Truckload Spot Rates Expected to Stay Elevated Through 2026

Uber Freight expects spot rates to run 20% to 25% above prior-year levels through the rest of the year. (vitpho/Getty Images)

Freight rates continue to rise in the truckload sector as seasonal demand intensifies against a backdrop of tightening capacity.

The summer peak season is arriving earlier than normal as produce volumes, fuel costs and capacity pressures are converging, according to the Uber Freight Q2 Market Update and Outlook Report.

Uber Freight 2026 Q2 Market Update Report

“We’re seeing rising fuel costs, an unusually early produce season and a truckload market that’s already tightening before the traditional summer peak,” said Nathan Adams, vice president of transportation procurement at Uber Freight.

The company found truckload spot volumes increased 44% within its network in the second quarter. It now expects spot rates to run 20% to 25% above prior-year levelRates s throughout the remainder of 2026.

“What’s unusual is that we’re seeing peak-season behavior before demand has fully ramped,” Adams said. “Spot rates are already above contract rates in many lanes, fuel costs are rising and carriers are shifting equipment toward higher-paying produce freight.”

The market is more sensitive, Adams noted, because it has less excess capacity available to absorb disruptions, making seasonal swings more impactful. Routing-guide performance already has weakened and carriers have become more selective.

Uber Freight ranks No. 16 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America.

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Vise 

“We principally focus on rate data as adjusted for seasonality because that’s the best way to understand changes in the underlying freight market,” said Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence. “That said, for shippers, costs are costs, so seasonality — while predictable — is meaningful. And so are costs associated with fuel as opposed to transportation services.”

Vise noted that spot rates first inflected late last year for reasons that are not totally clear, but he points to tighter overall trucking capacity, stricter enforcement regarding foreign drivers and tariffs affecting holiday distribution patterns as early factors.

“Those pressures appeared to dissipate early in the new year, and dry van and refrigerated rates reverted to their usual post-holiday normalization,” Vise said. “The major winter storm then exposed, once again, how stressed the trucking market truly was in capacity and productivity.”

The Road to Roadcheck

Vise noted that the market continued to face pressure, including elevated fuel costs amid the war with Iran. He views fuel-cost recovery as the primary driver of spot rates from early March until the International Roadcheck safety inspection blitz in mid-May.

“Assuming stability in diesel prices, we would expect most of this month to result in dry van and refrigerated spot rates mostly holding onto recent gains,” Vise said. “Then the seasonal expectation would be for another period of sluggishness until firming at around Labor Day. Thereafter, spot rates typically are stable until further strength occurs around [the holidays].”

FTR data also showed that truckload contract rates began moving higher toward the end of 2025, and projected rates will rise sequentially through at least mid-2027. This is expected to put contract rates this year about 8% above 2025. Vise also highlighted flatbed as uniquely benefiting from construction of data centers beyond the seasonal trends.

“It’s a unique cycle in the sense that it’s being driven by supply and the industrial economy,” said Dan Moore, managing director and senior transportation analyst at R.W. Baird & Co. “What we saw was a supply-driven inflection in rates, which has never happened before.”

Moore suspects the industry is in a new cycle that began when spot rates started to accelerate after last year’s 43-day government shutdown that began Oct. 1. Demand helped somewhat as the industrial economy benefited from the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act.

A Tightening Market

“The strongest signal we’ve seen of the market getting tighter is route-guide depth,” said Jim Mancini, vice president of customer success at C.H. Robinson. “Shippers were easily getting their freight covered. Late November 2025 is when our data showed the first signs of that slipping.”

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Mancini 

Mancini noted that routing guides have been stable for more than three years, a historically long period. But now failures are up significantly, with shippers exhausting their list of preferred contract carriers and their freight being pushed into the spot market.

“There were bigger-than-usual jumps in route-guide failure around the New Year holiday, during the winter storms of February and then again during Roadcheck Week in May, reflecting that the market didn’t have enough slack in capacity to easily accommodate,” Mancini said.

Spot rates typically ease throughout April, he said, but this year there was more volatility through the month and into May. Rates started flat before increasing. C.H. Robinson adjusted to these developments by elevating its spot rate forecast to 23% over last year.

“The imbalance of supply vs. demand was particularly evident during Roadcheck Week, when many carriers chose to keep their trucks off the road,” Mancini said. “That happens every year, but the impact fluctuates depending on how tight capacity is in the market overall.”

C.H. Robinson ranks No. 2 on the logistics TT100.

Hope for an Upcycle

Traffix found in its biweekly update that spot rates increased 47% from the previous year to $3.45 a mile following Roadcheck week. They had been holding around $3 per mile for the previous six weeks.

The report also showed that spot linehaul briefly crossed above contract rates for the first time since 2022. Tender rejections climbed to their highest point in four years at 5.7%. Shipping volumes also were up 8% from the prior year as demand gained ground.

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Fuller 

“You had COVID, you had a bunch of carriers enter the market,” said Alex Fuller, senior director of revenue management and solutions at Traffix. “We probably got oversaturated, and then over the last two, three, four years, carriers were leaving.”

Fuller noted capacity became more balanced by the end of last year, which lifted rates slightly. This was soon followed by an acceleration in capacity reductions due to stricter federal enforcement. These factors eventually rolled into Roadcheck Week and Memorial Day, which further increased rates by driving out capacity, at least temporarily.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say this upcycle in rates is going to continue at least through the end of the year, if not, another year or more,” Fuller said. “This is the new baseline we’re at.”