U-Haul Truck Sizes and Prices Per Day (2026)

Short answer: A U-Haul-style truck rental is priced by size, from a cargo van or pickup up through a 26 foot truck, and the per-day figure is only the daily rate: mileage, fuel, equipment, and a few smaller fees sit on top of it. Illustratively a one-day, 20-mile local rental lands near $38 for a pickup, near $65 for a 15 foot truck, and near $97 for a 26 foot truck, with fuel running 7 to 16 miles per gallon depending on size.

Search “U-Haul truck sizes” and you will find a size chart in seconds. Search “U-Haul price per day” and the honest answer gets harder, because the number on the sign is never the number on the receipt. A per-day truck rental is built from several lines, and most of them are not printed next to the daily rate at all.

This roadmap works through the real U-Haul-style lineup, size by size, then rebuilds a per-day price from its real parts: the daily rate, the mileage charge, fuel, equipment, and the smaller fees that round out the total. ReloPeak already prices the full rental truck picture, including one-way long-distance moves, and the calculator on this page turns the same model into your own number as you read.

The U-Haul-style truck lineup, size by size

National truck rental brands, U-Haul included, generally organize their fleet into a handful of standard sizes rather than a continuous range, because a standard size is easier to reserve, price, and keep in stock at every location. The usual tiers run from a pickup truck and a cargo van at the small end, through a 10 foot, 15 foot, and 20 foot box truck, up to a 26 foot box truck at the large end. Exact trim names, available sizes at a given branch, and local inventory can vary, so this is the common shape of the lineup rather than a guaranteed list for every location.

Each tier exists to answer a different job. A pickup or van handles a handful of large items or a very small household. The 10 and 15 foot trucks handle a studio through a modest one-bedroom. The 20 foot truck is the workhorse for a typical two-bedroom household. The 26 foot truck is the largest widely offered size and the one reached for a three-bedroom house or a long-tenured two-bedroom with a garage full of boxes.

Knowing the lineup matters before pricing it, because the per-day rate is not one number. It is six numbers, one per tier, and the gap between the smallest and the largest is usually three times the daily rate before a single mile is driven.

Pickup truck and cargo van: the smallest rentals

A pickup truck is the smallest practical rental for a move, suited to a handful of large items, a dorm room, or a studio apartment being emptied of nothing but furniture. It is also the cheapest tier on the daily rate and the best on fuel economy, illustratively 14 to 16 miles per gallon, which makes it the obvious choice when the load genuinely fits.

A cargo van sits beside it, enclosed rather than open, which protects the load from weather and from view, at a similar daily rate and similar fuel economy. The tradeoff for both is height and door clearance: taller furniture, mattresses on their side, and anything bulky can be awkward or impossible in either vehicle, which is the usual reason a studio move still books a 10 foot truck instead.

The real test for this tier is not “does it fit a studio” in the abstract but whether your specific furniture, especially a mattress, a dresser, and any large seating, clears the door opening. Measure before you book rather than assuming the smallest tier will work.

The 10 foot truck

The 10 foot truck is the smallest enclosed box truck in the usual lineup and the first tier with a walk-in cargo area and a ramp at most locations. It is commonly sized for a studio or a small one-bedroom apartment, particularly one lived in for a short time, and it is noticeably easier to drive and park than anything larger, which matters for a first-time renter.

Fuel economy on a 10 foot truck is illustratively 10 to 12 miles per gallon, worse than a van but still manageable on a local move. The daily rate sits a step above the smallest tier, and the truck is narrow enough that most drivers adjust to it within the first few minutes on the road.

The common mistake at this tier is underestimating what “small one-bedroom” really holds after a few years in a place. A 10 foot truck comfortably moves a bed, a dresser, a small sofa, and a modest number of boxes. It does not comfortably move a dining set, a second bedroom’s worth of furniture, or several years of accumulated storage.

The 15 foot truck

The 15 foot truck is the usual step up for a one-bedroom apartment that has been lived in long enough to accumulate real furniture, or for a small two-bedroom with light furnishing. It keeps the walk-in ramp of the 10 foot tier with meaningfully more cargo volume, and it remains narrow enough that most drivers find it manageable after a short adjustment.

This is also the size where many first-time movers get the call wrong in the generous direction, booking a 15 when a 10 would have done, because sizing guidance is usually conservative to avoid a failed load. If your one-bedroom is genuinely light, sofa and bed and a few boxes, a 10 foot truck is worth pricing before you default to the 15.

Fuel economy at this tier is illustratively 10 miles per gallon, and the daily rate sits between the 10 and 20 foot tiers, which is also where the mileage charge starts to matter more, since this is commonly the first size booked for a genuine out-of-town move rather than a purely local one.

The 20 foot truck

The 20 foot truck is the size most often matched to a two-bedroom household, and it is usually the workhorse of the fleet: common, easy to find in stock, and sized to hold a full two-bedroom apartment including a dining set and a modest amount of storage. It is also roughly the dividing line where the vehicle starts to feel genuinely large to drive, with a longer wheelbase and a wider turning radius than the tiers below it.

Illustratively this tier carries a daily rate in the middle of the lineup and fuel economy near 9 miles per gallon, worse than the tiers below it but still well ahead of the 26 foot truck. Because it is the most commonly booked size for both local and one-way moves, it is also usually the size with the tightest availability during peak moving months, which is worth knowing before you wait to reserve one.

Our downsizing roadmap is the cheapest lever if a 20 foot truck feels tight, since every cubic foot you do not move is a cubic foot you never pay a daily rate, a mileage charge, or a fuel bill on.

The 26 foot truck, the largest

The 26 foot truck is the largest widely offered tier, generally recommended for a three-bedroom house or a long-tenured two-bedroom with a garage and a basement’s worth of belongings. It carries the highest daily rate in the lineup and the worst fuel economy, illustratively 7 to 9 miles per gallon, which makes fuel the single biggest line item on a long drive in this size.

It is also, honestly, difficult to drive for anyone without commercial truck experience: tall, long, wide, and slow to stop, with blind spots that take real attention to manage in traffic and at a fuel stop. A first-time renter facing a true three-bedroom load should budget extra time for the drive itself, not just the loading, and should plan fuel and rest stops with the vehicle’s limits in mind rather than a car’s.

Matching a truck size to your home, not just your bedroom count

Bedroom count is the shorthand everyone uses to pick a truck size, and it is a reasonable starting point, but the variable that actually decides the right tier is tenure, not floor plan. Two people who have lived in the same two-bedroom apartment for eight years will own roughly the volume of a small house. A two-bedroom rented for eighteen months might genuinely fit a 15 foot truck with room to spare.

Walk your own rooms and count the large items before you book: beds, dressers, a sofa, a dining set, major appliances you are taking, and anything in a garage or storage closet. If that count surprises you against the standard chart, size up. The price difference between two adjacent tiers is almost always smaller than the cost of a second trip, a second rental day, or furniture left behind because it did not fit.

The calculator on this page turns your own truck size, miles, and rental days into a live per-day estimate, so you can check whether sizing up actually changes your total by much before you decide.

How a per-day truck rental price is actually built

A per-day price is not one number. It is five numbers added together: the daily rate itself, a mileage charge for every mile you drive, the fuel you put back in the tank, any equipment you rent, and a handful of smaller fees that live in the fine print rather than the advertised rate.

The daily rate is the number used in advertising because it is small and easy to compare, and that is also exactly why it undersells the real cost of a rental. On a short errand of a few miles, the daily rate genuinely is most of the bill. On anything resembling an actual move, with miles driven to load, unload, and return the truck, the other four lines usually add up to more than the rate itself.

Understanding this structure is the entire point of pricing a rental honestly: once you know the five lines, you can estimate any rental yourself instead of trusting a single advertised number that was never meant to represent your actual trip.

The daily rate: the number on the sign

The daily rate is fixed per truck size and is the number brands advertise because it looks small. Illustratively, modeling the kind of structure a national rental brand commonly uses, a pickup or van might run near $20 to $25 a day, a 10 foot truck near $30, a 15 foot truck near $40, a 20 foot truck near $50, and a 26 foot truck near $65. These are illustrative planning figures, not a quote, since the real number moves with your market, your date, and current promotions.

What the daily rate buys is simple: the vehicle itself, for a set number of hours, usually measured from pickup to a contracted return time rather than a full calendar day. Return late and the daily rate effectively repeats as a late fee, which is covered later in this roadmap.

Mileage: the charge that is not on the sign

Mileage is billed per mile driven on a local, round-trip rental, and it is the line that turns a cheap-looking daily rate into a real bill. Illustratively the per-mile charge might run near $0.69 for the smallest vehicles up to near $1.09 for a 26 foot truck, rising with size because the larger vehicle costs more to operate and maintain.

The mileage counter does not distinguish between a mile driven to your old address, a mile driven between stops, and a mile driven back to the rental lot. All of it counts. A rental that looks like a short local move can quietly rack up more mileage than expected once the drive to and from the lot is added to the actual move itself, so estimate your real total mileage rather than just the distance between your two addresses.

Fuel: the line truck rental ads do not mention

Fuel is yours to buy and yours to budget, and it is consistently the most underestimated line on a rental because people price it against their own car’s economy. A loaded box truck is nothing like a car: tall, blunt, heavy, and geared for load rather than mileage, and the bigger the box the worse the number gets.

Trucks are handed over with a fuel level noted on the contract and are expected back at the same level, so the fuel you burn is a real, direct cost rather than a rough estimate. Bring the truck back short of the marked level and the counter typically refills it at a premium rate plus a service charge, which makes topping off yourself before return the cheaper move almost every time.

Miles per gallon by truck size

Fuel economy falls steadily as truck size rises. Illustratively, a pickup or cargo van runs near 14 to 16 miles per gallon, a 10 or 15 foot truck near 10 to 12, a 20 foot truck near 9, and a 26 foot truck near 7. On a 500 mile one-way drive that spread is the difference between roughly 33 gallons and roughly 71 gallons, which at an illustrative $3.60 a gallon is close to a $135 difference in fuel alone.

This is the single clearest argument for sizing a truck correctly rather than sizing up “just in case.” An unnecessarily large truck does not just cost more per day and more per mile, it also burns noticeably more fuel for the exact same trip.

Equipment add-ons and what they add to the day

Furniture pads, a hand truck or dolly, and furniture straps are the common counter add-ons, and two of them are close to non-negotiable. Pads protect a box truck’s bare walls and your furniture’s finish from each other, since unpadded pieces arrive scuffed even on a short local drive. Straps keep a load from shifting on the first highway curve, which matters for the load’s safety and for yours.

Illustratively, a basic equipment package runs near $25 for the rental, often as a flat charge rather than a per-day one. Against the cost of a damaged dresser or a shifted load that crushes a box of breakables, it is one of the better-value lines on the whole contract.

Beyond the basic pads and dolly, larger households sometimes add a furniture dolly for a sofa or a mattress, an appliance dolly rated for a refrigerator or washer, or extra tie-down straps for a load that includes awkward, heavy single items. Each of these is usually a small flat add-on rather than a line that scales with distance, so pricing them once at booking is enough to know their full contribution to the total, regardless of whether the trip ends up being three miles or three hundred.

Common questions people ask before they even call

A few practical questions come up before the pricing questions do, and they are worth settling first because they change which truck size and which add-ons you actually need. Can you drive the truck with a regular license? In almost every state and for every size in the lineup described here, yes, a standard driver’s license is sufficient, though some states apply different rules to the largest commercial-grade vehicles, so check your own state if you are renting the 26 foot tier. Do you need a reservation, or can you walk in? Walk-in availability exists but is unreliable during peak season, so a reservation is the safer plan whenever your dates are flexible enough to allow one. Is a credit card required? Most counters require a card on file for the hold described earlier, and a debit card is often accepted with additional verification, so confirm the specific location’s policy before you arrive expecting to pay cash only.

Protection plans and what “coverage” usually means

National rental brands sell optional protection plans at the counter, commonly covering damage to the truck itself and sometimes extending to cargo, under a range of brand-specific plan names that change over time. Read the current plan documents at the counter or online before you buy or decline one, since the exact terms, exclusions, and price are set by the rental company and are not something this roadmap can state as fact.

The mechanism worth understanding is simpler than the plan names: your own auto policy and your credit card’s rental benefits may or may not extend to a box truck, and many personal policies exclude vehicles above a certain size entirely. Call your insurer with the exact truck size before you decline counter coverage, and if the answer is no or unclear, a few days of coverage is cheap insurance against an expensive mistake.

Deposits, holds, and what hits your card

Most rental counters place a hold on a card at pickup, separate from the daily rate itself, intended to cover fuel, mileage overage, late fees, and any damage found at return. The exact amount varies by truck size, location, and the card used, and it is released, not charged, if the truck comes back on time, fueled to the marked level, and undamaged.

Ask at booking what the hold amount will be and how long it typically takes to release after return, since a hold that lingers on a card for several days can be confusing if you are not expecting it. This is a question worth asking before pickup, not a surprise to discover at the counter.

Environmental fees and other surcharges

Beyond the daily rate and mileage, most rental contracts carry a handful of smaller line items: an environmental or vehicle license recovery fee charged as a flat amount or a small percentage, a refueling charge if the tank comes back low, a late return fee, and a cleaning fee if the box comes back visibly dirty. None of these are hidden exactly, but they live in the fee schedule rather than the headline rate, which is why the advertised daily rate is never the full story.

Illustratively these smaller fees might add up to somewhere near $5 to $10 a day on top of everything else. Read the fee schedule at booking rather than at the counter, and photograph the fuel gauge and odometer at both pickup and drop-off so there is no dispute about either one.

Local, round-trip pricing versus one-way pricing

Everything above describes a local, round-trip rental: a daily rate plus mileage, with the truck coming back to the same lot the same day or within a few days. A one-way, long-distance rental is priced differently, as a single flat rate that already bundles an allowance of miles and an allowance of days for the specific route, origin, and destination you booked.

The flat rate exists because the company has to get the truck to wherever it is needed next, and the price reflects that fleet-rebalancing problem as much as it reflects your specific trip. The same size truck on the same route can price differently depending on direction and the time of year, for reasons that have little to do with your move. Our moving truck rental roadmap works through one-way pricing in depth, including how the flat rate is built and how to compare two one-way quotes fairly.

A worked example: pricing a 20 foot truck for one day

Take a 20 foot truck, driven 20 miles around town for a single day, with a basic equipment package added. The daily rate is illustratively $50. Mileage at $0.99 for 20 miles is near $20. Fuel at 9 miles per gallon and $3.60 a gallon is near $8. Equipment is near $25. Smaller fees for the single day are near $6. The total comes to roughly $109 for the day, of which the advertised daily rate is less than half.

U-Haul-style pricing versus other national truck rental brands

National truck rental brands price a truck the same way structurally: a daily rate plus mileage locally, or a flat rate bundling miles and days for one-way routes. What differs between brands on a given day is local inventory, how aggressively a specific route is being rebalanced, and whatever promotion happens to be running, none of which is fixed or predictable from outside the booking system.

The only reliable comparison is a written total for the identical size, dates, and mileage from more than one brand, rather than comparing advertised daily rates against each other. A brand with a lower headline rate can easily land at a higher total once mileage, fuel, and fees are added, and a brand with a higher headline rate can land lower once a route-specific promotion is applied. Price the whole trip, not the sign.

Seasonal and weekday patterns in truck pricing

Truck rental pricing responds to the calendar, since the busy season runs roughly from late spring through early autumn and peaks around month ends and holiday weekends, when lease turnovers concentrate demand. One-way rates on popular routes tend to rise during these windows, and local availability tightens as well, particularly for the most commonly booked sizes like a 20 foot truck.

The specific pattern varies by market and by year, so treat the direction as reliable and the exact size of the swing as something to check for your own dates. Two levers consistently help: booking a mid-month, mid-week date avoids the worst of the turnover crush, and booking four to six weeks ahead for a peak-season move gives you the best odds of getting the size you actually need rather than whatever is left.

How to get an accurate per-day quote before you book

Start with your real truck size, decided by walking your rooms rather than guessing from bedroom count. Add your real expected mileage, including the drive to and from the rental lot, not just the distance between your two addresses. Decide on equipment and protection before you call, so the quote you get includes them rather than surprising you at the counter.

Then get the total in writing, broken into its separate lines: daily rate, mileage rate, fuel expectation, equipment, and fees. A verbal estimate of “around $80” is not the same thing as a written total with each line shown, and only the second one is something you can actually hold the counter to. Our moving company roadmap applies the same written-quote discipline to full-service estimates, and it is just as valid here.

Common mistakes when sizing or pricing a truck rental

Six recurring ones, in rough order of how much they cost. Renting one size too small, which becomes a second trip or furniture left behind and costs more than every fee on the contract combined. Pricing only the daily rate and ignoring mileage, which is frequently the larger line on anything but the shortest drive. Forgetting fuel entirely, which leaves a budget short by dozens or hundreds of dollars depending on distance and size.

Declining protection without checking your own policy first, which is a real uninsured bet rather than a savings. Not photographing the truck at pickup and return, which leaves you with no evidence in a damage dispute. And underestimating the drive itself in a large truck, which is slower, wider, and far worse at braking than a car, so planning highway speeds and tight schedules the same way you would in your own vehicle is a mistake specific to the larger tiers.

Multi-day local rentals: what changes

Not every local rental is a single day. A weekend move, a multi-stop move across town, or a rental held for a few extra days of staging changes three of the five lines and leaves two mostly alone.

The daily rate multiplies directly: book a 20 foot truck for three days instead of one and the daily rate line triples, since it is charged per contracted day regardless of how many miles you actually drive on any given one. Mileage and fuel scale with miles driven, not with days held, so a truck sitting parked on day two adds nothing to either line, which makes a multi-day local rental a reasonable choice when you need the truck available across a weekend but are not driving it constantly.

Equipment, by contrast, is commonly a flat charge for the length of the rental rather than a per-day fee, so renting pads and a dolly for three days typically costs the same as renting them for one, which makes a longer local rental relatively cheaper per day on that line specifically. Smaller fees and surcharges sometimes scale per day and sometimes do not, depending on how the specific fee is structured, so read the fee schedule for a multi-day booking rather than assuming it behaves like a single day multiplied out.

The practical upshot: a multi-day local rental is not simply your one-day total multiplied by the number of days. The daily rate scales up directly, mileage and fuel scale with what you actually drive, and equipment often does not scale at all. Our calculator on this page lets you set the rental days directly and see how the total changes as you add or remove a day, which is the fastest way to check whether holding the truck an extra day is worth it against making a second, separate local trip.

A common reason to hold a truck for more than one day locally is a move that spans an evening and a morning, with the truck parked overnight between loading and unloading. If your lease or city has restrictions on where a rental truck can be parked overnight, check them before you commit to this plan, since a parking citation on a rental vehicle is an avoidable cost that has nothing to do with the rental contract itself.

The bottom line

A U-Haul-style truck rental runs from a pickup truck through a 26 foot truck, and the per-day price for any of them is five lines added together: the daily rate, mileage, fuel, equipment, and a handful of smaller fees. Illustratively a one-day, 20-mile local rental lands near $38 for a pickup and near $97 for a 26 foot truck before equipment or fees, and a fuller day with equipment added can land near $109 even at a modest 20 miles. Fuel economy runs from roughly 14 to 16 miles per gallon at the small end down to roughly 7 to 9 at the large end, which is the line almost everyone forgets to budget. Size to your real belongings rather than your bedroom count, get every quote in writing broken into its separate lines, and run your own numbers through the calculator before you book. For the deeper mechanics of one-way, long-distance pricing, see our full moving truck rental roadmap.

ReloPeak publishes this roadmap as general education about how truck rental pricing in the national market, U-Haul included, is commonly structured, not as a quote, an endorsement, or an official price list for any specific company. Every dollar figure, mileage estimate, and fuel economy band in it was chosen to illustrate the shape of a per-day bill rather than to predict yours, and real prices vary by location, date, demand, and current promotions. Confirm exact current truck sizes, rates, and fees on the rental company’s own site before booking, confirm your own insurance coverage with your insurer and your card issuer, and read the rental contract and its fee schedule before signing.