How much do company truck drivers make?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the national median at $58,640 a year ($28.19 an hour) for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers as of May 2025, with a mean of $59,710. That is W-2 pay across all employers and experience levels: the employer carries the truck, fuel, insurance, and maintenance.

How much do owner-operators make after expenses?

No government agency or neutral industry body publishes an authoritative national net-income figure for owner-operators. Averages that circulate online come from lender, factoring, and recruiting marketing pages and cannot be independently verified, so this site does not reproduce them. An owner-operator's take-home is revenue minus the full cost stack above, and both sides vary too much by lane, equipment, and freight market to state one honest number.

What does it cost to run a truck per mile?

ATRI's 2025 fleet-average marginal cost is $2.336 per mile, or $1.854 excluding fuel. It is industry-published research built on a carrier sample that skews larger than a one-truck operation, so treat it as a benchmark to beat, not your number.

Should I become an owner-operator or stay a company driver?

Run the equation, not the dream. Take a realistic revenue-per-mile for your lane and equipment, subtract a fully loaded cost per mile you have built line by line, and compare what is left against a wage that arrives whether or not the truck breaks. If the spread only works when nothing goes wrong, the wage is winning.

Career decisions

Owner-Operator vs Company Driver

A company driver's pay is one number: a W-2 wage, with a national median of $58,640 in May 2025 per BLS. An owner-operator's pay is an equation: revenue minus a cost stack ATRI benchmarks at $2.336 a mile. This page puts both halves of that equation on the table, with sources.

By Haul Handbook editorial team· Updated Jul 22, 2026

What company drivers actually make

The only neutral wage data for this comparison is federal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys employers directly, so its figures are what companies actually pay, not what recruiting ads promise.

Occupation: Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers (SOC 53-3032), May 2025 national estimates.
Median annual wage: $58,640
Median hourly wage: $28.19
Mean annual wage: $59,710
Employment: 2,062,040 drivers

National figures across all employers, sectors, and experience levels. Wages here are W-2 pay: the employer carries the truck payment, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and payroll taxes.

What a mile of trucking costs

The owner-operator side of the math starts with cost per mile, and the most widely cited neutral benchmark comes from the American Transportation Research Institute's annual operational-costs study.

Average marginal cost: $2.336 per mile for 2025, up 3.4 percent year over year.
Excluding fuel: $1.854 per mile, up 4.2 percent.

The line items rising fastest in that study, per ATRI:

Tolls: up 13.2 percent
Repair and maintenance: up 8.6 percent
Driver benefits: up 6.6 percent
Tires: up 6.4 percent

Margins tell the same story. In ATRI's 2025 sample, operating margins by sector came in at:

Truckload and refrigerated carriers: below 1.0 percent
Flatbed carriers: negative 0.5 percent (an operating loss)
Tank carriers: 4.0 percent

ATRI's figure is a fleet-average marginal cost across its carrier sample, which skews larger than a one-truck operation. It is the most widely cited neutral benchmark for what a mile of trucking costs, but it is industry-published research, not a government statistic, and a single owner-operator's cost per mile can sit meaningfully above or below it.

The number nobody can honestly give you

The real math, and how to run it

The comparison is not wage versus revenue; it is wage versus revenue minus everything. Build your own cost per mile from what going independent costs line by line: truck payment, insurance, fuel, maintenance, permits, and the filings that come with your own operating authority. Then price your lane honestly and see what is left over a bad quarter, not a good week.

There is also a middle path. Owning the truck does not force you to hold the authority: you can lease on or run your own authority, and the leasing route keeps the compliance stack on the carrier's side while you learn what your truck really costs to run.