FTR Expects ‘Marginless Recovery’ for Trucking in 2026
Capacity Cuts’ Impact Insufficient to Turn Market Around
Key Takeaways:
- FTR expects truckload spot rates to increase 3.6% in 2026 after nudging 2% higher in 2025.
- Contract rates are forecast to rise 2.6% in 2026 following a 1.2% upturn in 2025.
- Trump administration initiatives regarding English-language proficiency and non-domiciled commercial driver licenses have taken capacity from the market.
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The North American freight market outlook for 2026 is underwhelming, with marginal rate increases unlikely to cover the ongoing swelling in carriers’ costs, according to analysts at.
Overall truck loadings are set to increase a minimal 0.1%, with the top drivers of industrial growth not translating into sustained demand for carriers’ services, the analysts warned during a Jan. 8 webinar.
FTR expects truckload spot rates to increase 3.6% in 2026 after nudging 2%e contract rates are forecast to rise 2.6% in 2026 following a 1.2% upturn in 2025. higher in 2025, while contract rates are forecast to rise 2.6% in 2026 following a 1.2% upturn in 2025.
“Right now, our [spot market] forecast is 3.6% growth. It’s still not really the kind of growth in the spot market that’s going to drive much,” FTR Vice President of Trucking Avery Vise said during the “Are We Past Uncertainty?” webinar.
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“Our current forecast for [contract rates in 2026] is 2.6% growth. And believe it or not, this is actually stronger than it’s been running,” Vise said. “Now, 2.6%, again, it’s kind of like what I said with spot. Yes, it is technically recovery, but … it’s basically what the inflation rate is right now. So, you know, it’s what we’ve been calling sort of a ‘marginless recovery.’
“Until contract rates get considerably north of that, it’s not gonna help carriers very much. It’s going to obviously stop the bleeding for a lot of them, but it’s not enough to cover a lot of the obligations that they have, and obviously, in a lot of cases, the debts that they’ve incurred and so on.”
The veteran analyst added, “So, this is not a particularly encouraging outlook currently from the carrier perspective. For shippers, this is the best you can hope for, probably.”
In addition, help from capacity cuts is unlikely to continue, said Vise.
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Capacity cuts have taken place as a result of Trump administration English-language proficiency and non-domiciled commercial driver license initiatives.
“At this point, the trucking industry is trying to get to rate recovery through capacity cuts still. And I think their ability to do that, though, is finally hitting an end. And that’s because if you are a carrier of any size that has facilities, has safety managers, maybe has mechanics, so on, you have a minimal level of revenue,” said Vise.
“So, you can’t keep cutting capacity indefinitely. You reach a point where you either have to stay where you are or you kind of have to go out of business,” he said, adding: “I think we’re bottoming out.”
President Trump mandated English proficiency for drivers in April, leading to an increase in out-of-service violations and driver exits from the market.
The Department of Transportation also restricted access to commercial driver licenses and permits for non-domiciled drivers in August and followed up by declaring a “national emergency.”
Our system to keep Americans safe has been compromised by issuing commercial trucking licenses to operate 80-THOUSAND POUND VEHICLES to foreign drivers who are not lawful citizens.
The process is broken, a threat to your safety, and a national emergency that requires action… — Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy)
Werner Enterprises in October said enforcement was creating a challenging operating environment. Werner ranks No. 18 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
“We don’t believe this is the driving issue in anything that may be going on in trucking. It is an additive issue, but not a driver,” said Vise.
Carriers depend on industrial demand to drive growth, but the manufacturing sectors prospering are unlikely to bolster freight levels in a sustained fashion, FTR CEO Jonathan Starks said.
Overall, manufacturing decelerated as 2025 progressed after an initial bump due to fears instigated by Trump’s introduction of tariffs at both a country and commodity-specific level.
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Computer electronic products was an outlier, with growth being maintained, said Starks. Demand for pharmaceuticals and medicine also hummed, with top-tier carriers recognizing this.
“Unfortunately, [electronics are] not a strong conducive item to drive freight demand, and especially not sustained freight demand. Data centers get a lot of talk, they get a lot of action early on to build them out, but they are not like a traditional manufacturing environment in which they’re going to create sustained freight demand in that system,” he added.
Meanwhile, when it comes to pharmaceuticals, Starks noted: “Again, that’s an area in which there’s a lot of high-value rate, but it is not a ... driver of tonnage in the system, right? So, it’s not the type of capacity that’s going to be used, or the type of freight that’s going to be using up capacity.
“So, these are a couple items that are helping prop up some of that growth in the manufacturing environment that aren’t leading to growth necessarily within the overall freight markets.”
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