Millbrae Movers, From the Station Area Up to the Hills Along 280

Millbrae is small and almost entirely residential, wedged between San Francisco International Airport on the east and the watershed lands around San Andreas Lake on the west. Its downtown runs along Broadway and Millbrae Avenue, known for restaurants and bakeries more than big stores. The landmark everyone knows is Millbrae station, the one stop on the Peninsula where BART and Caltrain meet. Around it, newer apartment and condo buildings have gone up, while the rest of the city is single-family homes climbing west from El Camino Real toward Interstate 280.

• Station area and Bayside Manor: flat, close to the airport and US 101. Newer buildings with elevators, loading areas and move rules; older homes on small lots nearby. The questions here are about elevator reservations and where the truck can stop.
• Downtown and the Meadows: level streets and mid-century houses, usually one story with a driveway. Straightforward carries, but street parking near Broadway is busy.
• Mills Estates: on the Burlingame border, established homes with mature landscaping and finished interiors, so floor runners and blankets go down before the first piece moves.
• Glenview Highlands and the hill streets: bay views, steep driveways and split-level plans with stairs inside. Truck placement on the slope takes planning.

Millbrae is a quiet market on its own, so our recent numbers are better read at the county level: between mid-July and late October 2026, the 17 San Mateo County cities we track sent us 29 quote requests, not counting account work, with 16 booked or completed, mostly one-bedroom and two-bedroom homes.

Millbrae is about 33 miles northwest of downtown San Jose. US 101 is the direct way to the station area, and Interstate 280 runs along the top of the hill neighborhoods. Getting to you is free. The arrival window for the day's first Peninsula job is 8 to 10 AM, and the foreman phones about 30 minutes ahead. Between your pickup and delivery, drive time is billed, and doubled when the two stops are more than 10 minutes apart, as required in California. Moves within Millbrae or to Burlingame or San Bruno are usually well under that.

• Station-area building: book the elevator and ask where trucks may load. Send us the management company's name, mailing address and email, and we provide the certificate of insurance free.
• Hill home: tell us the slope of the driveway and the number of inside steps between the garage and the bedrooms.
• Planning to reserve the curb? We help you sort out what the City of Millbrae requires for your street.
• Keep loose light items boxed and sealed; we do not move items in open or plastic bags.
• If there is a piano, say which kind. Grands always need 4 movers.

Three movers at $175 an hour is our standard crew and fits most Millbrae houses and two-bedroom condos. A one-room move, or anyone who asks for it, can have 2 movers at $145. Homes with four or more bedrooms, or three bedrooms over 1,800 square feet, get 4 movers at $235. The minimum is 3 hours, then 15-minute increments, and Sunday costs the same as Monday. Full-service moves include blankets, tape, floor protection, wardrobe boxes on loan, and taking furniture apart and putting it back together. You pay for packing materials only as they are used. More detail is on the moving cost page.

How long a Millbrae move takes, and what it costs

Because the hourly rate alone says little about the total, we measured our recent local moves by the hours on the final bill to build the ranges shown here. Some moves finish faster and some run longer; the final number comes from the time on the job, billed hourly.

Hours are the middle half of billed hours on our recent local moves for direct customers, July to October 2026, including the drive between homes; account and partner-billed jobs and jobs with our full packing service are left out. Packing materials are extra, and every job has a 3-hour minimum ($525 with 3 movers).

Split-level homes in Glenview Highlands with steep driveways and inside stairs between the garage and bedrooms take longer than a unit in a station-area building with an elevator.

• San Bruno, to the north, has a similar flat-to-hill layout with its own BART stop at Tanforan.
• Burlingame, to the south, has a busier downtown and older bungalows near the tracks.
• Hillsborough is only houses, many large, on winding roads.
• South San Francisco mixes downtown homes with Westborough split-levels.
• Baywood is a leafy San Mateo neighborhood of older single-family homes.