Trucking & Rail Oct 13, 2026 · 7 min read

Cross-border trucking stays tight as visas vanish and rail faces new crew rules

Cross-border truck capacity is tight because drivers are missing, not because freight is busy. TRAFFIX’s October cross-border index reads 57 for Canada and 54 for Mexico. Anything above 50 means capacity is tight. Our view: this squeeze comes from missing drivers and rules, not from strong demand, so it won’t ease quickly. US authorities have reportedly withdrawn about 25,000 Mexican drivers’ visas, according to CANACAR, Mexico’s trucking chamber. On some Canada corridors, rates are up 25% to 35% in four to six weeks. Expect carriers to hand back more contract loads. Our call: neither index drops below 50 before the end of Q1 2027.

Cross-border freight is short of drivers, and rail is about to get new paperwork North American cross-border truck capacity stayed tight in October. The TRAFFIX North American Cross-Border Index read 57 for Canada and 54 for Mexico, according to FreightWaves on 12 October. Each reading was one point lower than in September. The index is built so that anything above 50 points to tighter conditions. A one-point dip is not relief. Both lanes are still clearly on the tight side.

A day later, on 13 October, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a proposed rule. It would make railroads send advance data on everyone aboard trains crossing the border, including freight-train crews.

Our view: this is a supply squeeze, not a demand boom

We think the important point is why capacity is tight. Shipment demand across North America is soft. In a normal cycle, soft demand means plenty of trucks and falling rates. That is not happening on the borders.

The reasons are structural. There are fewer qualified drivers. The rules on who may drive across the border are tighter. Trucks cost more, and finance is expensive. None of these goes away when demand picks up or drops off. So we expect cross-border rates to stay high even if freight volumes stay flat. Forwarders pricing these lanes on the assumption of a soft market are likely to be caught short.

TRAFFIX executives told FreightWaves they expect tight capacity through 2026 and into 2027. Alex Fuller, the firm’s vice president of commercial intelligence, put it plainly: “Because of that, yeah, rates are going to stay higher for longer.” He added: “And we’re not going to see the immediate drop like we saw a couple of years ago in rates.” Fuller also said finance costs for carriers can reach 8% to 9%, which puts off new entrants.

The Mexico side: visas, cabotage and missing drivers

The biggest single shock is on the Mexican border. Citing C.H. Robinson’s Edge Report, FreightWaves wrote that “U.S. authorities have withdrawn visas from approximately 25,000 Mexican freight drivers,” a figure that comes from CANACAR, Mexico’s national freight transport chamber. US officials have not publicly confirmed it.

The dispute centres on B-1 visas. These business visas let Mexican drivers haul international loads between Mexico and the US. They do not allow cabotage, which means carrying freight between two US points. CANACAR says enforcement has become inconsistent. In an earlier FreightWaves report, from 25 August, the chamber said some officials expect a truck to go back to Mexico empty after a US delivery before taking another international load. Others let drivers reposition and pick up a Mexico-bound load. CANACAR argues neither is cabotage. “Cabotage is moving cargo between two points in the United States,” said Alfonso Esquer Millán, CANACAR’s Northwest vice president.

CANACAR asked CBP to define what counts as a cabotage breach and to explain how it revokes visas. It says CBP told it by email that nothing had changed and a meeting was unnecessary. “That is very worrying, that they no longer want to have a dialogue with us,” said Ismael Reyes de la Rosa, the chamber’s Mexicali representative.

The dispute has already disrupted traffic. On 3 September, FreightWaves reported that drivers had blocked the Calexico East-Mexicali commercial crossing in California in protest. About 1,255 commercial trucks cross there each day. The C.H. Robinson report cited in the 12 October piece also noted restrictions on southbound empty-truck crossings at Eagle Pass and Brownsville, Texas, from 9 to 14 September. Daily commercial crossings fell from about 1,000 to 300 to 400, and nearly 700 tractors were stranded on the US side.

TRAFFIX’s Manzanillo-based carrier sales manager, Patricio Gutierrez, summed it up: “The shortage of drivers in Mexico is a real problem.” He added: “I think that the main issue here is a lack of qualified drivers.”

The market data matches. At Laredo, a major US-Mexico truck gateway, FreightWaves SONAR’s Outbound Tender Volume Index rose from 39.95 in mid-September to 51.95 as of 11 October. That index tracks the volume of loads shippers offer to carriers under contract. The SONAR Weighted Rejection Index moved from -0.74 to +0.65. A rising rejection index means carriers are turning down more of the contract loads they are offered, usually because spot rates pay better.

The Canada side: one-way freight and rising rates

Canada’s problem is different but just as stubborn. Freight flows are badly unbalanced. Plenty of freight moves one way, but return loads are weak, so trucks run empty or wait. Lance Halliday, TRAFFIX’s Toronto-based regional director of carrier sales, said: “There’s still a severe lack of inbound.” He added: “So there’s not a lot of freight coming in from the U.S. into Canada right now.”

Halliday said some corridors have seen rates rise 25% to 35% over about a month to a month and a half. He singled out Florida. “Florida is a no-go zone,” he said. “Guys just won’t go because they’re getting stuck down there for days.”

The most telling sign for forwarders is what is happening to contracts. FreightWaves reported that some carriers are returning freight commitments because rates set months earlier no longer cover their costs. “We’re seeing a lot of that contractual freight handed back by their primary carriers,” Halliday said. His outlook was blunt: “I think that in the short term, it’s going to continue to tighten up.” And: “I don’t think that there’s any way that this changes over the next three to six months.”

Rail gets new paperwork too

Rail is the natural fallback when trucks are scarce. It is about to get a new compliance step.

CBP’s proposed rule, “Advance Traveler Information for Rail” (91 FR 64840), would require rail carriers to send electronic data on everyone aboard trains arriving in or leaving the US. That includes crew. Carriers would also send a notice of arrival or departure “no later than 24 hours prior to the train’s arrival at the U.S. border crossing location.” Traveler data would be due “no later than 60 minutes prior to the train’s departure.” If the expected border arrival time changes by “30 minutes or more,” the carrier must contact CBP to confirm inspectors are available.

The rule’s definition of a train includes cargo conveyances. So freight trains with crews aboard appear to be covered. Today the program is voluntary, and the rule states: “No freight rail carriers have participated in the voluntary program.” Cargo reporting itself does not change. CBP says it “is not at this time proposing changes to the requirements related to manifest information for commercial cargo.”

CBP’s own analysis estimates about 70,215 cargo train crossings a year over 2026 to 2030. It puts the cost to cargo railroads at about $380,495 a year, or a net impact of roughly -$1.69 million over five years at a 3% discount rate (-$1.46 million at 7%). That is small money for a Class I railroad. The real risk is operational: a late crew list or a missed ETA update could hold a train at the border. Comments are due by 14 December 2026.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

First, contract rates on Mexico and Canada truck lanes are not reliable right now. If carriers are handing loads back, shippers end up on the spot market at short notice. Forwarders should check which of their cross-border contracts were priced in a softer market and plan for those to fail.

Second, lead times will stretch. Fewer Mexican drivers with valid visas means fewer trucks able to run the international leg. Expect more transloading at the border, where freight moves from a Mexican truck to a US one, with the extra handling time and cost that brings. Shippers into Florida from Canada should budget for both higher rates and fewer takers.

Third, enforcement itself is a risk. The September closures at Eagle Pass and Brownsville and the Calexico blockade show that a single crossing can lose most of its capacity for days. Forwarders with time-sensitive freight should have a second crossing in mind for each lane.

Fourth, rail is a sensible hedge, but not a frictionless one. The CBP proposal is still only a proposal, so nothing changes at the border yet. Freight railroads have never used the voluntary program, though, so a mandatory version will mean new systems and new ways to fail.

Our prediction

Our call is that neither TRAFFIX reading falls below 50 before the end of Q1 2027. We expect Mexico and Canada truck contract rates to reprice higher in early-2027 bid rounds, and more shippers to move cross-border volume onto spot or index-linked deals by then. On rail, we expect CBP to keep the crew-data requirement for freight trains when it finalises the rule. We do not expect a final rule before mid-2027.

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