Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Long-Distance Truckload Carrier Revenue Benchmark
Long-haul freight hauled a full trailer at a time under contract, priced per load or per mile.
Average Long-Distance Truckload Carrier Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every long-haul truckload carrier with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing one by the other gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment below.
≈$2,863,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
60,327
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $172.7 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $172.7 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 60,327 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $2,863,000 per employer establishment. This is an average per establishment, and averages get pulled up by large fleets, so a single-truck operation sits far below it.
Scope: General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload, NAICS 484121. Classified separately in group 4841: 484110 General Freight Trucking, Local; 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 July 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.
46.4%the year-five count as a share of the starting count
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 general freight trucking, long-distance, truckload are 60,327 of the 117,343 employer establishments in that group. 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.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈20% |
Payroll share of receipts, General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 20.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Driver pay dominates that line, and the ratio moves with pay rates, freight rates and how much of the fleet runs owner-operator rather than employed.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes, payments to owner-operators and owner compensation, so the true cost of moving freight sits above this share.
Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data
How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-terminal companies.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 9.8 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.12 |
Scale and ownership, General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 9.8 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm.
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.
Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis
Long-Distance Truckload Carrier: details the totals conceal.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- What is the empty mile percentage? Miles run without freight are paid for by the carrier and not billed, so they weigh on the result alongside the rate per loaded mile.
- Are the trucks company owned or owner-operator? Owner-operator capacity does not appear in payroll, so two carriers with the same fleet size can show entirely different ratios.
- How is fuel price risk handled? Fuel surcharges pass some of the exposure to shippers, but the timing gap between price and surcharge is carried by the carrier.
- What is driver turnover? Recruiting and training a replacement driver costs real money, and high turnover quietly consumes the margin across the loads that follow.
- How is detention time recovered? Hours spent waiting to load or unload are carried by the carrier unless detention is billed and collected, which depends on the contract and the shipper.
- How is backhaul secured? A load out is only half the trip, and the freight found for the return leg decides whether the lane was worth running.
Explore More on BusinessNES
Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.
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.
Sources and Methodology
Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.
The Census counts employer establishments, meaning businesses with paid employees at a physical location. Owner-operators without employees are not included, which matters in trucking more than in most trades.