Truck orders fall as tariffs raise fleet renewal costs

By Marcus Bennett

U.S. heavy- and medium-duty truck orders fell 13-14% in 2025, to 208,386 and 208,081 respectively; policymakers enacted a 25% Section 232 duty on many imported Class 2-8 trucks and parts in November 2025.

American Truck Dealers’ Truck Beat supplied the estimates in FleetOwner’s fifth annual “Trucking By the Numbers” feature, which follows sections on industry scale, fuel, fleet ownership, drivers, safety and enforcement.

FleetOwner’s earlier sections put the equipment cycle in broader context: the United States has 1.2 million carriers despite flatter freight demand, while for-hire rates rose rapidly over the last year. Part of that rate increase went to competitive driver wages and higher operating costs, mostly diesel.

FleetOwner editor Jeremy Wolfe asked: “What does it look like to crawl out of a market recession so slowly?” The 2026 order data do not show a rapid exit.

How weak are early 2026 orders?

American Truck Dealers estimates indicate orders from January through September 2026 likely totaled:

• Heavy-duty: 150,987 units, down 5-6% from the same period in 2025.
• Medium-duty: 152,960 units, down 5-6% from the same period in 2025.

The year-on-year decline is smaller than 2025’s full-year contraction, but it remains negative. On the available data, equipment demand has not turned into growth.

Who leads Class 8 truck orders?

Freightliner remained the leading Class 8 truck original equipment manufacturer with 35.4% of orders. Peterbilt held 15.1% and Kenworth 14.6%; under the Paccar umbrella, the two manufacturers together accounted for 29.7%.

Freightliner’s 20.3-percentage-point lead over Peterbilt puts it well ahead of either Paccar brand, although the combined Paccar position remains only 5.7 points behind. For carriers and forwarders, manufacturer share matters less here than the weaker order base across all three.

Did trailer output fall faster?

Trailer-Body Builders collected 2025 production data from 23 major North American manufacturers. They built about 200,845 units, down 18% year over year. Because the survey excluded many smaller manufacturers, the actual industry total was likely somewhat higher.

Hyundai Translead led with 39,887 units, down 29%. Utility Trailer was likely the runner-up, but did not participate because of an ongoing trailer imports investigation, leaving that ranking unverified.

Taken with the 13-14% drop in truck orders, the 18% trailer contraction shows weakness across both tractor and trailer production. For carriers, lower orders and output signal slower fleet renewal; for forwarders, the figures remain a national indicator, not evidence about any lane’s capacity.

Why do fleets keep older trucks?

ACT Research estimates the average truck on the road was 6.3 years old, the highest average in more than a decade. Financially strained carriers were more likely to retain aging equipment through the recession.

ATRI’s 2026 Operational Costs of Trucking update, using 2025 survey data from several for-hire fleets representing 182,248 combination trucks, found an average age of 3.6 years. About 84% of respondents operated at least five trucks, whereas 53% of registered motor carriers had just one.

Small fleets and owner-operators are likelier to buy used trucks or retain them past the OEM warranty, helping explain the 2.7-year gap between ATRI’s larger fleets and the national fleet.

ATRI’s surveyed for-hire fleets would replace a truck after 633,772 miles, or seven years, on average.

Across 544,427 trailers, average age was 8.7 years. Tank trailers were oldest at 17.5 years; refrigerated trailers were youngest at 4.1 years.

What do the new tariffs change?

Imports of Classes 2-8 trucks and parts now face an extra 25% duty under Section 232, enacted in November 2025. The proclamation includes USMCA exemptions and a 3.75% offset for some approved manufacturers’ products, so not every imported unit bears the full 25%.

The Tax Foundation’s analysis says “uncertainty” has dominated industry discussions since Donald Trump returned to the presidency; it counts more than 50 changes in U.S. tariff policy since January 2025.

The foundation estimates that tariffs introduced since 2025 directly affect 54% of goods imports. About 27% of all imports fall under Section 301, generally introduced on forced-labor grounds and resembling the defeated IEEPA tariffs. Sections 232, 338 and 201 cover another 28%, justified by national-security, discriminatory-trade-response and injury-safeguard claims.

The component shares appear rounded: 27% plus 28% equals 55%, one point above the 54% headline. That inconsistency does not alter the broad direction, but it argues against treating the percentages as exact measures of tariff exposure.

Customs-duty revenue divided by total goods imports, the Tax Foundation’s measure of the effective rate, rose from 2.4% in 2024 to 7.2% at publication. The analysis does not isolate the trucking industry’s share of that threefold increase.

What does this mean for shippers and forwarders?

Carriers face pressure from two directions: declining orders for new trucks and trailers, and a 25% duty on many imported replacements. Keeping older assets can conserve cash, but it defers capacity additions; neither FleetOwner nor its cited surveys quantify the balance.

For shippers, rising for-hire rates need careful reading. FleetOwner’s data link part of the past year’s increase to competitive driver wages and higher operating costs, mostly diesel, while freight demand remained flat. A higher rate therefore does not establish stronger freight conditions.

For forwarders, the report provides no lane-level spot rates, tonnage or truck-capacity ratios. Its tariff figures can flag a cost risk to future carrier bids, but they cannot support a claim that a particular lane will tighten or that carriers will pass through the duty in full.

With January-September 2026 orders down 5-6% and many imported trucks and parts still facing a 25% duty, any eventual trucking-capacity tightening is more likely to emerge from deferred replacement than from stronger freight demand.