Trucking & Rail Oct 14, 2026 · 7 min read

US truck rates hold a third above last year while diesel stays above $6

US truck rates barely moved after quarter-end. Diesel is still $6.18. The US dry van spot rate rose 3 cents to $3.12 a mile in DAT’s 4–10 October report, even as load posts fell 18%. Diesel averaged $6.179 a gallon on 12 October, the EIA says, $2.51 above a year ago. Our view: this is not a quarter-end blip. DAT’s Dean Croke says “Linehaul rates are about a third above last year,” and truck posts are more than 20% below a year ago. US inland legs will stay expensive. Our call: the DAT van rate stays above $3.00 a mile through mid-November.

US trucking is short of trucks, not long on freight, and $6 diesel makes it worse
The quarter-end rush in US trucking is over. Rates did not fall.
In DAT’s report for 4–10 October, the national average spot rate for a dry van rose 3 cents to $3.12 a mile. A spot rate is the price for a single load booked on the day, as opposed to a contract rate agreed for months. DAT’s figure includes the fuel surcharge. Reefer (refrigerated) spot rose 3 cents to $3.68 a mile. Flatbed eased 2 cents to $3.68. Over the same week, load posts on DAT One, DAT’s load board, fell 18% to 2.7 million. Truck posts rose 4% to 177,300. More trucks chasing fewer loads would normally push prices down. It did not.
Meanwhile, diesel is still above $6. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts the national on-highway diesel average at $6.179 a gallon for 12 October. That is 2 cents lower than the week before and $2.514 higher than a year ago.

What we think is going on

Our view is simple. The US truckload market is tight because there are fewer trucks, not because there is a freight boom. When an 18% drop in loads posted cannot push spot rates down, the problem is supply. We think that supply problem will outlast the fourth quarter.
Diesel makes it worse. Fuel prices have started to ease, but slowly, and from a very high level. For anyone moving containers inland from US ports, the bill will stay high into the holiday peak.

The capacity numbers

DAT’s own figures make the case. Dean Croke, an analyst at DAT, writes: “Truck posts on DAT One are more than 20% below a year ago, while load posts are higher for all three equipment types.”
That shows up in the load-to-truck ratio. This is the number of loads posted for each truck posted on the board. A higher number means shippers and brokers are chasing fewer trucks. The van ratio eased to 10.5 last week from 13.7 the week before. Reefer eased to 16.8 from 21.6, and flatbed to 36.6 from 44.1. But Croke notes: “Load-to-truck ratios remain higher year over year.” He gives the comparison: “10.5 against 6.3 for van, 16.8 against 10.7 for reefer, and 36.6 against 27.2 for flatbed.”
Prices follow. “Linehaul rates are about a third above last year,” Croke writes. Linehaul is the rate before the fuel surcharge. DAT’s van linehaul was $2.26 a mile last week, up 5 cents. Reefer was $2.75, up 6 cents. Flatbed was $2.65, up 1 cent. Croke puts the yearly gains at 35% for van, 33% for reefer and 29% for flatbed.
This is not just a comparison with a weak 2025. Croke writes: “Against the nine-year seasonal average for this week, van runs 23% higher, reefer 28%, and flatbed 25%.”
Freight broker C.H. Robinson sees the same squeeze. Its North America truckload update of 1 October says: “Driver recruiting and retention remain the industry’s top challenge.” It points to “Federal enforcement actions tied to commercial driver licences, visas and English-language proficiency” as a factor. The same update says route-guide failures, the share of contract loads that carriers turn down, fell from a summer peak of 7.5% to nearly 5%, then rose above 6% in recent weeks. C.H. Robinson forecasts dry van cost per mile up 30% year on year for 2026, and up 10% for 2027.

Diesel: falling, but not far

Diesel has been the other half of the story this year. Weekly EIA prices, collected by weeklydiesel.com, show diesel at $3.477 a gallon in the week of 5 January. It jumped to $4.859 in the week of 9 March, from $3.897 the week before. It peaked at $6.529 on 21 September.
Since then it has fallen three weeks in a row: to $6.382 on 28 September, $6.199 on 5 October and $6.179 on 12 October. The latest drop, 2 cents, is the smallest of the three. Diesel is still about 69% above a year ago, by our arithmetic from EIA’s figures.
This year has already shown how quickly a fall can turn. After the spring high of $5.643 in the week of 6 April, diesel mostly drifted down for three months, with a brief rebound in early May. It reached $4.578 in the week of 6 July, more than a dollar lower. Two weeks later it was back at $5.134. By late August it was above $5.60 again, and the September run to $6.529 followed. Anyone who priced inland moves in early July on the assumption that fuel would keep falling was caught out within a month. We think the same risk applies now, with the starting point about $1.60 higher.
The pain is uneven. The EIA puts California at $8.091 a gallon and the West Coast as a whole at $7.240. Both rose slightly last week while the national average fell. Of the EIA’s main regions, the Gulf Coast is cheapest at $5.809. C.H. Robinson’s update mentions diesel above $8 a gallon in parts of the western US.
The EIA’s own forecast does not promise fast relief. Its October Short-Term Energy Outlook, released 6 October, says: “We forecast retail distillate prices will remain above $6/gal in October and then come down gradually.” It expects US distillate stocks, which include diesel, to stay below the 2021–2025 average for the whole forecast period. It sees East Coast stocks 20% to 30% below the five-year average through the winter. It forecasts retail diesel averaging $4.49agallonin2027,stillwellabovewhere2026started.HydrocarbonEngineering’ssummaryofthesameoutlookquotestheEIAforecastingBrentcrudeat“US$105/bbl in 4Q26”.

What it does to the surcharge

Truck fuel surcharges reset off the weekly EIA number, usually with a lag. DAT’s report last week used the 28 September price of $6.382. Croke writes that “The 14.7-cent decline from the previous week took about 2 cents a mile off the national average dry van surcharge.” He adds that the $6.199 price for 5 October “will be reflected in the fuel surcharge in next week’s report.”
Using Croke’s ratio, our rough estimate is that the 18.3-cent drop to $6.199 will take about 2 to 3 cents a mile off the van surcharge in DAT’s next report. The 2-cent drop to $6.179 will barely register. On a $3.12 all-in van rate, that is less than 1%.
So the shipper-facing price is held up from both sides. Linehaul is a third higher than last year because of capacity. Fuel is about two-thirds higher because of diesel. A small drop in one does not offset the other.

What this means for forwarders

For forwarders handling US imports, the inland leg is now a bigger share of the door-to-door price than it was a year ago. A container that clears a port still has to reach a warehouse by drayage (the short truck move from port or rail ramp) and often a truckload move after that. Both reset fuel off the same EIA benchmark.
Some practical points follow, in our view:

Quote US inland legs at today’s rates. Do not build in a fuel discount you have not seen yet.

Check fuel surcharge clauses in your trucking contracts. Know which week’s EIA price applies and how often it resets.

Expect West Coast moves to cost more. California and the wider West Coast are the most expensive diesel markets and are still rising.

For reefer, plan ahead. Reefer ratios and rates are the strongest of the three, and the harvest season is still running in parts of the country. C.H. Robinson says “Pacific Northwest capacity is expected to remain tight through October as the harvest continues.”

There is some relief in sight, though not much. DAT’s 35-day RateCast forecast, quoted by Croke, “has van linehaul easing to $2.23 a mile by mid-November”. That is 3 cents below last week’s $2.26. It has reefer “edging up to $2.77”, and flatbed “easing to $2.59”. For flatbed, C.H. Robinson’s October view is that “linehaul rates are likely to remain near current levels” and that “Fuel will remain the primary wildcard.”

Our call

We expect DAT’s national average dry van spot rate, including fuel, to stay at or above $3.00 a mile in every weekly report through mid-November. That would require only a modest fall from $3.12. We think the loss of trucks is deep enough to hold it there.
We also expect the EIA weekly US diesel average to stay above $6.00 a gallon until at least the end of October. We expect it to still be above $5.75 in the first EIA release of December. If both calls hold, US inland costs for importers will enter the holiday peak at least a third higher than a year ago, and forwarders who quoted for relief will be absorbing the difference.

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