American shippers paid more to move freight in the third quarter of 2026 than at any point in the last five years, even though they barely moved any more freight at all, according to the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index released on Thursday, October 29. The index, built from the bank's actual freight-payment transactions across the United States, found that shipper spending surged 32.1 percent compared with the same quarter a year earlier — the largest annual increase since 2021 — while national shipment volumes rose just 0.5 percent year over year.
Source: U.S. Bank via Business Wire
The gap between the two numbers is the whole story of this report. Spending also rose 5.2 percent from the second quarter to the third, while shipment volumes inched up only 0.4 percent over the same period. It was the first time since 2021 that volumes increased both quarter over quarter and year over year — but the gains were modest, and they were overwhelmed by what U.S. Bank called tightened carrier capacity, rising rates and diesel prices that climbed above $6.50 a gallon nationally.
Source: Reuters
Same freight, a much bigger bill
"What makes this quarter notable is that outlays are rising much faster than freight volumes," said Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations, in the U.S. Bank release. "Freight demand remains uneven, but companies are encountering tighter truck capacity, higher fuel costs and stronger carrier pricing power. As a result, shippers are spending substantially more to move essentially the same amount of freight."
Reuters, reporting the same index on Thursday, tied the cost surge to two forces that have run through American trucking all year: soaring diesel prices following the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, which pushed the national diesel price above $6 a gallon, and a reduction in the number of available truck drivers following federal immigration enforcement actions. "Outlays are rising much faster than freight volume," Costello told Reuters, making the same point — this is a cost and capacity story, not a freight-demand boom.
Source: Reuters
A divided regional map
Spending rose in every region of the country, both from the previous quarter and from a year earlier, but the pressure was sharpest in the Southwest, where shipper spending jumped 51.6 percent year over year and 8.6 percent in a single quarter. U.S. Bank attributed the Southwest's outsized increase to especially tight capacity, as enforcement actions reduced the availability of drivers hauling domestic loads. In the West, spending rose 31.1 percent year over year even as shipment volumes fell 2.1 percent, with California diesel reaching $8.25 a gallon in late September — the most expensive fuel pressure in the nation.
The rest of the map was uneven. Southeast shipments posted the strongest quarterly gain, up 4.7 percent, and Southeast spending rose 9.0 percent in the quarter and 32.7 percent year over year. The Northeast led annual shipment growth at 2.8 percent, with spending up 25.4 percent. The Midwest saw shipments fall 2.5 percent in the quarter but rise 2.4 percent over the year, while its spending increase of 25.3 percent year over year was the smallest regional rise — still roughly a quarter more than a year ago. "Freight conditions vary by region, but cost pressure is widespread," said Bobby Holland, director of freight business analytics at U.S. Bank. "Even where volumes are flat or declining, tighter capacity and higher operating costs are driving spending higher."
Why capacity keeps tightening
The index is one of the most-watched measures in American freight because it is not a survey of opinions. U.S. Bank says its Freight Payment business processes $46 billion in freight payments annually, and the index is calculated from actual transaction payment dates for domestic truckload and less-than-truckload freight, seasonally and calendar adjusted. In other words, the 32.1 percent figure is money that really left shippers' accounts in July, August and September — not a forecast.
For the Punjabi diaspora, this report lands directly on the kitchen table. Punjabi owner-operators and small fleet owners are heavily concentrated in exactly the corridors this index flags hardest — California's Central Valley, where diesel hit $8.25 a gallon, and the Southwest lanes where spending rose fastest. Tighter capacity means the carriers still running have stronger pricing power than they have had in years, and rates per load are being pushed up. But the same report shows why that pricing power is not pure profit: the biggest single driver of the cost surge is the diesel those trucks burn, and every dollar a shipper pays extra is first chased by the fuel bill before anything is left for the truck payment, insurance and maintenance.
If you are still running, the market is finally paying more for the same load — spending is up 32.1 percent on volumes up just 0.5 percent. But protect the margin: with national diesel above $6.50 and California diesel at $8.25 a gallon in late September, a higher rate that ignores fuel-surcharge terms can still lose money. Check the surcharge wording on every contract before signing.
What happens next
The next test comes in the fourth quarter, the traditional peak shipping season running into the holidays, when the next edition of the index will show whether spending keeps climbing on flat volumes or whether shippers start cutting loads they cannot afford to move. For now, the third-quarter verdict from the country's freight payments is unambiguous: America is paying five-year-high prices to move almost exactly the same amount of freight — and the squeeze runs from the shipper's ledger straight down the highway to the driver fuelling up at the pump.