Dry Van Spot Rates Hit $3.05 a Mile, Highest Since Early 2022

The average spot-market rate to move dry van truckload freight in the United States rose to $3.05 a mile in October, its highest monthly average since February 2022, DAT Freight & Analytics reported on November 10. The company said the increase came even as fuel costs eased slightly from September and as freight volumes stayed below year-earlier levels.

DAT said the dry van spot rate was up 4 cents from September and 98 cents from a year earlier. Refrigerated, or reefer, spot rates averaged $3.60 a mile, down 2 cents from September and up $1.12 year over year. Flatbed spot rates averaged $3.61 a mile, unchanged from September and up $1.10 year over year. DAT said all three equipment types were about 45 percent higher than a year earlier.

Those spot rates, DAT said, are amounts freight brokers pay truckload carriers and are negotiated as all-in prices, with no separate fuel surcharge. Contract rates paid by brokers to carriers, which do include fuel surcharges, rose 4 cents to $3.28 a mile for dry van, matching the record DAT said was set in May 2022. Reefer contract rates averaged $3.62 a mile and flatbed contract rates averaged $4.05 a mile, records for the second and third straight months, respectively, according to the same release.

DAT also published linehaul rates, which exclude an amount equal to an average fuel surcharge. The dry van spot linehaul rate was $2.22 a mile in October, up 5 cents from September. DAT said that linehaul figure remains below its 2026 high of $2.39 a mile, set in July. Since July, the company said, van linehaul has fallen 17 cents while the fuel portion of the all-in rate has risen 21 cents.

On fuel, DAT cited U.S. Energy Information Administration figures putting the national average on-highway diesel price at about $6.25 a gallon in October, down from $6.29 in September but about $2.60 higher than a year earlier. DAT’s estimated average fuel surcharge for dry van fell 1 cent from September, which DAT described as a record month, to 83 cents a mile.

The DAT Truckload Volume Index, which the company uses to track loads of 250 miles or more with a pickup date in the month, showed little change from September and remained below year-earlier levels: 254 for dry van, down 1 percent from September and 2 percent year over year; 184 for reefer, up 1 percent from September and down 9 percent year over year; and 298 for flatbed, down 1 percent from September and 7 percent year over year.

“Brokers moved fewer loads than a year ago and paid carriers about a dollar a mile more to move them last month,” Dean Croke, DAT’s principal industry analyst, said in the release. “Equipment posts on DAT One are running about 22% to 26% below last year depending on the equipment type. While fuel and other operating costs are high, carriers are heading into the holiday freight season in a position to be selective and negotiate better rates.”

What it means for manufacturers

For a midsize manufacturer that moves inbound parts or outbound finished goods by truck, October’s figures describe a tight capacity market rather than a surge in shipments. If your contracts come up for renewal this winter, budget reviews should use current contract benchmarks, not last year’s rates, and should keep a separate line for fuel. Spot freight, which DAT measures as an all-in price, is a poor surprise-cost buffer when it sits near a four-year high.

A practical next step is to pull the last 90 days of prepaid and collect freight spend, split contract versus spot, and flag lanes where you already roll to the spot market. Then look at whether a later order cutoff, a fuller truck, or a different ship date would reduce those rolls. Our note on diesel, freight costs, and inventory covers the inventory trade-off, and how to calculate landed cost shows where trucking belongs in a part’s true cost.

Sources

• DAT Freight & Analytics, “DAT: Van spot rate rises to $3.05 a mile, highest since early 2022” (Nov. 10, 2026)

Additional sources

• The same DAT release reports January-through-October 2026 average spot rates of $2.78 a mile for van, $3.25 for reefer, and $3.36 for flatbed, which DAT said were the highest for that period in its monthly records going back to 2010. It also gives an illustrative fuel-cost example: about $521 a day in October, versus $310 in February, for a tractor and van trailer traveling 500 miles a day at 6 miles per gallon.
• DAT says its rates come from invoice data submitted by shippers, brokers, and carriers from their transportation-management systems, and that the Truckload Volume Index uses a baseline of 100 equal to loads moved in January 2015. Diesel prices in the release are attributed to U.S. Energy Information Administration surveys.