The freight recession spent three years handing shippers cheap trucks. That invoice for its ending arrived in the second quarter.
Shippers moved less freight between April and June and paid sharply more to do it, according to the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index released Tuesday. The National Shipment Index fell 1.1% from the first quarter to 75.1, the second consecutive sequential decline. Spending ran the other way, rising 6.4% to 230.4.
The annual comparison is wider still. Volumes dropped 2.8% from a year earlier, reversing the first quarter’s 0.6% gain, which had been the first annual increase in four years. Spending climbed 28.1%.
For shippers, that combination is negative operating leverage in its purest freight form: a shrinking book of loads costing more per load, with no volume growth to absorb the difference.
“While higher fuel prices added to transportation costs in the second quarter, fuel was not the primary force behind the increase in shipper spending,” said Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations.
Truck Capacity Tightening Outweighed the Fuel Spike
Fuel was not cheap. DAT Freight & Analytics reported second-quarter fuel costs of 75 cents per mile, 47.1% above the first quarter and 78.6% above a year earlier. The one favorable development for shippers came late in the quarter, when the national average diesel price fell from an April peak above $5.64 per gallon to $4.67, nearly a dollar lower.
Capacity did the heavier lifting. Three-plus years of recession pushed small, midsize and large fleets out of the market amid weak rates, rising costs and softer volumes. That exit never fully matched low demand, but it narrowed the gap.
Industry participants have pointed to a second force. English language proficiency (ELP) enforcement, non-domiciled commercial driver’s license revocations and increased oversight of driver training schools all gained momentum over the past year. Those actions may have helped bring supply closer to demand and, in some markets, pushed available capacity lower.
The result is a market that tightened while it shrank. Carriers seeing more freight may be benefiting from fewer fleets chasing the same loads, not from broad-based demand recovery.
Spot Rates Have Nearly Caught Contract Rates
The rate data shows how fast the rate floor moved. DAT reported average spot rates of $3.02 per mile in the second quarter, an 18.9% jump that followed an 11.9% gain in the first quarter. That is 75 cents, or 33%, above the fourth quarter of 2025 and 88 cents, or 41.1%, above year-earlier levels.
Contract rates rose too, though less violently, averaging $3.06 per mile. That is up 13% sequentially and 20.9%, or 53 cents, from the second quarter of 2025. Neither figure includes fuel, which DAT reports separately.
The gap between the two is now 4 cents. A year earlier it was 39 cents. Spot pricing has effectively converged with contract pricing.
That convergence is the forward indicator worth watching. Spot moves first and contract follows on the next bid cycle, which means the harder market for shippers is still in front of them, not behind.
The Southwest Shows What Tight Capacity Costs
No region illustrates the split more sharply than the Southwest. Shipments there fell 0.6% sequentially and 20.2% year-over-year. Spending rose 11.2% and 39.9% over the same periods. Across the first half of 2026, regional shipments dropped just over 10% from the fourth quarter of 2025 while shipper spending increased nearly 24%.
Tighter capacity appears to be the primary driver. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation increased coordination around possible cabotage violations by Mexican B-1 drivers during the quarter, resulting in significant B-1 visa cancellations. Given the Southwest’s role in cross-border freight, those developments may be more visible there.
Demand was soft on its own, too. Housing starts across the broader South fell 14.4% from the first quarter and 9.6% from a year earlier, and Dallas Fed contacts reported weaker retail sales tied to gasoline prices and pressure on low-income consumers.
“The Southwest continued to stand out this quarter,” said Bobby Holland, director of freight business analytics at U.S. Bank. “The gap between declining shipments and rising spending was more pronounced there than anywhere else in the country. It’s a signal that capacity conditions can have a significant impact on freight costs even when underlying demand isn’t growing.”
Spending Rose in Every Region but One
Regional volumes were mixed. The Southeast posted the largest sequential gain at 0.9%, its first increase in three quarters and its largest in two years, helped by data center construction in Northern Virginia and Atlanta. The West rose 0.5%, the Northeast was flat, and the Midwest recorded the steepest decline at 3.7%. On an annual basis the picture is less uniform than the national number suggests: the West led all regions at 5.5%, the Midwest gained 2.8% and the Northeast 2.0%, while the Southeast fell 6.5%.
Spending was far more consistent. It increased sequentially everywhere except the Midwest, where it slipped 0.8%, led by the West at 12%, the Southwest at 11.2% and the Southeast at 10%. The Northeast’s 5% rise marked its seventh straight quarterly increase. Year-over-year, every region posted gains above 20%, from 22.9% in the Midwest to 39.9% in the Southwest.
One more second-quarter development sits underneath those numbers. The May 14, 2026, Supreme Court ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, clarified that brokers could face scrutiny over carrier selection. Some brokers appear to be reassessing carrier qualifications, though the quarter’s measurable impact was modest.
The spending index remains 17% below its second-quarter 2022 peak, so this is not a return to pandemic-era pricing. Some freight may also be moving to rail as truck rates climb, though American Trucking Associations analysis suggests the effect is limited.
Costello put the quarter in plainer terms.
“The more important trend is that trucking capacity continues to tighten after several years of excess supply,” he said. “As available capacity becomes scarcer, rates are moving higher, leaving shippers with higher costs despite a freight market that remains relatively soft.”
