What an Empty Truck Really Costs You (2026)
An empty truck costs a small fleet roughly $3,000 to $5,000 a week in lost revenue. Parking the truck stops the fuel and the driver pay. It does not stop the truck payment, the insurance, the plates and permits, or your office staff. Those keep billing every week the seat is open, and the profit from your seated trucks pays them. In 2025, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) found the average cost to run a truck hit $2.336 per mile. That is the highest in the history of its Operational Costs of Trucking report. Truckload and refrigerated carriers ran operating margins below 1%. At margins that thin, one parked truck can eat the weekly profit of several seated ones.
Most fleet owners treat an empty truck as a hiring problem. It is a cash problem first. After you put a number on it, you know what filling the seat is worth and how long you can afford to wait.
Which costs stop when a truck parks, and which keep running
ATRI's 2026 update breaks the cost of running a truck into line items. Some follow the miles. Others follow the calendar.
| Cost | ATRI 2025 average | When the truck sits empty |
|---|---|---|
| Driver wages and benefits | $1.028 per mile (81.8 cents wages, 21 cents benefits) | Stops |
| Fuel | About 48 cents per mile ($2.336 total minus $1.854 without fuel) | Stops |
| Repair and maintenance | 21.5 cents per mile | Mostly stops |
| Insurance | 10.6 cents per mile | Usually keeps running, since most policies bill per power unit |
| Truck and trailer payments | Varies by fleet | Keeps running |
| Plates, permits, electronic logging device (ELD) plans, and parking | Varies by fleet | Keeps running |
| Office staff and overhead | Varies by fleet | Keeps running |
The costs that stop only exist when the truck earns. The costs that keep running are the ones the truck was paying for. When the seat is empty, your other trucks pay them instead.
Why thin margins make the empty truck so expensive
ATRI found that truckload and refrigerated carriers ran operating margins below 1% in 2025. Flatbed carriers ran an average operating loss of 0.5%. Here is what that means for one parked truck.
Take an example truck that bills $4,000 a week. At a 1% margin, it keeps about $40 of that as profit. Now park a second truck. Its insurance keeps billing. Spread over an example 2,000 mile week at ATRI's 10.6 cents per mile, that comes to about $212 a week. That one line item eats the profit of more than five seated trucks, before you count the truck payment. Use your own numbers. The example only shows the scale.
How to calculate what your empty truck costs: 5 steps
- List the fixed costs that keep billing. Add up a week of truck and trailer payments, insurance, plates and permits, ELD plans, and parking. Add the truck's share of office staff. This is the cash an empty truck burns while it earns nothing.
- Add the profit a seated truck earns. Take the weekly revenue of a seated truck on the same lane, then subtract every cost of running it. Use your 12 week average, not your best week. With margins near 1%, this number is often small next to step 1.
- Add the loads and lanes you lose. Count the loads you turned down because no driver was free. If a customer moved a lane to another carrier, count what that lane earned you too.
- Add the time your team spends on the open seat. Include recruiter hours, the dispatcher time it takes to reshuffle loads, and what you spend on job ads.
- Multiply by the weeks the seat stays empty. Measure from the day the last driver left to the first dispatched load for the new one. That total is your real cost per empty seat.
Compare that total with what you pay to fill the seat. The gap shows what a faster fill is worth to you.
How empty weeks add up across a year
ATRI also tracked driver turnover. It fell to 44.2% in 2025, from 48% in 2024. For a 10 truck fleet, that still means about four open seats a year. If each one sits empty for six weeks, that is 24 empty truck weeks. At $3,000 to $5,000 a week, the fleet gives up $72,000 to $120,000 in revenue it already owned the trucks to earn.
The clock also restarts every time a new driver leaves. A seat filled fast with a driver whose life does not fit the lane can be empty again within 90 days. Speed matters, but only when the driver you seat has a reason to stay.
How GTD shortens your empty weeks
The fastest way to cut the cost of an empty truck is to shorten the weeks it sits. Roughly 92% of qualified drivers are not on job boards, because they are already working. GTD identifies those drivers and matches them against your lanes, your real weekly pay, your home time, and your equipment before anyone reaches out. In one month long search GTD identified 7,473 qualified drivers against a single fleet's criteria. First qualified interviews typically land in 7 to 10 days, and seats fill in 30 to 90 days. GTD works for free until your fleet fills its seats, so the risk of a slow search sits with GTD, not with your empty trucks. Because these drivers chose a seat that fits their life, fewer of them leave. Drivers seated this way stay at 86%, compared with 67% through traditional channels.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an empty truck cost per week?
A small fleet loses roughly $3,000 to $5,000 a week in revenue for each empty truck. The fuel and driver pay stop, but the truck payment, insurance, permits, and overhead keep running. Your seated trucks cover those costs until you fill the seat.
What costs keep running when a truck has no driver?
Truck and trailer payments, insurance billed per power unit, plates and permits, ELD plans, parking, and office staff all keep running. In ATRI's 2025 data, insurance alone averaged 10.6 cents per mile.
How do I calculate the cost of an unseated truck?
Add up a week of fixed costs that keep billing, then add the weekly profit a seated truck earns on that lane. Add any loads or lanes you lost and the time your team spends on the open seat. Multiply the total by the number of weeks the seat stays empty.
What did it cost to run a truck in 2025?
ATRI's 2026 Operational Costs of Trucking update put the industry average at $2.336 per mile in 2025, the highest in the report's history. Without fuel, costs were $1.854 per mile. Driver wages and benefits together came to $1.028 per mile.
How do I shorten the time a truck sits empty?
Start recruiting before the seat opens, and look past job boards, since roughly 92% of qualified drivers are not on them. Match drivers to your lanes, pay, and home time before the first call, so fewer drop out before orientation. Track time to fill from the day a seat opens to the first dispatched load.
