Dry van spot rates
Dry van spot linehaul paid to carriers averaged $2.21 per mile this week, minus fuel, down 1.6%, or $0.04 per mile, from the prior week. Rates climbed 35.6%, or $0.58 per mile, year over year and held 23.8%, or $0.42 per mile, above the nine-year seasonal average of $1.78 per mile, near the top of the historical range.
All rates cited are linehaul only. They exclude fuel costs and surcharges unless otherwise noted.
Get the clearest, most accurate view of the truckload marketplace with data from DAT iQ.
Tune into DAT iQ Live, live on YouTube or LinkedIn, 10am ET every Tuesday.
Bellwether states
The 10 dry van bellwether states posted a moves-weighted outbound rate of $2.93 per mile this week, down 1.2%, or $0.04 per mile, week over week and up 40.6%, or $0.85 per mile, year over year. The roster carried 35.6% of all U.S. state-outbound dry van loads, in line with its recent baseline near 35%.
Regional rate trends
| Dry Van — Top 10 Origins by Rate Per Mile · Week Ending August 21, 2026 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Origin Region | Avg RPM | WoW % | YoY % |
| 1 | Ohio River | $2.48 | -1.7% | +38.1% |
| 2 | California | $2.44 | -2.8% | +30.6% |
| 3 | Great Lakes | $2.41 | -2.0% | +31.5% |
| 4 | Lower Midwest | $2.26 | -2.6% | +29.6% |
| 5 | Southeast | $2.22 | -4.3% | +36.9% |
| 6 | Lower Atlantic | $2.21 | -0.6% | +37.1% |
| 7 | Upper Atlantic | $2.18 | +2.1% | +31.7% |
| 8 | Carolinas | $2.17 | -5.1% | +36.2% |
| 9 | South Central | $2.08 | -2.4% | +29.2% |
| 10 | Florida-So Georgia | $1.51 | -5.0% | +34.3% |
The top 10 origins carried 87.8% of all U.S. outbound loads moved in the week. Upper Atlantic led week over week at +2.1%, while most leading origins eased from the prior week as summer volumes softened.
Market conditions
Load posts were roughly flat week over week (up 0.0%) and up 23.7% year over year, while truck posts were down 2.4% week over week and down 28.4% year over year. With capacity pulling back faster than freight, the load-to-truck ratio firmed to 9.88, up from 9.64 a week earlier and well above 5.72 a year ago.
Short-term outlook
The 35-day DAT Rate Forecast puts dry van spot linehaul at $2.19 per mile in late September, within an uncertainty band of about plus or minus $0.07 per mile (3.3% of the forecast point). Across equipment, the dry van band ranks widest. That end-of-forecast rate stands about $0.54 per mile above the actual rate near the same date a year earlier ($1.65 per mile).
Freight demand outlook
The ATA’s advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 1% in July to 113.5, giving back June’s 1.5% gain and landing 0.5% below the same month last year. Year to date, tonnage still runs 1.4% ahead of 2025 on the strength of a strong February through April, but the past few months have turned choppy, and the July dip fits that pattern. Because the index leans heavily on contract freight, it reads demand more than the spot side, and demand currently looks flat — freight volumes aren’t rebounding the way a normal cycle turn would. Outside a few pockets of strength, most notably data center construction tied to the AI buildout, the underlying freight economy remains soft.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said last week that the market’s recent tightening owes almost entirely to capacity leaving, not to freight demand coming back. That lines up with what the spot market has been signaling for months: when tonnage holds flat to lower while rates firm, the tightening is coming from the supply side — trucks and drivers exiting for good — rather than freight volume expanding. For carriers, the rate strength is real but built on a thinner base, with no demand recovery yet to reinforce it. For brokers, capacity can tighten faster than the volume data suggests, so covering loads on short notice may get harder even in a soft freight economy.
