Long-Distance Specialized Freight Trucking Revenue Benchmark

Average Long-Distance Specialized Freight Trucking Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every long-distance specialized freight trucking company with paid employees, including flatbed, tanker, refrigerated and auto carrier operators, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of carriers gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$4,250,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $52.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 12,372 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,250,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Long-Distance, NAICS 484230. The category covers long-distance hauling of freight that needs specialized equipment, such as flatbeds, tankers, refrigerated trailers and auto carriers. Local specialized freight, general freight trucking and household goods moving are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 4842: 484210 Used household and office goods moving; 484220 Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Local. 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

Specialized freight trucking, NAICS 4842, 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 48.7 to 52.0 percent. This benchmark covers Specialized freight trucking, NAICS 4842, as a whole, and this category accounts for 12,372 of the 55,770 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, Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Long-Distance, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 21.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a modest share because specialized trailers, fuel, insurance and maintenance take a large part of each load and because some carriers rely on leased drivers paid outside the payroll.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes equipment financing, fuel, permits, insurance and payments to leased drivers, which together carry most of what a carrier spends.

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, Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Long-Distance, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 14.4 people, and the industry averaged 1.2 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could be drivers for a fleet of specialized trucks, dispatchers and a small office.

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

Long-Distance Specialized Freight Trucking: what equipment, freight markets and driver time do to a carrier's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Which equipment and which freight? Flatbed, tanker, refrigerated and auto carrier operators haul for different industries with different equipment costs, permits and rates, and the category counts them together. A carrier's equipment mix decides its customers and its year.
• Where were freight rates that year? Specialized freight rates move with industrial output, harvests, fuel prices and truck capacity, and a carrier's receipts follow the market as much as its own efforts. The census year captures one point in a cyclical trade.
• Company drivers or leased? Where a carrier leases owner-operators, the driver receives a percentage of each load rather than wages and supplies the truck, so payroll shares differ sharply between carriers built on employees and carriers built on leased drivers.
• How many miles are empty? Long-distance hauls often return without a paying load, and finding backhauls decides revenue per mile. Empty miles are a central operating number that receipts do not show.
• What does compliance cost? Interstate carriers operate under federal safety, hours-of-service, inspection and insurance requirements, and hazardous materials and oversize loads add permits that vary by cargo and state. Compliance is a permanent cost of the trade.
• Contract freight or spot market? Dedicated shipper contracts deliver steady loads at agreed prices, whereas broker spot freight pays generously when trucks are scarce and poorly when they are plentiful. The balance decides how stable a carrier's revenue is.