Chicago Relocation Services from a Chicago-Headquartered Team
Chicago Corporate Relocation Services
NRI Relocation has called the Chicago area home since 1985. We help companies move talent into, out of, and around Chicago, supported by a national and global network and a local team you can meet in person.
40+ years headquartered in the Chicago metro, Member, Corporate Relocation Council of Chicago, Member, Midwest Relocation Council.
Why a Chicago-Based Relocation Company Matters
Most big corporate relocation companies are based outside Chicago. NRI Relocation is different. We’ve been a Chicago-area company since 1985, with our headquarters at 1110 W Lake Cook Rd, Suite 301, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089, just north of the city.
You work with vendors who are truly local. Our network of movers, housing providers, real estate agents, school search consultants, and immigration experts comes from years of building relationships in the Chicago area. We know which mover has the right equipment for a Lincoln Park walk-up and which agent knows the New Trier school district best.
You get a partner you can meet face-to-face. Chicago HR and mobility leaders can visit us at our office, invite us to theirs, or connect at the next Corporate Relocation Council of Chicago event. That level of accountability is hard to find with a national call center.
We are proud members of the Corporate Relocation Council of Chicago and the Midwest Relocation Council, and we participate actively in the regional mobility community that shapes how relocation gets done in this market.
Our Chicago Relocation Services
NRI offers a full range of corporate relocation services for Chicago-area employers and their employees. Each service is managed by a dedicated consultant, supported by our technology, and handled by the same Chicago team from beginning to end.
Corporate relocation program management. We handle every part of your mobility program, including policy, vendor coordination, expense management, reporting, and employee experience, all with one main point of contact.
Domestic relocation services. Lump sum, managed cap, and full-service programs structured to your culture, budget, and talent strategy.
Global mobility, international assignments, and permanent transfers. Visa coordination, destination services, tax equalization, cross-cultural training, and assignment management with O’Hare on our doorstep.
Group moves and office relocations. Coordinated moves of teams, departments, or entire offices across Chicagoland or to and from other markets.
Moving services to and from Chicago. Vetted carrier coordination, claims management, and storage for every move type, residential and commercial.
Temporary and corporate housing across Chicagoland. Furnished short-term housing across the Loop, North Shore, and the western and northwest suburbs, sourced from providers we’ve worked with for years.
Home sale assistance, real estate, and rental services. We offer Buyer Value Option (BVO), Guaranteed Buyout (GBO), direct reimbursement, marketing help, and rental coordination for both incoming and outgoing employees.
Destination services for new hires moving to Chicago. Area orientation, neighborhood tours, school search, home finding, and settling-in support are delivered by counselors who actually live in the metro.
Policy consulting, benchmarking, and expense management. Program design, gross-up calculations, cost reporting, and benchmarking against your Chicago-headquartered peers.
Relocation Management for Chicago-Based Companies
If you’re an HR, Total Rewards, or Mobility leader at a Chicago-area employer, you know the friction points: too many vendors, inconsistent employee experience, surprise costs at year-end, and a relocation program that doesn’t quite scale with your hiring plan. A relocation management company (RMC) exists to fix that.
Single point of accountability. Your team works with one consultant, one platform, and one phone number for every move, instead of dealing with a different vendor for each step.
Policy design. We benchmark your program against Chicago-headquartered peer companies and design policies that match your talent strategy, from early-career lump sums to executive long-term assignments.
Booking, coordination, and personal guidance. We handle every service your policy covers, and a dedicated consultant guides each transferee and their family through the move, answering practical questions that national vendors often overlook.
Cost containment. We model lump-sum vs. managed approaches, identify gross-up exposures early, and surface vendor alternatives before invoices arrive.
Compliance. We manage Illinois income tax, Cook County requirements, mobile-worker tracking, and gross-up across multiple states, all handled by a team that works in Illinois every day.
Reporting and analytics. Your finance and HR teams can see cost-per-move, cycle time, exception rates, NPS, and finance-grade accruals in real time.
Relocating Talent To Chicago
Chicago is one of the easiest U.S. cities to recruit into once a transferee visits. Our destination services help your offers succeed by giving candidates and new hires a real sense of what life is like here.
Why employees say yes to Chicago. Moving from New York, San Francisco, or Boston usually means a big increase in purchasing power. Chicago’s median home prices and rents are much lower than those coastal cities. Plus, the city offers great food, a free lakefront, two major airports, the Midwest’s largest public transit system, museums, theater, and twenty-six miles of city beaches. Chicago’s quality of life often seals the deal.
Top neighborhoods for young professionals. River North, Fulton Market, the West Loop, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and Wicker Park / Bucktown remain the strongest draws for early- and mid-career transferees who want walkability, transit, and a social life within five blocks of their door.
Top neighborhoods for families. The North Shore (Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Glencoe) and the western suburbs (Hinsdale, Oak Park, La Grange, Naperville) anchor most family relocations, paired with northwest options like Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, and Barrington for proximity to corporate campuses.
Schools. Chicago Public Schools offer selective enrollment and magnet programs, while the North Shore and DuPage County have top-ranked districts. There are also many independent and parochial day schools. Our consultants help families choose the best options based on commute, schedule, and curriculum.
Commuting. The CTA “L,” Metra’s eleven commuter rail lines, and the expressway network connect almost every neighborhood to the Loop, Edens-corridor corporate campuses, and O’Hare. We help transferees choose a home that fits their commute.
Relocating Talent From Chicago
Most relocation companies pay less attention to departures, but these moves shape your transferee’s final impression of your company. We give outbound moves the same care as inbound ones.
Departure services. Home marketing assistance, BVO and Guaranteed Buyout programs, lease break coordination, packing and storage, and a dedicated consultant from listing through closing.
Common Chicago outbound corridors. New York, the Bay Area, Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Charlotte, Nashville, Denver, Miami, London, and Singapore are the most frequent destinations for our outbound moves. These are driven by client expansion, project assignments, and migration from Illinois to no-income-tax states like Texas.
What changes for the employee? Cost of living, taxes, school start dates, and housing options all change. We explain these practical differences, including how take-home pay changes when leaving Illinois for a no-income-tax state, so transferees can make informed decisions before listing their home.efore listing the house.
Our Chicago-area listing agent and mover network is built from years of in-market work, which translates to faster listings, fewer surprises, and tighter timelines.
Repatriation home to Chicago. International assignees returning home receive the same destination support as new hires, including help with neighborhoods, schools, housing, and settling in for the whole family.
The Chicago Corporate Relocation Economy
Chicago is one of the most consequential corporate relocation markets in the country.
Top-tier metro economy. The Chicago area is regularly ranked among the largest metro economies in the U.S., with a gross metropolitan product in the top three or four nationally. Its diverse economy, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, tech, and professional services, makes it more resilient than single-industry hubs.y hubs.
A global gateway. O’Hare International is one of the world’s busiest passenger and cargo airports, with nonstop service to roughly two hundred destinations. For multinational employers, that connectivity is a structural advantage when staffing international assignments and rotational programs.
Cost of living that wins offers. Chicago’s cost of living is much lower than New York, San Francisco, Boston, and most other top U.S. cities, especially when it comes to housing. The same income usually buys more space, better schools for the money, and more discretionary income than in coastal cities.
Talent pipeline. The metro is fed by the University of Chicago, Northwestern, the University of Illinois system (UIC, Urbana-Champaign), Loyola, DePaul, IIT, and a steady inbound flow of Big Ten graduates from across the Midwest. Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab anchor a STEM and research base that most metros cannot match.
Real estate snapshot. Prices for single-family homes, condos, and rentals vary a lot by neighborhood. Our consultants provide up-to-date, neighborhood-level data to help transferees make decisions based on current information.
Tax and compliance. Illinois state income tax, Cook County considerations, and Chicago-specific employer obligations make program compliance non-trivial. We coordinate with our clients’ tax advisors on gross-up methodology and mobile-worker tracking.
Recent corporate moves in both directions. Chicago has lost some major headquarters in recent years, but it has also gained or expanded operations in logistics, life sciences, finance, and professional services. The reality is that Chicago continues to compete for and win significant corporate investments, with a labor market strong enough to support both growth and turnover.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, World Economic Relocation Council (WERC), Cook County.
The Chicago Industries
WNRI’s Chicago clients include the area’s largest employers and fastest-growing mid-sized companies. We customize relocation programs to fit the needs of each industry.
Finance, trading, and insurance. CME Group, CBOE, the major banks, Aon, Allstate, and Zurich North America anchor a deep finance and insurance footprint. We support time-sensitive moves, dual-career considerations for finance couples, and the compliance overlay that comes with regulated employers.
Professional services and consulting. The Big Four and the major strategy and law firms run heavy Loop and West Loop populations with constant project mobility. We manage frequent short-term assignments, group moves, and high-volume early-career relocations.
Healthcare and life sciences. AbbVie, Baxter, Abbott, Astellas, GE HealthCare, and the academic medical centers (Northwestern Medicine, UChicago Medicine, Rush) drive ongoing scientific and executive recruiting. We handle lab-equipment-aware moves, visa-heavy international assignments, and family-focused destination services.
Manufacturing and industrials. Caterpillar, Deere, Mondelez, Kraft Heinz, and a long bench of mid-market industrials mean Chicago remains an engineering and operations-talent magnet. We coordinate moves to and from plant locations across the country.
Logistics and transportation. Chicago is the nation’s logistics hub, with rail, freight, intermodal, and O’Hare cargo. We help distribution and supply-chain hires move in and out of the metro area.
Tech and SaaS. The Fulton Market and River North tech corridor continues to grow, from enterprise software to growth-stage SaaS. We deliver the speed and flexibility tech HR teams need.
Higher education and research. UChicago, Northwestern, UIC, Argonne, and Fermilab run distinctive recruiting cycles and dual-career considerations. We’ve supported both.
Food and consumer packaged goods. Chicago’s food industry roots run deep, from legacy CPG to emerging brands. We support corporate and operations relocation across the sector.
Legal. Top-tier firms with Chicago headquarters or major offices rely on us for partner-level confidentiality, executive-grade service, and the predictability their compensation committees expect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is NRI Relocation headquartered?
NRI Relocation is headquartered at 1110 W Lake Cook Road, Suite 301, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089, in the Chicago metropolitan area. We have been a Chicago-area company since 1985.
How is NRI different from national relocation companies headquartered outside Chicago?
We live and work in the Chicago metro. Our consultants are in your time zone, our vendor network is built from local relationships, and our team participates in the Corporate Relocation Council of Chicago and the Midwest Relocation Council. National providers can route a Chicago move; we are a Chicago relocation company.
Do you handle international assignments in and out of Chicago?
Yes. We manage global mobility programs, international assignments, and permanent transfers, including visa and immigration coordination, destination services, tax equalization, and cross-cultural training. O’Hare’s global connectivity makes Chicago an unusually strong base for international programs.
What Chicago neighborhoods do most transferees choose?
For young professionals, River North, Fulton Market, the West Loop, Lincoln Park, and Lakeview are the most common choices. For families, the North Shore (Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka), the western suburbs (Hinsdale, Oak Park, Naperville), and the northwest corridor (Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Barrington) lead the list.
How do Illinois and Chicago taxes affect a relocation package?
Illinois levies a flat state income tax, and Cook County and the City of Chicago add specific employer obligations to consider for inbound transferees and ongoing mobile workers. Most relocation expenses are taxable to the employee at the federal level, which makes gross-up methodology a meaningful program-cost decision. Our team coordinates with your tax advisor to keep the program compliant and the employee experience clean.
Ready to Talk to a Chicago Relocation Team Actually Based in Chicago?
We respond to every inquiry within one business day, and your first conversation will be a no-pressure consultation. You’ll speak with a senior member of the NRI Chicago team.
NRI Relocation
1110 W Lake Cook Road, Suite 301
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089