Professional Moving Services in Markham, Ontario

Moving Co. moves homes and businesses across Markham, from the heritage streets of Unionville to the new condo towers of Downtown Markham and the estate homes of Cachet and Angus Glen. Local Markham moves are billed hourly at $50 per mover, crews carry the Certificate of Insurance your building or the city requires, and (905) 752-7787 is answered 24 hours a day.

Here is the thing most movers get wrong about Markham: it is not Toronto. Markham is a city in its own right, part of York Region, and it left the “Town of Markham” name behind on July 1, 2012. That matters on move day because Markham’s rules are its own. The permit that lets you drop a moving bin on the street, the hours you can legally make noise, and who controls the road your truck is parked on are all decided by City of Markham bylaws and York Region, not by Toronto. Markham was home to 338,503 people at the 2021 census, the largest population in York Region, and it is often described as one of the most diverse communities in Canada, with well over half of residents born outside the country.

What follows is what our crews actually deal with here: the permits Markham genuinely requires, the heritage streets a truck cannot fit down, the laneway garages of Cornell, and the strict boards of the new downtown towers.

Markham’s moving rules are not Toronto’s

This is where a Markham move quietly goes wrong for people who assume the GTA has one rulebook. It does not.

Dropping a moving bin or container on the street needs a permit. Under Markham’s Road Occupancy By-law 2018-109, you need a Road Occupancy Permit to place a moving container or a disposal bin on a city road, and the application wants a traffic control plan and a certificate of insurance naming the City, with roughly ten business days to process. This is the opposite of a same-week decision, so if your move involves a portable container left on the road rather than the driveway, start early. On private driveways, no permit is needed.

A moving truck cannot sit on the street all day. Markham caps on-street parking at three hours during the day and prohibits it entirely between 2:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. under its parking bylaw. A full house move routinely runs longer than three hours, so on a street with no driveway room we plan the truck position carefully rather than assume the curb is ours all day.

The good news is the noise bylaw is on your side. Markham’s Noise By-law 2017-74 restricts construction and equipment noise to roughly 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, with none on Sundays or statutory holidays. Crucially, the rule against noisily moving containers and materials explicitly exempts moving your household belongings. So a Sunday move in Markham is allowed in a way a Sunday renovation is not, which genuinely matters when your closing lands on a long weekend.

One more jurisdiction note that trips people up: Markham’s big arterials, Highway 7, Warden, Kennedy, Woodbine and McCowan, are York Region regional roads, not city streets, so anything involving a lane on those goes through the Region. Steeles Avenue is the boundary with Toronto.

Markham is mostly houses, with a new downtown of towers

At the 2021 census, single detached houses made up 56.2 per cent of Markham’s occupied dwellings, with townhouses, semis and rows adding roughly another quarter and apartments the remainder. So most Markham moves are house moves: driveways, staircases, basements and garages. The exception, and it is a fast-growing one, is Downtown Markham, also called Markham Centre, a 243 acre master planned district off Highway 7 near Unionville that has added condo towers quickly. That gives Markham two distinct kinds of move, the detached-subdivision move and the new-tower move, and they need different planning.

The heritage streets: Unionville, Markham Village, Thornhill and Buttonville

Markham protects four Heritage Conservation Districts under the Ontario Heritage Act: Unionville, Markham Village, Thornhill and Buttonville. These are the streets a moving company has to respect rather than muscle through. Unionville, founded in 1794 with a Main Street dating to the 1840s, is the obvious one: narrow, historic, busy with visitors, and lined with heritage homes that were never built for a 26 foot truck. Markham Village is similar. Thornhill straddles the Markham and Vaughan boundary at Yonge Street, mature and tree-lined. In these districts we scout access before the day, and where the street will not take a full size truck we shuttle with a smaller vehicle instead of blocking a heritage lane.

Cornell and the laneway neighbourhoods

Cornell, in east Markham, is one of Canada’s best known new-urbanist communities, designed in the early 1990s with a street grid, front porches and, critically for a mover, garages tucked onto rear laneways. Those laneways were built wide enough for a snowplow, not a moving van with its ramp down, so a Cornell move is often run from the front street while carrying to a rear-facing garage, or staged carefully in a lane that another resident also needs. Berczy, Greensborough and Wismer share versions of this layout. It is the kind of detail that separates a crew that has worked Markham from one that has only read the postal code, and it is why the walkthrough matters.

Condo moves in Downtown Markham and Markham Centre

The new towers around Downtown Markham and the Unionville GO area run on building rules, not city ones. Expect to book the service elevator well in advance, often three to six weeks in the busiest buildings, expect the passenger elevators to be off limits for moves, and expect a Certificate of Insurance naming the building as an additional insured, usually with a refundable damage deposit held until the corridors are checked. Those specifics are property management practice and vary building to building, so confirm with yours. We carry Commercial General Liability of $2,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, Tenant’s Legal Liability of $2,000,000, and Non-Owned Automobile coverage of $2,000,000, all in Canadian dollars, plus cargo and contents coverage, and we issue the certificate in your building’s name before the day. Our condo and apartment moving service handles the paperwork end of this so it is not the thing that delays your elevator.

Office and commercial moves in Canada’s high-tech capital

Markham markets itself as Canada’s high-tech capital, and it has the corporate base to back the phrase, with IBM Canada’s head office on Steeles Avenue East, AMD’s operations descended from the old ATI, and hundreds of other technology and corporate headquarters. That means a steady stream of office relocations, workstation moves and IT-sensitive jobs where equipment has to come back up on schedule. Those are a different discipline from a house move, and they run through our enterprise logistics program, which handles the Certificates of Insurance, the after-hours windows and the account billing that a business move needs. It is also why Markham businesses moving staging inventory, retail stock or a showroom fit-out call us as an overflow crew during their busy weeks.

Moving students at York University’s Markham campus

York University opened its Markham Campus in Downtown Markham on August 31, 2024, and enrolment has grown quickly, which adds a late-summer student rhythm to the area alongside nearby college programs. Student moves are small and time-boxed, usually a small move or a single item move rather than a full truck, and because the campus is folded into a dense downtown, parking and loading need planning rather than luck.

Transit and roads that shape your move day

Markham’s road network has its own quirks. Highway 407, the ETR, is privately tolled, while Highway 404 alongside it is a free provincial freeway, which affects how a crew routes a cross-town job and what a long-distance leg costs. VIVA bus rapid transit runs in dedicated median lanes along Highway 7, built out in 2013 and 2014, so the middle of that road is not available to a truck. The GO Stouffville line threads through Markham with stations at Milliken, Unionville, Centennial, Markham and Mount Joy. Worth clearing up a common myth: the Yonge North Subway Extension’s northern terminus is in Richmond Hill near Langstaff, not in central Markham. We scout the route on any Markham job rather than trusting a map, because a closed lane on Highway 7 can turn a tidy schedule into a long morning.

What does a Markham move cost?

Local Markham moves are billed hourly at $50 per mover, so the total depends on crew size, truck size and how long the job runs. A two bedroom condo in Downtown Markham with a booked elevator is a very different job from a five bedroom home in Cachet with a finished basement and a three car garage. We give an upfront written estimate after a walkthrough or inventory, and the price you approve is the price you are invoiced.

Timing is the biggest lever on price. Around 80 per cent of North American moves happen between May and September, month end is busier than mid month, and the Canada Day weekend is the single hardest date to book. Moving midweek and mid month, off peak, commonly runs 20 to 30 per cent cheaper. If your dates are flexible, read our guide to the cheapest time to move in Ontario, and for a number before you call, use the moving cost calculator.

Winter moves and storage between closings

A Markham winter move is cheaper and easy to book, but the older streets of Unionville and the laneways of Cornell are not cleared first, and a new-tower loading dock turns to slush like any other. We protect floors as standard, but plan a salted, shovelled path and a realistic start time, and expect the day to run longer than its summer version.

When a sale and a purchase do not close on the same day, storage in transit bridges the gap, typically one to thirty days and often extendable to around ninety. Because the same crew loads it, stores it and delivers it, nothing is handed between vendors. Our storage service covers exactly that, and it is the piece Markham sellers underestimate most.

The estate communities: Cachet, Angus Glen and Cathedraltown

Markham has a distinct band of large-home neighbourhoods that move differently from the subdivisions. Cachet, in the northwest around Kennedy and Major Mackenzie, is known for big detached homes on generous lots. Angus Glen, built around the golf course of the same name, is similar: executive houses, long driveways and the kind of volume that turns a move into a full-day job with a larger crew. Cathedraltown, near Major Mackenzie and Woodbine, is newer and denser but has its own landmark cathedral and a mix of towns and singles. These are high-content house moves where the finished basement, the home gym and the double garage all add up, so we walk the whole property before quoting rather than pricing from the number of bedrooms, and we bring the crew size the volume actually needs instead of underselling the day and running long.

Milliken, Box Grove, Berczy and Greensborough

The bulk of Markham is its planned residential communities, and each has its own quirks for a truck. Milliken, in the southwest against the Toronto border, is older and established. Box Grove, in the southeast near Ninth Line, is newer and still filling in. Berczy and Greensborough, in the centre and north, share Cornell’s newer-community layout with narrower streets and tighter parking than an older subdivision. Wismer and Cornell round out the east end with the rear-laneway pattern described above. In these communities the constraint is rarely the house, it is the street: newer subdivisions were built with narrow roads, on-street parking limits and visitor spots that fill quickly, so on a busy cul de sac we plan where the truck sits rather than assume the curb is free.

International and cross-border moves from Markham

Markham is one of the most diverse communities in Canada, with well over half its residents born outside the country and one of the largest Chinese-Canadian populations in the GTA. That shapes the moving work in a specific way: a meaningful share of Markham moves involve a household arriving from or leaving for another country, or a family splitting a move between a local address and long-term storage while a purchase or a visa lands. We handle the domestic end of those moves and the storage in between, holding furniture and belongings in storage for the weeks or months it takes for the rest to line up, then delivering when the new place is ready. For a move that continues beyond Ontario, our long haul and cross-Canada service keeps it on one crew and one account rather than a handoff between strangers, and where a shipment continues overseas we coordinate the local pack, wrap and delivery to the forwarder cleanly.

The GO Stouffville commuter belt

A lot of Markham runs on the GO Stouffville line, with stations at Milliken, Unionville, Centennial, Markham and Mount Joy, and the neighbourhoods around those stations attract commuters who move for the train as much as the house. That matters for a mover in a small way that adds up: station-area condos and towns have their own parking and loading realities, and a move timed around the morning commuter rush near a GO station is a slower move than the same job at 10 a.m. We plan around it. The Unionville GO area in particular, next to Downtown Markham, combines heritage streets, new towers and a busy station in a few blocks, which is about as many access variables as a Markham move can stack in one place.

Downsizing and estate moves

As Markham’s first generation of subdivision owners ages, a growing share of our work is the downsizing move: a large detached home in Unionville or Cachet emptied into a condo in Downtown Markham or a smaller home closer to family. Like the house-to-condo move anywhere, it is really three jobs at once, the move, the decision about what will not fit, and the clear-out of the rest, and we handle all three so the house is left clean for its closing. We pair the move with junk removal for what does not make the cut and storage for what the family is not ready to decide on. These moves reward patience over speed, and we crew and schedule them that way.

Pianos, art and specialty pieces

The estate homes of Cachet and Angus Glen, and the collectors downsizing out of them, hold pieces that need more than a blanket: grand and upright pianos, original art, antiques, chandeliers, stone and glass tables, wine collections. We handle those as their own class of work, wrapped and crated to suit the item, carried rather than dollied where that is safer, and loaded to ride in the truck rather than fight the road. Where a piece has to come apart to clear a heritage doorway or a laneway garage, the same crew rebuilds it at the other end, and our wrapping and packing service exists precisely so the fragile things arrive the way they left.

Getting across Markham on move day

Markham’s road math has a quirk worth planning around. Highway 407, the ETR, is a privately tolled road, while Highway 404 running alongside it is a free provincial freeway, so a crew routing a cross-town or long-distance leg weighs the toll against the time. VIVA’s dedicated bus lanes occupy the middle of Highway 7, which takes that lane off the table for a truck, and the regional arterials, Highway 7, Warden, Kennedy, Woodbine and McCowan, are the ones that clog at rush hour. It is why we scout the route on a Markham job rather than trusting a map, because a closed lane on Highway 7 or a backup at the 404 turns a tidy schedule into a long morning, and an arrival time is only worth promising if the route behind it is real.

Moving in Markham by the numbers

Markham was home to 338,503 people in the 2021 Census, up 2.9 per cent from 2016, and 56.2 per cent of its homes are single detached houses.

Markham has one of the highest immigrant shares of any large city in Canada at 58.6 per cent, which is why international and long-distance relocations, with full packing and storage between closings, are such a large part of our Markham work. We run those end to end on one account so nothing is handed between carriers across a border.

Only about 18.3 per cent of Markham households rent, so the great majority of Markham moves are owner-occupied houses, from the heritage streets of Unionville and Markham Village to the estate communities of Cachet and Angus Glen. The exception is the growing cluster of condo towers in Downtown Markham and Markham Centre, where a move needs a service elevator and a Certificate of Insurance.

These figures come from the 2021 Census profile for Markham, the most recent national count and the baseline we use when we plan a Markham move. You can read the full profile on Statistics Canada.

What Markham’s housing and growth mean for your move

Markham’s mix of a strongly owner-occupied, house-dominated base with a new downtown of towers means the crew we send depends on which Markham you are moving in.

In the house neighbourhoods, a Markham move is a driveway job, often a large multi-generational home with heavy solid-wood furniture, a piano or a wine collection that we handle as specialty pieces. In Downtown Markham and Markham Centre, the same move becomes a tower job with a booked service elevator, a loading dock and a Certificate of Insurance for the condo corporation.

Markham is also Canada’s high-tech capital, with a dense cluster of technology and corporate offices, so office and commercial relocations are a steady part of our work here, run after hours with a Certificate of Insurance on file and account billing so a business is ready to open the next morning.

How many movers you need and how long a Markham move takes

As a rule of thumb, a one-bedroom Markham apartment takes two movers about three to five hours, a typical three-bedroom house takes three or four movers most of a day, and a large family home usually needs a four or five-person crew. Those are starting points, not fixed quotes, because the real drivers are how much you are moving, how far the carry is from the door to the truck, and the access at both ends.

In Markham, a detached house with a driveway loads faster than a Downtown Markham condo, where the move runs on a booked service elevator and a loading dock. A ground-floor home with a driveway loads far faster than an upper-floor unit where everything travels down a stair or through one shared elevator, so we scope the size of the home, the stairs and elevators, the parking and the distance before we put a number on the job. Sizing the crew correctly is not only faster, it is usually cheaper, because a local move is billed by the hour at 50 dollars per mover and a right-sized crew finishes the job sooner.

To make any Markham move day go faster, have everything boxed and sealed before the crew arrives, keep a clear path from the door to where the truck will park, take apart anything you can ahead of time or ask us to handle it, and set aside the essentials and valuables you want to keep with you. The more the crew can simply pick up and carry, the shorter the day and the smaller the final bill.

What we can and cannot move in Markham

Professional movers can take almost everything in your home, but for safety and legal reasons there is a short list we cannot load onto the truck. That list includes hazardous and flammable materials such as propane tanks, gasoline, paint, solvents, aerosols, cleaning chemicals and ammunition, none of which are safe in a loaded truck. It also includes perishable food that could spoil in transit and live plants, which do not travel well.

We also suggest you carry a few things yourself rather than sending them on the truck: cash, jewellery, important documents like passports and wills, medications, and small irreplaceable keepsakes. That is not because they are unsafe with us, but because you will want them in hand rather than packed in a box in transit. We give you the full list of what to set aside when you book, so nothing is a surprise on the day.

Everything else, the furniture, the appliances, the boxes, and the awkward and heavy pieces, is exactly what we are for, and specialty items like pianos, art and glass tables get their own wrapping and handling. If you are ever unsure whether something can come on the truck, ask us when we scope the Markham job and we will tell you straight.

Our moving services in Markham

One crew covers the whole job: house moves for the subdivisions, condo and apartment moves for Downtown Markham, small moves and single item moves for students and one-piece jobs, professional wrapping and packing, furniture assembly and disassembly, junk removal, and long haul and cross-Canada moves when Markham is just the start. Nearby, our crews also serve Richmond Hill, Scarborough and North York.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a permit to move in Markham?

Not to run a moving truck on a normal driveway. But if you place a portable moving container or a disposal bin on a city road, Markham requires a Road Occupancy Permit under By-law 2018-109, which needs a traffic control plan and a certificate of insurance naming the City and takes about ten business days, so order it early. On-street parking is also capped at three hours in the day and banned between 2:30 and 6 a.m., so a long move needs driveway room or a planned truck position.

Can I move on a Sunday or holiday in Markham?

Yes. Markham’s Noise By-law 2017-74 restricts construction noise to weekday and Saturday daytime hours, but it explicitly exempts moving your household belongings, so a Sunday or statutory-holiday move is allowed. That is genuinely useful when your closing falls on a long weekend.

Is Markham part of Toronto for moving rules?

No. Markham is a separate city in York Region, so Toronto’s parking permits and noise bylaw do not apply here. Markham has its own parking limits, its own Road Occupancy Permit for containers, and its own noise bylaw, and the major arterials like Highway 7, Warden and Kennedy are York Region roads. We work to Markham’s rules, not Toronto’s.

How far ahead do I book the elevator in a Downtown Markham condo?

Often three to six weeks in the busier new towers, and passenger elevators are usually off limits for moves. The booking gives you a set window, and most buildings want a Certificate of Insurance naming the building plus a refundable damage deposit. Confirm the specifics with your property manager, since they vary building to building.

Do you provide a Certificate of Insurance for Markham buildings?

Yes. We carry $2,000,000 Commercial General Liability per occurrence and in aggregate, $2,000,000 Tenant’s Legal Liability and $2,000,000 Non-Owned Automobile coverage, plus cargo and contents coverage, and we have the certificate issued naming your building or condo corporation before move day. Send us the requirements with your quote request.

Can you move heritage homes in Unionville or Markham Village?

Yes, and carefully. Those are protected heritage districts with narrow, busy streets that will not always take a full size truck, so we scout access first and shuttle with a smaller vehicle when needed rather than block a heritage lane.

Can you handle office and commercial moves in Markham?

Yes. Markham has a large corporate and technology base, and we run office relocations, workstation and IT moves, and staging or retail stock moves through our enterprise logistics program, which handles the Certificates of Insurance, after-hours windows and account billing a business move needs.

How much does a move in Markham cost?

Local Markham moves are billed hourly at $50 per mover, so the total depends on crew size, truck size and how long the job runs. Stairs, laneway access, long carries and uncounted basement or garage contents push the hours up. You get an upfront written estimate after a walkthrough or inventory, and the price you approve is the price you are invoiced.

When is the cheapest time to move in Markham?

Midweek and mid month, outside the May to September peak. About 80 per cent of North American moves happen in that summer window, month end is busier than mid month, and the Canada Day weekend is the hardest date to book. Moving off peak commonly costs 20 to 30 per cent less.

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Areas We Also Serve Near Markham

Beyond Markham, our crews regularly move families and businesses in Richmond Hill, Scarborough, Vaughan, North York and Toronto. See all our moving service areas across the GTA and Ontario for the full list.