Many carriers began 2025 with high hopes that trucking conditions were turning the corner, ending the long “freight recession.” The ones that still survive are hoping the same of 2026.
Depressed manufacturing, imposed and threatened tariffs, and inflation all played a part, but the biggest culprit remains excess trucking capacity. At long last, that may be about to change.
“Manufacturing really stalled for the most part (in 2025), and we became firmly entrenched in a goods recession,” explained Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight and Analytics. “That’s why trucking demand has been so flat and weak and anemic.”
Ken Vieth, president and senior analyst at ACT Research, points to inflation and insurance rates.
“If we look over the past couple of years, rates have been rising at kind of a 2% or 3% rate, but inflation 3% or 4% and insurance keeps climbing,” he said. “I think the cost of doing business, broadly, is going up. And you’re not getting that return in freight rates at all.”
Capacity flees the market
Capacity is leaving the freight market, both from reduced truck sales and carriers exiting the business.
As of October 2025, U.S. sales of new Class 8 trucks were running 11.5% (nearly 23,000 units) behind their 2024 pace with the gap widening each month. Industry analysts at ACT Research and FTR Freight Analytics put North American new truck orders at 22% behind last year’s pace. The used Class 8 market reported record inventories of equipment in stock.
Carriers are shutting down in high numbers, too. Hardly a week goes by without an announcement of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing by another carrier that ran out of operating cash.
While capacity losses are painful, they are also necessary if the current trucking conditions are to change.
“We’re at a tipping point,” said Werner Enterprises Chairman and CEO Derek Leathers in an October 2, 2025, keynote address at the WEX OTR Summit in San Antonio, Texas. “Capacity is leaving the market little by little. The industry needs significant rate increases to sustain itself.” He went on to say that current conditions are paving the way for a period of improved conditions to come.
DAT’s Croke agrees.
“I think going the next year, the domestic manufacturing side of it should start to pick up, barring any cataclysmic events,” Croke said. “I think what we’ll see is freight demand will stabilize. And I think from a trucking perspective, instead of seeing too much capacity chasing not enough demand, I think we’ll see just enough capacity chasing stable demand.”
ACT’s Vieth, however, is more bearish.
“There’s nothing happening now that’s suggesting that for-hire truckers are going to be making materially more money from what they’ve been making for the past couple of years, at least until the middle of 2026,” he said.
Rising equipment costs
In his keynote address, Leathers warned that the cost of new trucks will rise considerably. Croke believes that price increase will be due to tariffs on steel and other components needed to manufacture the equipment.
ACT’s Vieth also points to the effect of Trump administration tariffs on truck pricing.
“The price of a truck is going to go up. Section 232 tariffs are hitting heavy-duty trucks,” he said. “We’re thinking that the cost of a Class 8 truck in 2026 is going to go up by about $10,000.”
But Vieth sees a positive side, too.
“The Supreme Court is listening to the case for the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariffs,” he said. “It sounds like at least some of the more conservative members have an eyebrow raised, so they’re thinking that the president is claiming more authority than given to him by the Constitution.”
The court heard oral arguments on November 3, 2025; as of press time, a ruling has now been issued.
The issue is whether an “emergency” exists that would give Trump the power to impose tariffs or if that task should be reserved for Congress. A ruling against the administration could result in suspending tariffs not passed in the legislature and return of duties collected under Trump executive orders.
Interest rates & buying
Interest rates could become another major piece of any recovery for the freight market. As of this writing, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has already cut the funds rate twice and is expected by some to make another cut at its December meeting.
That could be a boon to trucking, Croke explained.
“If you see interest rates drop, we could see housing start to go through a real boom,” he said. “If single family and multi-family housing starts to take off, we’re in a whole different freight market, because housing has been one of the stories that’s depressed the general freight market.”
Vieth also sees housing as a key metric to watch for the trucking industry.
“There’s so much economic activity that goes on around (the residential industry) — not just building a house, but all the money that goes into turning a house into a home,” he said. “People need carpets and washers and dryers and all the things that go in the back of trucks.”
U.S. orders for durable goods — another key economic indicator — slowed to just 0.5% in September 2025, down from 2.9% growth in August. The good news? Manufacturing is expected to grow. The bad news is that this growth will likely be slow.
Croke is hopeful that change is on the horizon.
“The large public carriers were talking about 2027 being the turnaround year,” he said. “And I think 2026 kind of sets that up, because it’s going to take that long, I think, before this market really starts to stabilize. Yeah, that’s going to be the story.”
There is light at the end of the freight recession tunnel, but it’s still some distance away.
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2026 edition of Truckload Authority, the official publication of the Truckload Carriers Association.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
