US trucking revenue hit $936.4bn in 2025 as tonnage edged up 1.7%

US trucking revenue reached $936.4 billion in 2025, up from $906 billion in 2024, while tonnage rose only modestly from 11.27 billion to 11.46 billion tons — a 1.7% gain that the industry's own economist says must be read against "fierce economic headwinds."

The figures come from the 2026 edition of American Trucking Trends, the annual data compendium published by American Trucking Associations. The revenue increase of just over $30 billion — roughly 3.4% year on year — outpaced tonnage growth, implying yield improvement in a market where carriers have spent two years fighting for rate recovery after the post-pandemic freight recession.

Bob Costello, ATA's chief economist, was blunt about the gap between the headline numbers and conditions on the ground. "The latest figures show areas of improvement, including modest growth in freight tonnage and industry revenue. But those gains must be viewed in the context of fierce economic headwinds, as motor carriers continue to contend with escalating operational costs and largely uneven freight volumes," he said in the release.

That caveat matters. A $936.4 billion industry growing revenue faster than tonnage can reflect pricing power at the top of the market — or simply that the survivors of a prolonged downturn are holding firmer on rates while weaker operators exit. The report does not break out that distinction.

How big is trucking's footprint?

The employment base remains enormous. Trucking supported 8.5 million industry-related jobs in 2025, including 3.45 million professional drivers. To put that in perspective: the driver count alone exceeds the entire population of Chicago, and the total trucking workforce approaches that of New York City.

Cross-border dependence on trucks is even starker. Trucks carried 68% of surface trade between the U.S. and Canada in 2025, and 86% of goods moving across the Mexican border — figures that explain why any tariff or border-policy shift lands almost immediately on trucking capacity and rates rather than on rail or ocean alternatives.

Who actually runs the market?

The report confirms trucking's structural reality: it is an industry of small operators. In 2025, 91.1% of carriers ran 10 or fewer trucks, and 99.2% ran fewer than 100 power units.

That concentration of small fleets has commercial consequences. For shippers and forwarders, it means capacity is fragmented and rate behavior can swing quickly when small carriers exit en masse — as they did through 2023 and 2024. For carriers, it means limited negotiating leverage against large brokers and shippers even in a tightening market.

The 2026 edition also adds data on household goods movements and the broader macroeconomy, ATA said.

Henry Hanscom, ATA's chief advocacy and public affairs officer, framed the report's purpose in policy terms. "Reliable data is one of the most powerful tools we have to tell trucking's story and demonstrate our industry's indispensable role in the economy," he said. "Trends forms a cornerstone of ATA's successful advocacy efforts by enabling our federation to more effectively push for policies that strengthen trucking, support drivers and the supply chain, and keep our economy moving."

Advocacy framing aside, the numbers tell a story of an industry growing again — but slowly, and unevenly, with 99% of its operators running fewer than 100 trucks and absorbing costs that the revenue line only just outpaces. Whether 2026 brings tonnage growth that matches the revenue recovery will depend on freight volumes Costello himself describes as "largely uneven."