The freight recession is officially over for dry van carriers. As of the week ending May 9, 2026, the all-in dry van spot rate tracked by DAT Freight Analytics came in at $2.62 per mile — the highest reading since mid-2022. FreightWaves’ National Truckload Index hit a cycle high of $2.89 per mile at its peak in spring 2026. National linehaul spot rates are running approximately 25 percent higher year-over-year, and tender rejection rates in the low-to-mid teens nationally mean carriers have real pricing leverage for the first time since the bull market collapsed three years ago.

If you have been running on survival mode — accepting whatever rate gets thrown at you, staying loyal to shippers who cut you on price during the downturn, hesitating to push back on low-paying loads — the data is telling you that the market has moved. The question is whether your pricing strategy has moved with it, or whether you are still operating with a recession-era mental framework in what is now a carrier-favorable rate environment.

This piece is about what the rate recovery actually means in practical terms — how to read the market signals correctly, where the opportunity is concentrated, how to price loads right now, and what mistakes will cost you margin even in a hot market. Because recovering markets are great for carriers who adapt, and completely wasted on carriers who don’t notice until everyone else has already captured the upside.

What the Rate Numbers Actually Say

The $2.62 per mile all-in dry van spot rate includes the base rate and fuel surcharge together. To properly evaluate what that means for your operation, you need to strip out the fuel component and look at the linehaul rate separately. With diesel running near current levels, the fuel surcharge on a typical load might account for $0.40 to $0.50 of that figure, putting linehaul around $2.15 to $2.20 per mile on average. That is significantly above the breakeven levels that most single-truck owner-operators were trying to survive at during 2024, when all-in rates were scraping $2.00 and many carriers were moving freight below cost.

The ATRI 2024 Operational Costs report puts average carrier operating costs at $2.26 per mile. At $2.62 all-in with current fuel surcharges, the average carrier is finally operating with a margin. Not a comfortable margin, not a 2021 windfall margin, but a real positive margin that allows for equipment payments, insurance renewal, and modest retained earnings. For carriers that managed their costs aggressively during the downturn — cutting deadhead miles, maintaining equipment efficiently, trimming fixed costs — the current rate environment is generating the best per-mile net income since 2022.

Tender rejection rates — the percentage of contracted loads that carriers decline — are sitting in the low-to-mid teens nationally, with the Midwest running above 18 percent, according to FreightWaves’ capacity analysis. Rejection rates above 10 percent historically signal a tightening market where carriers have negotiating leverage. Rates above 15 percent mean the market is genuinely tight and spot rates are outpacing contracts. The Midwest is there right now, and the national average is moving in that direction.

Why Capacity Is Tightening and Why It Is Sustainable

The freight recession of 2023 and 2024 served as a brutal but effective market cleansing mechanism. Carriers who couldn’t survive sub-cost rates exited — and they exited in massive numbers. The carrier exit wave of 2024 and 2025 ran at over 1,000 per week at its peak, removing a substantial volume of trucking capacity from the market. Unlike the 2021 rate spike, which was driven by demand that outran a structurally intact supply base, the 2026 recovery is happening against a supply base that has been genuinely reduced. There are simply fewer trucks and drivers competing for each load than there were three years ago.

Demand is also recovering on multiple fronts simultaneously. U.S. manufacturing returned to expansion in early 2026 after years of contraction, adding flatbed and dry van freight that wasn’t in the market before. Retail spending has grown for seven consecutive months. The US-China tariff truce that took effect May 14 is generating a fresh import surge that will add more demand on top of an already tightening base. These are not temporary one-off demand spikes — they represent a structural shift in the demand picture that reinforces the rate recovery.

The April 2026 Logistics Managers Index confirmed this dynamic with a 69.9 reading and a record 66.6-point spread between transportation prices and available capacity. That spread is not a blip. It reflects a market where demand for truck capacity is substantially outrunning supply, and that imbalance drives rates higher until either new capacity enters or demand softens. Neither of those is happening in the immediate term.

How to Price Loads Right Now

The most common pricing mistake small carriers make in a recovering market is anchoring their rates to what they were accepting six months ago. The market moved. Your rates need to move with it. Pull DAT Trendlines for your specific lanes and look at the last 30 days, not the last 90 days. In a climbing market, longer lookback periods understate where rates actually are today. Set your minimum acceptable rate based on current 30-day market data, not last quarter’s average.

For spot loads, start your counter at the 75th percentile of the DAT rate range for your lane and negotiate from there. In a market with rejection rates above 15 percent, brokers are under pressure to get loads covered. They will often move closer to your number than you expect if you hold firm. The recession era trained carriers to take the first offer because empty miles cost money. That logic inverts in a tight market — brokers need you more than you need any individual load, and empty miles used to find a better load are often worth more than a low-rate load at full utilization.

For contract renewals, do not renew at your current contracted rate without benchmarking. If your contract is up for renewal, come to the negotiation with DAT rate data showing that current market rates for your lanes are 20 to 25 percent higher than your current contract. Shippers know the market moved. They are already paying spot rates to other carriers for loads they can’t cover on contract. The question is whether you have the data to make the case, and whether you are willing to walk from a shipper who won’t acknowledge the market has changed.

Where the Rate Opportunity Is Concentrated

Rate strength is not uniform across all lanes. The markets generating the highest returns right now are freight-dense Midwest corridors — Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Indianapolis — where manufacturing freight and tight capacity are combining to push rejection rates above 18 percent. Lanes out of major industrial markets in the South — Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville — are also running strong as manufacturing expansion generates new outbound loads.

The West Coast will be the next hot spot as the tariff truce import surge rolls into Los Angeles and Long Beach starting in late May and accelerating through summer. Carriers positioned to run drayage or Inland Empire outbound loads through August will be operating in one of the tightest capacity markets in the country. If you have the ability to shift lanes or position a truck in the LA Basin heading into June, the rate data will reward that decision.

The lanes that are still relatively soft are those far from freight generation hubs. Rural outbound lanes, low-density areas without major DC clusters or manufacturing, and markets that depend heavily on agricultural freight that has not yet seen significant volume increases are still competitive. Carriers in those markets need to be more selective about backhaul routing to access the high-rate lanes rather than accepting whatever local freight comes available.

What J.B. Hunt and Werner Are Signaling About the Market

Large public carriers are the canary in the coal mine for freight markets because they have to report their metrics publicly. The Q1 2026 earnings from J.B. Hunt and Werner were telling — J.B. Hunt saw intermodal volume hit a record and truckload revenue jump 23 percent, while Werner narrowed its losses significantly and guided toward full profitability in the back half of 2026. These are not companies that guess on their guidance. When Werner says it expects to be profitable in H2 2026, it is because rate negotiations are going well and their pipeline of contracted loads is reflecting market improvement.

For small carriers, the lesson from big carrier earnings is straightforward: if the largest, most efficient fleets in the country are reporting the best results in years, the market is genuinely turning. The big carriers have full-time pricing and data teams, sophisticated rate negotiation processes, and shipper relationships built over decades. They are telling you, via their earnings filings, that the rate environment is the best it’s been since 2022. Believe them — and adjust your pricing accordingly.

Bottom Line

Dry van spot rates at $2.62 per mile, tender rejection rates in the teens, and a fresh import surge from the US-China tariff truce all point to the same conclusion: this is a carrier market, and it is strengthening. Small carriers who reprice their loads to reflect current market conditions, avoid locking in annual contracts at today’s rates before the summer surge, and position their equipment in high-demand corridors will capture a level of margin that wasn’t available for the past two and a half years.

The freight recession built bad habits around rate acceptance. Break them now. The market data is giving you the leverage to do it, and that window will not stay open forever.

Questions Carriers Ask

How should I price loads when spot rates hit a cycle high?

Know your all-in cost per mile and treat it as the floor, then let the market set the ceiling. In a rising market, quote confidently and resist committing capacity too far ahead at today’s prices if the trend is still upward. Discipline about deadhead and reloads matters just as much as headline rate.

Does a spot rate high mean I should walk away from contract freight?

Not wholesale. Contract freight is what keeps trucks moving when spot cools, and cycles always turn. A balanced approach is shifting some capacity toward spot to capture the upside while protecting the relationships that carried you through the down years. Burning a good customer for a hot quarter is a trade you usually regret.

How long do rate upswings usually last?

Nobody can predict the length of a cycle, and anyone who promises to is guessing. What history does show is that upswings driven by genuine capacity exit tend to have more staying power than demand spikes. Plan your finances so you benefit if it lasts but survive if it doesn’t.

Keep learning: Routing Guides Are Crumbling and Contracts Are Being Rebid Mid-Year: Don’t Waste the 2026 Upcycle the Way Trucking Wasted 2021 and One Year of Cleaning Up Trucking: USDOT Has Removed 20,000+ Carriers, Withheld $160 Million From States, and What Legitimate Small Carriers Must Do Now.

Innovative Logistics Group