Freight Rates Per Mile by Truck Type

Almost every argument about rate per mile comes from two people dividing by different numbers. One is using loaded miles, the other is including the empty miles driven to the pickup. The second figure is the one that pays your bills.

This page sets out how the number is built, what it looks like by equipment type right now, and how to price the load in front of you against your own costs rather than against a national average made of lanes you are not running.

What are freight rates per mile by truck type?

In July 2026, DAT put spot linehaul rates at $2.90 per mile for flatbed, $2.75 for reefer and $2.39 for dry van. With the fuel surcharge included those become $3.64, $3.42 and $3.01. Linehaul is the number to compare against your own costs, because a fuel surcharge is reimbursement rather than margin.

Small vehicles are missing from that table on purpose. Cargo van, sprinter and box truck freight is expedite work priced on urgency rather than distance, so a short run with a tight window can pay more than a long one, and a per-mile average describes the segment badly.

Loaded miles, total miles, and why the gap matters

A $1,500 load running 1,000 loaded miles is $1.50 a mile on the brochure. If you drove 150 empty miles to reach the shipper, you drove 1,150 miles for that $1,500, and the real figure is $1.30. That is a 13% difference, and it is the difference between a good week and a break-even one.

• Loaded rate per mile, rate divided by loaded miles. Useful for comparing one load’s freight against another’s.
• All-in rate per mile, rate divided by loaded plus deadhead miles. The number that decides whether to take it.
• Deadhead percentage, empty miles divided by total miles. Track it monthly; it is the cheapest thing on this page to improve.

What does it cost to run a truck per mile?

ATRI put the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4% and the highest it has recorded. Strip the fuel out and it is $1.854. Driver wages and benefits are inside that figure at roughly $1.03 a mile, so an owner-operator’s break-even sits lower, and so does what they take home.

That is an industry average across fleets of every size, which makes it a useful benchmark and a bad substitute for your own number. Work yours out from a real month, and the rate calculator will do the arithmetic if you would rather not keep a spreadsheet.

1. Add up fixed costs. Truck and trailer payments, insurance, permits and registrations, accounting, phone, parking. These do not change with miles.
2. Add up variable costs. Fuel, tyres, maintenance and repairs, tolls, reefer fuel or securement consumables, lumpers you were not reimbursed for.
3. Divide the total by the miles you actually ran. All of them, loaded and empty. That is your cost per mile.
4. Add what you need to take home. Your pay, a tax reserve, and something for the next major repair. That gives you the number below which a load costs you money to haul.

What is inside the rate

On the spot market you are usually quoted one all-in number and everything below is already inside it. On contract freight the pieces are often shown separately, which is why contract and spot rates cannot be compared line for line.

• Linehaul, the base rate for moving the freight.
• Fuel surcharge, a per-mile adjustment that tracks diesel prices. On spot loads it is normally folded into the all-in rate; if a confirmation shows it separately, add it before you divide.
• Accessorials, detention, layover, tarp pay, extra stops, driver assist, lumper reimbursement. These are earned, and they are the ones most often left off a confirmation.

What moves rates, by equipment type

• Dry van, the deepest freight pool and the most capacity chasing it, so rates sit lowest and move mostly with retail and manufacturing volume.
• Reefer, driven by growing seasons. Produce out of the major growing regions in spring and summer pulls capacity in and lifts rates on those lanes sharply, then releases them.
• Flatbed and open deck, tracks construction, steel and industrial output, and is strongest from spring through autumn.
• Power only and hotshot, priced against the equipment you are not supplying, and highly local. A market with dropped trailers waiting is a different rate from one without.

On top of all of that sits lane balance. A market that ships far more than it receives pays well going out and badly coming in, and the reverse is true of a backhaul market. Two identical trucks 300 miles apart can see completely different numbers on the same day.

Pricing the load in front of you

Total the all-in rate including accessorials you are confident of collecting, add the deadhead to the loaded miles, divide, and compare against your break-even. Then ask the question that decides most of the margin: what is posted out of the delivery market?

A strong rate into a market with nothing coming out is often worse than an ordinary rate into a market that reloads you the same day. Deadhead is where that gets decided.

The bottom lineA national average tells you which segment is paying. Your cost per mile tells you which load to take. Only one of those is a number about your business.