The annual working price survey and evaluation posted by the American Transportation Analysis Institute (ATRI) for 2025 and the primary months of 2026 present an business that final 12 months handled rising prices that outstripped shopper inflation.
In a 65-page report stuffed with numbers, the common operational prices of trucking firms of all sizes and styles rose to $2.336/mile in 2025 from $2.260 per mile in 2024. That may be a 3.4% improve.
However that quantity consists of gasoline, and plenty of carriers can go on rising gasoline prices via a surcharge. The operational prices excluding gasoline went to $1.854/g from $1.779/g, a 4.2% improve, in line with ATRI.
“This charge of improve was nonetheless 1.5 share factors above inflation throughout the identical interval and 0.6 share factors above final 12 months’s improve, indicating an uptick in inflationary stress in trucking,” ATRI stated.
ATRI offered a hefty quantity of knowledge in regards to the firms that offered information. Perhaps a very powerful one is that whereas LTL firms make up 28% of the trucking business, in line with ATRI information, they have been 47.8% of respondents. Truckload was 33.3% of the truckload respondents and is 57.3% of the business. A class ATRI calls different/specialised had a ratio of 18.9% of respondents and is 14.7% of the business,
Amongst among the key statistical findings within the ATRI report:
What was the income? The ATRI examine doesn’t go into the freight charges that trucking firms encountered available in the market besides to say that “trucking charges
and tonnage remained flat in comparison with 2024.”
Automobile prices: A desk of price classes going again to 2016 didn’t reveal any explicit space that surged far above the others. For instance, truck/trailer lease or buy funds went to 40.4 cts/mile in 2025 from 39 cents/mile a 12 months earlier. Restore and upkeep rose to 21.5 cts/mile from 19.8 cts/mile. Insurance coverage–which is regularly cited as a value middle that has been hovering–rose 10.6 cts/mile from 10.2 cents/mile a 12 months earlier. Tires went to five cts/mile from 4.7 cts/mile, a achieve that outpaced the broader pattern of shopper inflation, which ATRI put at 2.7%.
Driver prices: The prices of compensating drivers rose at what ATRI known as “a sub-inflationary charge.” Business-wide driver wages rose 2.5% final 12 months, ATRI stated, including that the ratio between driver wages and shopper inflation was much like 2024 when the cut up was 2.4% for driver wages and a pair of.9% for inflation.
Variations in measurement: ATRI’s analysis on driver wages discovered that wages for 26-truck fleets have been simply 4.5 cts/mile lower than these of 1,000-truck fleets. The examine additionally stated common wages have been the bottom in fleets that had lower than 26 vans, and have been the best for fleets that exceeded 1,000 vans.
Specialised is the place to be: The ATRI report discovered that specialised fleets had larger common wages in each measurement class besides these of greater than 1,000 vans. The most important hole got here in fleets of 101 to 250 vans, the place the specialised carriers had common wages of 95.3 cents/mile and truckload carriers have been at 72.5 cents/mile.
Advantages rise extra: The price of driver advantages have been up 6.6% between 2024 and 2025, in line with ATRI. That’s nicely above the nationwide inflation charge the group assumes. “This was the second 12 months in a row by which the speed of progress in driver advantages prices outpaced driver wages as one of many fastest-rising line-items, following a rise of 4.8 p.c from 2023 to 2024,” ATRI stated.
The speed of progress didn’t range a lot amongst fleet sizes, ATRI stated, apart from smaller fleets that because the company notes, typically don’t supply vital advantages to start with.
Might be lagging info: The ATRI report does have information on the early a part of 2026. Its forecast for driver wages seems to be considerably outdated, given different indications of what’s taking place to driver pay. “Driver wages are at the moment on observe for a 3rd 12 months of sub-inflationary improve, giving again among the beneficial properties in actual earnings skilled throughout the
three years of aggressive wage will increase within the pandemic freight growth (2021-2023),” the report stated. “Within the first two months of 2026, carriers reported that driver wage prices have been up 1.6% on common.”
Right here’s a bit of further: The ATRI report has information on bonuses paid out. Most notable: the common beginning bonus fell to $1,733 from $2,122 in 2024. It reached a latest peak of $2,373 in 2022, proper in the course of the post-pandemic freight bull market. Retention bonuses additionally fell, declining to $1,474 from $1,832. Bonuses that elevated between 2024 and 2025: security, to $1,846 from $1,680; and gasoline financial system, as much as $1,548 from $1,235.
Safer however larger: The ATRI report highlighted that FMCSA information on damage crash charges have been 15.3% much less in 2024 than the excessive stage of 2019, and deadly crashes have been down by 13.9%. However the price of insurance coverage rose by 3.9% between 2024 and 2025 to 10.6 cts mile, 1.2 share factors greater than shopper inflation.
Sticking round: Turnover was 44.2% in 2025, in line with ATRI, down from 48% a 12 months earlier, “as drivers have been much less inclined to change jobs throughout a delicate freight market with fewer open
positions,” the report stated. However inside that quantity are huge variations. For instance, at truckload carriers with greater than 1,000 vans, turnover was 70.7%. At fleets with lower than 26 vans, the determine was 32%.
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