The industry-average cost to operate a truck rose 3.4 percent year-over-year in 2025, reaching $2.336 per mile, according to an American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) recent report.
The figure is the highest per-mile cost in the report’s history. When fuel is excluded, costs increased 4.2 percent to $1.854 per mile.
The largest percentage increases were tolls, 13.2 percent; repair and maintenance, 8.6 percent; driver benefits 6.6 percent; and tires, 6.4 percent. Fuel and driver pay rose at sub-inflationary rates.
In 2025, small fleets spent less on trucks and trailers than the previous year, and truckload fleets with more than 1,000 trucks spent 16.1 percent more.
To reduce costs, carriers reduced truck counts by 2.4 percent while another 10 percent of trucks were unseated. Non-driver staffing levels were cut by 7.8 percent.
Operating margins in the truckload and refrigerated sectors improved slightly but remained below 1 percent. Tank carriers averaged 4 percent. LTLs and fleets with more than 1,000 trucks had flat margins. Flatbed carriers operated at a loss of -0.5 percent.
Participating ATRI carriers received a customized 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking report comparing their operations to an anonymized peer group of the same sector and size.