else in this guide — it sets your income tax rate, your driving and licensing rules, and often your healthcare options. Broadly, the coasts (especially the Northeast corridor and the West Coast tech and entertainment hubs) carry the highest cost of living and the densest job markets in finance, tech and media; the Sun Belt states across the South and Southwest have grown fastest over the last decade on lower costs and no state income tax in several cases; and the interior Midwest and Mountain states mix lower costs with more seasonal extremes. The city guides below cover 20 of the country's major relocation destinations in detail — this page only sets the national context they build on.

Other notable cities (guide not yet published): Charlotte, Nashville, Minneapolis, Detroit, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Columbus, Sacramento, Baltimore

Browse all city moving guides

Shipping & container logistics

Sea freight is the default for a full household move into the US; air freight gets reserved for a small, urgent subset of belongings because it typically costs several times more per kilogram than ocean freight and only makes sense when a shipment is small or time-critical. Ocean routes into the US run through gateway ports on both coasts and the Gulf, and which one your shipment clears through usually comes down to where you're moving from and where inland you're headed rather than personal choice — a mover routes it for you. Whether a shipment travels FCL (a container booked exclusively for one household) or LCL (space shared with other shipments in the same container) mostly comes down to volume: a studio or one-bedroom's worth of belongings rarely fills even a 20ft box, so LCL keeps the cost proportional to what you're actually shipping, while a full house of furniture usually clears the volume threshold where a dedicated 20ft or 40ft container becomes the cheaper and faster option. LCL shipments also have to wait for a container to fill with other consolidated cargo before it sails, which adds real time on top of the ocean transit itself, whereas an FCL container moves on the carrier's schedule as soon as it's loaded. Door-to-door timing for a transatlantic or transpacific household move typically runs six to twelve weeks once inland trucking, port handling and US customs clearance are added to the ocean transit.

• FCL 20FT: Suits a one- to two-bedroom household's full furniture and boxes — roughly 25-28 cubic metres of capacity, enough for a studio through small house move without sharing container space.
• FCL 40FT: Suits a three-bedroom-plus household — around 55-58 cubic metres, generally the practical ceiling before a shipment needs to split across two containers.
• LCL: Suits partial households, a handful of large items, or anyone downsizing into a furnished US rental — cheaper for small volumes than booking a whole container, but slower, since the shipment waits for consolidation and undergoes an extra load/unload step at each end.

Major freight gateways

• Port of Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA, sea) — The single busiest US container port by volume, the primary Pacific gateway for shipments originating in Asia.
• Port of Long Beach (Long Beach, CA, sea) — Sits directly beside the Port of Los Angeles and together the two handle the bulk of West Coast container traffic.
• Port of New York and New Jersey (Newark/Elizabeth, NJ, sea) — The busiest East Coast container gateway, the natural entry point for shipments from Europe and the Northeast corridor.
• Port of Savannah (Savannah, GA, sea) — The fastest-growing major East Coast port, increasingly used as the entry point for Southeast-bound household shipments.
• Port of Houston (Houston, TX, sea) — The main Gulf Coast container gateway, relevant for shipments headed into Texas and the broader South.
• Major international airports (JFK, LAX, ORD, etc.) (Multiple, air) — Used for a small, urgent portion of a household shipment rather than a full move, given the cost premium over ocean freight.

Customs & duties

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) generally lets used household goods and personal effects into the country duty-free, provided you've owned and used them for at least a year before the move and they aren't intended for resale. The main paperwork is CBP Form 3299, the Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles, which your moving company typically helps prepare and file since the shipment usually arrives separately from you. New items, vehicles, and a handful of categories like jewelry, cameras and other electronics don't qualify for the household-goods exemption even if you've had them a while, so those get assessed for duty separately from the rest of the shipment.

Duty-free allowance: Used household goods and personal effects owned and used for 12+ months before the move generally qualify for duty-free entry under CBP's personal-effects provisions; a separate personal traveler exemption of $200-$1,600 applies to goods carried with you rather than shipped, depending on the country you're arriving from.

Commonly restricted items: Firearms and ammunition (require separate import permits), Fresh produce, meat, plants and soil (subject to USDA/APHIS agricultural restrictions), Ivory and other regulated wildlife/animal products, Counterfeit goods and certain foreign pharmaceuticals, Cars and other vehicles (never qualify for the household-goods duty exemption), Absinthe and certain other alcohol products with restricted import status

Typical clearance time: A few days to about two weeks once the shipment reaches port, assuming complete paperwork; incomplete Form 3299 documentation is the most common cause of delay.

Source: US Customs and Border Protection (cbp.gov, help.cbp.gov)

Indicative shipping cost

These are indicative market ranges pulled from published freight-industry pricing, not a quote — get an actual price for your specific route and volume through MoverQuoteEngine's calculator.

• 20ft FCL: roughly $1,300-$6,700 port-to-port, depending on origin region
• 40ft FCL: roughly $1,500-$7,000 port-to-port, depending on origin region
• LCL: typically priced per cubic metre and generally cheaper overall than FCL for shipments under about half a container's volume, though rates vary too widely by route to state a single reliable range here

Source: International Van Lines container shipping cost guide; iContainers FCL/LCL guidance

Average transit time: 6-12 weeks door-to-door by sea from Europe or Asia, including inland trucking and customs clearance on both ends

Shipping a vehicle

Shipping a car into the US is uncomplicated only when the vehicle was already built to US specification, since a US-market car generally clears CBP without extra engineering work. A right-hand-drive or otherwise non-US-spec vehicle is different: it must satisfy both EPA emissions rules and DOT/FMVSS safety standards, and a car lacking US manufacturer certification is treated as nonconforming, meaning it has to pass through a registered importer for modifications before release. That process is often slow and expensive enough that most people relocating from a RHD country sell the car at home and buy locally instead.

Typical cost: roughly $1,000-$5,000 for international RoRo or container transport to a US port, before any EPA/DOT compliance or modification costs for a non-US-spec vehicle

Source: A-1 Auto Transport — International Car Shipping Cost Guide; US Customs and Border Protection — Importing a Motor Vehicle

Visas & immigration

The US doesn't have a single "relocation visa" — immigration runs through a set of separate temporary work visa categories and, for anyone planning to stay permanently, a separate green card process, and the right route depends heavily on your specific situation (employer sponsorship, family ties, investment, or an extraordinary-ability case). Processing times for both temporary work visas and green cards commonly run from several months to well over a year depending on category and country of origin, so this is not something to start planning a few weeks before a move. Anyone weighing the H-1B route specifically should also be aware that a federal rule proposed in August 2026 would add a fee of roughly $103,000 to new cap-subject H-1B petitions filed from outside the cap-exempt categories; it was still open for public comment and not yet in force as of early September 2026, but it could materially change the cost of that route if it takes effect. This section is general orientation only, not legal advice — anyone planning a US move for work or long-term residence should confirm current requirements and timelines directly with USCIS or a qualified immigration attorney before committing to dates.

• H-1B (specialty occupation)

  Employer-sponsored temporary workers in specialized professional roles, typically requiring a bachelor's degree or higher; subject to an annual numerical cap.

• L-1 (intracompany transfer)

  Employees of multinational companies transferring to a US branch, subsidiary or affiliate in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge role.

• O-1 (extraordinary ability)

  Individuals with demonstrated extraordinary achievement in their field — sciences, business, arts, education or athletics.

• E-2 (treaty investor)

  Nationals of countries with a qualifying treaty with the US who are investing a substantial amount in a US business they will direct.

• Employment-based green cards (EB-1 to EB-3)

  Those seeking permanent residence through employer sponsorship or exceptional/extraordinary ability, generally requiring longer lead times than a temporary work visa.

• Family-sponsored immigration

  Spouses, children, parents and siblings of US citizens or lawful permanent residents, with wait times that vary enormously by relationship category and country of origin.

A green card grants lawful permanent residence rather than citizenship, and most categories involve a multi-stage process — often a labor certification or petition stage followed by a wait for a visa number to become available before the final application, which for some countries and categories can take years.

Source: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (uscis.gov); American Immigration Council fact sheet on employment-based visa categories; DHS proposed rule on H-1B petition fee (uscis.gov newsroom, Aug 2026)

Cost of living overview

There's no meaningful single number for "cost of living in the US" — a one-bedroom rental can cost three or four times as much in San Francisco as it does in a mid-sized Midwestern city, and that gap swamps almost any national average. What's more useful at this level is the shape of the picture: housing is consistently the largest line item and the biggest driver of regional differences, groceries and everyday goods vary less dramatically by location, and a handful of expenses — notably health insurance — depend more on your employer's benefits than on which city you land in. Treat the figures below as a national backdrop only; the real budgeting numbers are in each city guide.

rent 1br city center range

roughly $1,030-$4,360/month for a one-bedroom in a city centre nationally, with most major metros landing well above the low end of that range

groceries relative index

highly city-dependent — grocery costs commonly run anywhere from roughly 30% below to over 30% above the national average depending on metro area

currency note

All prices are in US Dollars (USD); there is no national sales tax, but state and local sales tax is added at checkout and varies by jurisdiction.

These are national bookends, not a budget — see the specific city guide linked above for realistic rent, grocery and overall cost-of-living figures for the metro you're actually moving to.

How costs compare

US city-centre one-bedroom rents run higher on average than the UK or Canada and sit close to Australia's, though the real comparison depends entirely on which US city is on the other side of it — American rents range far more widely than any of these reference countries.

• vs United Kingdom

  US 1BR city-centre rent averages roughly 20% higher than the UK

  Numbeo national averages, Aug 2026: US ~$1,646/month vs UK ~$1,357/month

• vs Canada

  US 1BR city-centre rent averages roughly 25-27% higher than Canada

  Numbeo national averages, Aug 2026: US ~$1,646/month vs Canada ~$1,300/month

• vs Australia

  US 1BR city-centre rent averages roughly 5% higher than Australia

  Numbeo national averages, Aug 2026: US ~$1,646/month vs Australia ~$1,565/month

Taxes overview

Federal income tax is progressive, with seven brackets for 2026 running from 10% (income up to $12,400 for single filers) to 37% (income above roughly $640,600 for single filers); the 2026 standard deduction for single filers is $16,100. On top of federal tax, most states levy their own income tax at rates and structures that vary widely, and a handful of states charge no state income tax at all — see the relevant city guide for the state-specific rate.

The US has no federal VAT or GST. Instead, most states and many local jurisdictions charge sales tax at the point of purchase, with combined state-and-local rates commonly landing somewhere in the mid-single digits to around 10%, depending entirely on the state and city.

State income tax rates, sales tax rates and any local/city taxes differ enormously by location — the specific figures for each metro are covered in that city's guide rather than here.

Climate

The contiguous US spans roughly nine distinct climate regions, so "American weather" isn't really one thing. The Northeast gets warm, humid summers and cold, snowy winters with vivid autumn colour; the Southeast and Gulf Coast run humid subtropical with hot summers and real hurricane exposure; the interior Midwest and Northern Plains see a sharply continental climate of harsh winters and warm, stormy summers; the Southwest ranges from low desert heat to high alpine cold depending on elevation; and the Pacific Northwest is known for mild, wet winters and comparatively dry summers. Alaska and Hawaii sit outside this pattern entirely, running subarctic-to-arctic and tropical respectively.

The climate difference between, say, Phoenix and Seattle is more extreme than the difference between many entire countries, so climate should be treated as a city-level decision, not a national one — each city guide covers seasonal specifics.

Working & economy

The US remains the world's largest national economy, with finance, insurance and real estate the single biggest sector by output, followed by professional and business services and manufacturing. The labour market is deep and highly specialized by region — technology concentrates on the West Coast and in a few other hubs, finance in New York, energy around Houston, entertainment in Los Angeles — so job search strategy usually depends more on industry and metro than on the country as a whole. Healthcare has been one of the more consistently growing sectors in recent labour data, while some traditionally large sectors like retail have been contracting modestly.

Unemployment: 4.1% (July 2026) (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation Summary)

Key industries: Finance, insurance and real estate, Professional and business services, Manufacturing, Healthcare and social assistance, Technology, Wholesale and retail trade, Government (federal, state and local)

Working legally in the US requires either a valid work-authorizing visa tied to a specific employer or category, or lawful permanent residence (a green card) — there is no general open work permit, so employment authorization needs to be confirmed before you accept a role or make firm moving plans.

Moving logistics checklist

1. Confirm your visa or green card category and start that process well before booking any shipping — processing times commonly run from several months to over a year
2. Book your container (FCL) or consolidated (LCL) shipping slot at least 4-8 weeks ahead of your target move date, since space on popular routes fills up
3. Prepare CBP Form 3299 (Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles) and a full inventory before your shipment departs, to avoid customs delays on arrival
4. Check that everything you're shipping has been owned and used for 12+ months if you want it to qualify for duty-free household-goods entry
5. Research pet import requirements early if bringing an animal — dog rabies vaccination and CDC certification requirements vary by the country you're travelling from
6. Set up US banking and a way to build credit history, since a lack of US credit history can complicate renting, phone plans and car finance even for well-off newcomers
7. Plan health insurance before you land — there's no automatic national coverage, and gaps can be expensive given US healthcare costs
8. Check your destination state's rules on converting or exchanging a foreign driving licence, since requirements differ state by state and some require a written and/or road test
9. If moving with school-age children, time the move around the local academic year, which typically runs August/September to May/June and varies slightly by state and district

Frequently asked questions