Apartment moves don't fail because of bad packing. They fail because nobody called building management until move day was already going wrong. Quick answer: the apartment moving tips that prevent a bad move day come down to two levers, the freight elevator and the curb. Reserve your building's elevator two to four weeks out. And if you're moving in Minneapolis, arrange your curb parking early, because the city does not post “No Parking” signs for moves. Hood a metered space through the city's ROWay system or hire a private sign service at least seven business days before move day. The first real step gets skipped by most apartment moving tips lists. Call building management before you book a truck or a crew. Every building with an elevator runs move day differently, and none of it is standardized. Ask three questions. Is there a dedicated freight or service elevator, or will movers share a passenger elevator with residents? Are moves restricted to certain hours or days, since many buildings block weekday middays or bar moves on Sundays? And does the building require a certificate of insurance, a COI, before movers can enter? Buildings above roughly four stories, luxury properties, and any high-rise apartment with a true freight elevator are the most likely to require a COI. Ask early. Getting one issued by a moving company takes a few business days, and a building won't budge on this requirement for a first-time DIY crew borrowing a friend's truck. This is where local movers already hold an advantage over a DIY move with borrowed help: most professional crews keep a standing certificate of insurance on file and can send one to your building on short notice, sometimes the same day. A DIY move starting from zero on the COI question often loses its elevator window before the truck even shows up. Reserving a freight elevator isn't a call you make the week of your move, not if you want it to hold. Walk it through like this. Reserve two to four weeks out. End-of-month and weekend windows are the most competitive in any apartment building and fill first. While you're at it, ask about padding requirements: many buildings require the elevator interior and hallways padded before a move starts, and packing services typically bring that padding and protective material as standard equipment, one less thing you have to source yourself. Moving with stairs in an apartment building adds real time and real cost, and that's worth planning around, not discovering when the crew is already on the third flight. In our experience, stairs and long carries without an elevator add real money to a move, on top of whatever your base hourly or flat rate already covers. There's no single flat industry rate; the fee scales with how many flights the crew climbs, how heavy the load is, and how far each piece has to be carried. Ask any mover for their specific stair or access policy before you book, not after the truck is loaded. Strategy matters as much as budget here. Move the heaviest and bulkiest items first, while the crew is freshest, not last when everyone's tired. An appliance dolly, not a furniture dolly, is the right tool for heavy items on stairs. And build your carry order around what will actually clear the stairwell: measure large furniture against the stairwell width before moving day, not while it's wedged sideways on the landing. There's a safety case here too, and it isn't a sales pitch. Every flight without an elevator raises the injury risk that comes with rushing heavy lifting on stairs, and it's the honest reason a stairs-only move is where hiring pros earns its cost. Our Minneapolis movers carry furniture down stairs for a living, and they move faster and safer than a first-timer improvising with friends. Apartment moving day parking problems almost always trace back to one missing step: nobody arranged a way to hold the curb space in time. Most guides get this part wrong. The City of Minneapolis does not post temporary “No Parking” signs for residential or commercial moves. Securing parking for a move is the resident's or the moving company's responsibility, straight from the city's own permit page. You have two practical ways to hold a spot. If your building fronts metered parking, you can reserve the space by hooding the meter through the city's Right-of-Way Permitting System, known as ROWay, at minneapolis.mn.roway.net, for roughly $25 a day. Where there is no meter, a private permit or sign service will post temporary no-parking signs for you, usually in the $40 to $60 range. The city's free obstruction permit exists, but it is meant for obstructing or closing a travel or parking lane, which carries its own fees when you close a full lane, not for reserving a single residential spot. Whichever route you take, plan ahead: sign-posting applications through ROWay must be submitted at least seven business days before the permit start time, and the city denies permits filed without proper notice. And the critical parking permit zones, the resident restriction program, are a separate system that doesn't cover moving trucks, so they won't help you hold a spot for a move either. Which option you need comes down to your specific block: metered frontage lets you hood a meter, open legal parking may mean you need nothing at all, and a spot with neither is where a private sign service comes in. If you're unsure which applies to your address, confirm with the city's ROWay office before move day. Apartment hallways rarely allow more than one piece of furniture to pass at a time, which is why any real apartment moving checklist treats hallway measurements as a required step, not an afterthought. Pack the room you'll use least first, and stage bulky furniture near the door as you go, so nothing blocks a doorway on move day itself. Measure doorways, hallway turns, and the elevator or stairwell opening before moving day, not on it. A couch that clears your unit's door can still get stuck on a hallway corner two turns later, and finding that out with the couch wedged sideways costs everyone time. Protecting shared hallways matters more than most first-time movers expect. Damage to common areas, a scraped wall, a dented door frame, often gets billed back to the tenant directly by the building, not absorbed as a normal moving mishap the way it might be in a private house. Packers and movers bring wall and door padding as standard practice for exactly this reason, and it's worth doing yourself if you're going the DIY route. Downsizing into a smaller unit is common with apartment moves, and not everything has to arrive on day one. If some items won't fit right away, a moving and storage company can hold them until you are settled, which also thins out what the crew has to carry through a tight hallway or up stairs on move day. Label every box by destination room, not just contents. A single elevator trip often mixes boxes headed for different rooms, and pre-sorted labels are the difference between an unload that moves and one that turns into a slow game of sorting boxes in the hallway. This decision comes down to your specific building's complications, not a blanket rule about apartments in general. DIY genuinely works for studio and one-bedroom apartments with either elevator access or a single flight of stairs, two to three reliable helpers, and a half-day to work with. That's a realistic scope for a small crew of friends and a rented van. Hiring wins on more than convenience in three situations. Any move requiring a COI, since most professional crews already carry one. Any stairs-only two-bedroom-or-larger move, where the stair-carry fee a mover would charge often lands close to what the extra DIY time actually costs in rental-truck hours and helper time. And any building with a strict, narrow elevator window, where a slow DIY crew risks losing the reservation and getting bumped to a return trip. A small, elevator-access studio move is a reasonable DIY candidate. A two-bedroom-plus walk-up, a COI-required building, or a tightly windowed freight elevator reservation are the situations where residential movers protect the moving day and the reservation behind it, not the furniture inside the truck alone. Full service movers who already carry a certificate of insurance, their own elevator padding, and experience working inside a building's assigned window clear these hurdles faster than a DIY crew improvising on the day it counts. Most mid-rise and high-rise buildings do, especially any with a formal freight elevator reservation process. These apartment moving tips only work if you reserve two to four weeks ahead and get the confirmation in writing, since a verbal yes from the front desk doesn't hold on a busy Saturday. There's no single flat rate industry-wide. Most movers add a stair-carry or long-carry fee when there's no elevator, and the size of it depends on how many flights the crew climbs, how heavy the load is, and how far each piece has to be carried. Ask any mover for their specific stair or access policy before booking, so it's priced into your quote instead of showing up on move day. No. The City of Minneapolis does not post temporary “No Parking” signs for residential or commercial moves, so there is no city permit that reserves your spot. To hold the curb you either hood a metered space through the ROWay system, around $25 a day, or hire a private sign service for roughly $40 to $60, and sign applications need at least seven business days' notice. Two to four weeks is standard advice across the moving industry. End-of-month and weekend windows are the most competitive and book up first, so a Friday call for a Saturday move is usually too late. Beyond loading and transport, look for moving services that carry a standing certificate of insurance, bring their own elevator and hallway padding, and can work within a tight, building-assigned window without slowing down. That combination matters more in an apartment than in a house move. For a studio or one-bedroom with elevator access, a DIY move with a couple of helpers is often realistic. For anything requiring a COI, a stairs-only two-bedroom or larger, or a narrow elevator window, hiring local movers is usually what protects the reservation and the timeline, not just the furniture. Apartment moves fail on logistics, not effort: an unreserved elevator, an unsecured parking spot, or a stairwell that eats an extra afternoon, and the apartment moving tips that matter are the boring, early ones. Confirm your building's rules early, arrange your curb parking at least seven business days ahead, and get every reservation in writing. Residential movers who already carry a certificate of insurance and their own elevator padding clear these hurdles faster than a DIY crew improvising on the day, and for a stairs-only building, that's usually where hiring pays for itself. If the job is small, residential movers or household movers can handle just the tight parts of the move; for a full relocation, residential moving services cover packing, loading, and everything in between. Either way, a professional moving company that treats moving services, moving and packing services, and full service movers as one coordinated job is what protects your moving day, not just your furniture. Joe Schwartz is the CEO and Co-Owner of AAA Movers, a Minneapolis and Chicago moving company in business since 1964. Alongside co-owner John Schwartz, he leads AAA's ProMover certified crews across Minnesota and the Chicago market. AAA's Minneapolis location holds a 4.9-star Google rating across more than 1,600 reviews.Key takeaways
Confirm Your Building's Elevator and Loading Dock Rules First
How to Reserve a Freight Elevator (Two to Four Weeks Out)
Moving Without an Elevator: Stair-Carry Costs and Strategy
Minneapolis Moving Truck Parking: What You Actually Need
Packing and Loading Strategy for Tight Hallways and Small Units
DIY vs. Hiring Local Movers for an Apartment Move
Frequently Asked Questions
Do apartment buildings require elevator reservations for moving?
How much do movers charge for stairs?
Do I need a permit to park a moving truck in Minneapolis?
How far in advance should I book a freight elevator?
What moving services actually help with an apartment move?
Should I hire local movers for a small apartment move?
The Bottom Line
About the author
