Owner-Operator Cost Per Mile (and Per Km) in 2026: How to Calculate Yours

A broker offers $2.10 a mile. Is that a good load? You can’t answer that until you know one number: what it costs you to move your truck one mile, or one kilometre. Most owner-operators know their fuel bill. Fewer know their real cost per mile once the truck payment, insurance, repairs and their own pay are in. Here’s what the latest research says it costs to run a truck, and a simple way to work out your own number.

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This is general information, not tax, legal or business advice. The benchmark numbers below come from US research and are in US dollars. Your own costs depend on your truck, your lanes and your province or state, so use your own receipts.

What it costs to run a truck in 2026

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) surveys for-hire carriers every year on what it costs them to operate a Class 8 truck. Its 2026 update, covering 2025, found an average cost of $2.336 per mile, up 3.4% from $2.260 in 2024 and the highest in the report’s history. Leave fuel out and costs still rose 4.2%, to $1.854 per mile (ATRI, 2026; ATRI news release). Per hour, that’s $106.69 with fuel and $84.68 without.

Here’s how that $2.336 breaks down. I’ve converted each line to cents per kilometre for Canadian drivers (1 mile = 1.609344 km, per NIST). The money is still US dollars.

Cost line (2025)	US$ per mile	US$ per km
Driver wages	$0.818	$0.508
Fuel	$0.482	$0.300
Truck and trailer payments	$0.404	$0.251
Repair and maintenance	$0.215	$0.134
Driver benefits	$0.210	$0.130
Truck insurance	$0.106	$0.066
Tires	$0.050	$0.031
Tolls	$0.043	$0.027
Permits and licences	$0.008	$0.005
Total	$2.336	$1.452

Source: ATRI’s Table 8, average marginal costs per mile (ATRI, 2026). Every line except fuel and permits hit a record high in 2025. Repair and maintenance jumped 8.6% and tolls 13.2% in one year.

One catch: ATRI’s figures are marginal costs only. They don’t include overhead such as office rent, non-driver staff, software subscriptions and other costs the report doesn’t track (ATRI, 2026). Your real all-in number will be a bit higher than the list above.

What owner-operators report

Owner-operators’ own numbers land in the same range:

• In OOIDA Foundation’s latest freight rate survey, members reported an average operating cost of $2.00 per mile in 2024, down from a high of $2.38 in 2022. Owner-operators who knew their cost of operations earned on average $0.26 more per mile than those who didn’t (OOIDA Foundation, 2025 Freight Rate Survey).
• OOIDA’s 2024 owner-operator survey found members spent an average of $18,900 a year on maintenance, or about $0.23 a mile. That included $3,400 for emissions-related repairs and $3,300 for damage from poor roads. The average truck was 12 years old, and about 20% of miles were deadhead (OOIDA Foundation, 2024 Owner-Operator Member Profile).
• Carrier-contracted owner-operator rates averaged $2.08 per mile in 2025, slipping for a second year in a row. That’s below ATRI’s average truckload cost of $2.21 a mile (ATRI, 2026, Table 16).

That last point matters. If you’re leased on at about the average rate and your costs look like the average carrier’s, there’s very little left over. Knowing your own number is how you find out which side of that line you’re on.

Fixed costs and running costs

OOIDA splits your costs into two buckets, and it’s the easiest way to think about it (OOIDA, Cost Per Mile; OOIDA, Understanding the Cost of Operations):

• Fixed costs are what you pay every month whether the wheels turn or not: truck and trailer payments, insurance, plates, permits, licences, ELD and accounting. Parked for a week waiting on a better load? These keep adding up.
• Variable (running) costs go up the more you drive: fuel, tires, repairs and maintenance, tolls, meals and lodging.

The split tells you two useful things. Running more kilometres spreads your fixed costs thinner, so your cost per kilometre drops. And your variable costs are the ones you can cut fastest, with better fuel mileage, less idling and fewer empty kilometres.

How to work out your own cost per mile or km

1. Add up a month of fixed costs. Use real statements: truck payment, trailer payment, insurance divided by 12, plates and permits divided by 12, ELD, phone, accounting and parking.
2. Find your total kilometres or miles for the month. Use loaded and empty distance. Your ELD or odometer is the honest source. Leaving out deadhead makes your number look better than it is.
3. Work out fuel cost per km. Litres per 100 km, times the price per litre, divided by 100. If you don’t know your real mileage, my guide on calculating truck fuel mileage walks through it with a fill-up.
4. Set a repair, tire and DEF reserve per km. Look back at a year of shop bills and divide by the kilometres you ran. Older truck? Plan for more.
5. Add your own pay. If you leave yourself out, you’ve only found your break-even, not what you need to earn.
6. Divide. Fixed costs ÷ km, plus fuel per km, plus reserve per km, plus your pay ÷ km. That’s your all-in cost per km.

The free cost per km calculator does these steps for you. Enter your monthly fixed costs, km, diesel price, fuel use, repair reserve and the pay you want, and it shows your break-even and all-in cost per km. Your numbers stay on your phone.

A worked example

These are made-up round numbers to show the math, not benchmarks. Swap in your own.

• Fixed costs: CA$6,000 a month
• Distance: 15,000 km a month, loaded and empty
• Fuel: 36 L/100 km at CA$1.60 a litre = 0.36 × $1.60 = $0.576 per km
• Repair, tire and DEF reserve: $0.20 per km
• Fixed cost per km: $6,000 ÷ 15,000 = $0.40 per km
• Break-even before your pay: $0.576 + $0.20 + $0.40 = $1.176 per km
• Your pay: CA$6,000 a month ÷ 15,000 km = $0.40 per km
• All-in cost: $1.576 per km

Now the deadhead check. If 20% of those kilometres are empty, only 12,000 km are paying. To cover $1.576 on every kilometre you drive, your loaded kilometres need to bring in $1.576 ÷ 0.8 = about $1.97 per loaded km. That’s the number to hold in your head when a broker calls.

To check one load against your number, plug the rate, loaded and empty distance, and fuel into the load calculator. If you’ll be sitting at the dock, count those hours too. My guide to detention pay explains how to log and bill the wait.

Your cost and your taxes aren’t the same thing

Your cost per km is a business number for pricing loads. Your tax return follows its own rules:

• Canada: your truck payment isn’t deducted the way it shows on your bank statement. A freight truck rated above 11,788 kg goes in capital cost allowance (CCA) Class 16, at a 40% rate (CRA, Classes of depreciable property). Meals have their own rules too. The free CRA meal claim calculator helps with that part.
• US: if you’re on the road overnight, read my guide to US per diem and the 80% rule.

When in doubt, ask an accountant who works with truckers. Keep every receipt either way: the same records that build your cost per km back up your tax return.

Ways to bring your number down

• Cut empty kilometres. Deadhead adds cost with no revenue. Price the trip home before you take the load out.
• Watch fuel mileage. Fuel is one of the biggest lines after pay. Track L/100 km every fill so you notice when it drifts.
• Keep up with maintenance. ATRI found small truckload fleets that spend less on equipment tend to spend more on repairs (ATRI, 2026). Planned service usually costs less than a breakdown on the shoulder.
• Know your fixed costs before you sit. Waiting two days for a better rate costs you two days of payments and insurance. Sometimes the shorter load now is the better deal.

Food is one of the easiest running costs to cut. A plug-in 12V cooler like the Koolatron 12V Car Fridge, 34 L / 36 qt (paid link) and a RoadPro 12V Portable Stove (paid link) let you bring food from home and skip a lot of truck-stop meals. For the rest of the gear I keep in my own truck, see Tools I use.

Free tools to track it

• Cost per km calculator: your break-even and all-in cost per km.
• Load calculator: is this load worth it at your number?
• CRA meal claim calculator: your meal claim for the year.
• All free calculators: everything in one place, free and on your phone.

I’m also working on Haul Saints Pro, and a monthly cost report that builds your cost per km from your trips and receipts is one of the ideas. If that would help you, join the Pro waitlist and tell me what you’d use.

Do the math when you’re parked, not while you’re driving. Drive safe.

Amar, driver since 2018 and founder of Haul Saints

Sources: ATRI, An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2026 Update (2025 data) · ATRI news release, July 2026 · OOIDA Foundation, 2025 Freight Rate Survey (2024 data) · OOIDA Foundation, Owner-Operator Member Profile Survey 2024 · OOIDA, Cost Per Mile · OOIDA, Understanding the Cost of Operations · Canada Revenue Agency, Classes of depreciable property · NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 conversion factors