How Many Trucking Companies Go Out of Business?

The headline numbers

More than half of every motor carrier ever registered with the FMCSA is now inactive. The U.S. trucking market is overwhelmingly small operators (most carriers run six trucks or fewer), and small carriers enter and exit the federal register constantly — which is why the inactive pile is now larger than the active one.

When did they leave? Inactive carriers by year of last filing

Each bar counts carriers that are inactive today, grouped by the year of their most recent MCS-150 filing — a proxy for when they were last active. Inactivations rose sharply through 2021–2023: a wave of carriers entered during the 2021 freight boom, then left as rates fell in the downturn that followed. The two most recent years are provisional — a carrier that last filed recently may only just have been deactivated, or may still reactivate.

Is the trucking industry in a freight recession?

“Freight recession” isn’t an official designation — no agency declares one. The term describes a prolonged stretch of soft freight demand and falling spot rates, and the carrier register carries one honest fingerprint of it: the 2022 peak in the chart above. 156,794 carriers that are inactive today last filed in 2022, the height of the 2022–2023 downturn, when a wave of operators that registered during the 2021 boom left the register as rates collapsed. That is the clearest registration-record signal of a freight recession we can show — a lagging one, measured in who left, not a real-time rate index.

For movement as it happens, HaulReport keeps a daily history of the register — see which carriers just went Active → Inactive and which carriers newly registered in the live feed.

What about trucking company bankruptcies?

A note on a question we’re often asked: HaulReport does not track court bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcies (Chapter 7, 11, or 13) are filed in federal court and recorded in PACER — they are not part of the FMCSA register, and a carrier can close, restructure, or file for bankruptcy without that ever surfacing as a distinct event in the public motor-carrier record. What the register does show is operating status: a carrier moving to inactive, or a new authority appearing. So we publish the inactive-carrier proxy above and the daily status feed — not a bankruptcy count we cannot verify. When a large carrier’s bankruptcy makes headlines, its authority-status change eventually shows in the register, but the filing itself lives in the court system, and the two are not the same thing.

Inactive carriers by state

Ranked by the carrier’s registered physical-address state. The leaders mirror the states with the most carriers overall — this reflects where carriers are based, not which states see the most failures relative to their size.

The other side: who’s entering

Exits are only half the churn. Because HaulReport keeps a daily history of the FMCSA data, we also track movement as it happens: see which carriers just went Active → Inactive in the daily feed, where new carriers are registering by state, the live daily FMCSA carrier activity feed and newly registered trucking companies, the full active-carrier breakdown in our trucking industry statistics, or the monthly FMCSA Carrier Registry Report that pulls it all together.

Frequently asked questions

How many trucking companies have gone out of business?

There is no official "out of business" count, but the FMCSA Company Census is the closest public proxy: 2,254,656 of the 4,453,355 motor carriers ever on the federal register (50.6%) now carry an inactive status. "Inactive" means a carrier stopped maintaining its FMCSA registration — it may have closed, merged, stopped interstate operations, or failed to refile its biennial MCS-150. It is not, on its own, proof a business shut down.

How many trucking companies go out of business each year?

Grouping inactive carriers by the year of their last MCS-150 filing — a proxy for when each was last active — the largest cohort is 2022, with 156,794 now-inactive carriers last filing that year. Inactivations climbed sharply through 2021–2023, the period of the post-pandemic freight downturn, when spot rates fell and many carriers that entered during the 2021 boom left the register.

Are FMCSA inactive carriers the same as out of business?

Not exactly. Inactive (status code "I") is a registration status. Carriers must refile an MCS-150 every two years and notify FMCSA of changes; many go inactive administratively without formally closing, and some later reactivate. We treat the inactive universe as a measure of carriers that have left the active federal register, not as a verified count of business failures.

Which state has the most inactive trucking companies?

Texas has the most inactive registered carriers (181,456), followed by California (173,132) and Florida (130,965). This tracks the states with the most carriers overall, reflecting where carriers register their physical address.

Is there a freight recession, and does this data show it?

"Freight recession" is not an official designation — no agency declares one. The term describes a sustained stretch of weak freight demand and depressed spot rates. The carrier register carries a lagging fingerprint of the last one: the largest cohort of carriers inactive today last filed in 2022 (156,794 carriers), the height of the 2022–2023 downturn, when operators that registered in the 2021 boom left as rates fell. HaulReport tracks the register daily, so the running balance of new registrations versus inactivations is the ongoing signal we can show — but it lags real-world rates and does not, on its own, confirm or rule out a freight recession.

How many trucking companies have filed for bankruptcy?

HaulReport does not track court bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcies (Chapter 7, 11, or 13) are filed in federal court and recorded in PACER — they are not part of the FMCSA register, and a carrier can close, restructure, or file for bankruptcy without a distinct bankruptcy event ever appearing in the public motor-carrier record. The closest public proxy we can publish is registration status: 2,254,656 carriers (50.6% of all ever registered) now carry an inactive status. We report that status data and are explicit that it is not a verified count of bankruptcies or business failures.