Local General Freight Trucking Revenue Benchmark

Average Local General Freight Trucking Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every local general freight trucking company with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of carriers gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,203,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $54.7 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 45,445 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,203,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: General Freight Trucking, Local, NAICS 484110. The category covers trucking companies hauling general freight within a metropolitan area or a single state, usually returning to base the same day. Long-distance truckload and less-than-truckload carriers, moving companies and specialized freight haulers are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 4841: 484121 General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload; 484122 General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Less Than Truckload. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

General Freight Trucking, NAICS 4841, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 43.6 to 49.2 percent. This benchmark covers General Freight Trucking, NAICS 4841, as a whole, and this category accounts for 45,445 of the 117,343 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, General Freight Trucking, Local, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 23.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a modest share because trucks, fuel, insurance and maintenance take a large part of every freight dollar and because some carriers rely on leased drivers who are paid outside the payroll.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes payments to owner-operators, fuel, equipment financing, tolls and insurance, which together carry most of a carrier's cost.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, General Freight Trucking, Local, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 5.8 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm. A local carrier of that size runs a handful of trucks with drivers and a dispatcher, often with the owner driving as well, and the establishments per firm figure shows a trade of independent single-location carriers.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Local General Freight Trucking: the truck count, driver and rate questions behind a small-carrier average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• How many trucks are behind the figure? The census counts carriers, not trucks, so this figure describes an entire carrier and rises with fleet size. Revenue per truck is the number a carrier manages, and a single-truck operator should not expect the average.
• Company drivers or owner-operators? Carriers that lease owner-operators pay them a share of the freight revenue instead of a wage, which lowers payroll and shifts equipment cost to the driver. The mix behind a carrier's payroll share varies widely in local freight.
• Where does the freight come from? Dedicated contracts with a few shippers bring predictable volume at negotiated rates, while spot freight from brokers pays more some weeks and nothing in others. A carrier's customer base decides how stable its revenue is.
• What does compliance cost? Operating authority, insurance minimums, driver qualification files, hours-of-service rules and vehicle inspections are federal and state obligations that carry cost and risk. A small carrier bears them without the staff a large fleet has.
• How much revenue is eaten by fuel and equipment? Fuel prices, truck payments, tires and maintenance move independently of freight rates, and a carrier can haul more freight in a year and keep less. Those costs are the reason revenue alone says little about a trucking company.
• How is local freight different from long-haul? Local work means shorter trips, more stops, more loading time and drivers who sleep at home, which changes driver recruitment, equipment and revenue per mile. Long-haul carriers are counted in separate categories, so this figure describes local operations only.