Buying a Trucking Business: What It Costs to Buy an Existing Trucking Company

An existing US trucking company cost a median $1,137,500 to buy across 2021 to 2025, and $1,300,000 at the 2025 median, based on closed BizBuySell sales. Those prices include the tractors and trailers. With an SBA 7(a) loan on a $1,137,500 company, the cash you bring is about $140,600 for the 10 percent equity injection and the SBA guaranty fee, plus working capital, closing costs and a fleet reserve that most buyers forget to budget.

Most pages that answer this question are listings, or guides to starting a trucking company from a single truck and a new MC number. Buying a running trucking business is a different purchase. You pay for drivers, lanes, shippers and equipment that already exist, and one line decides whether the deal works: how much of the earnings the fleet eats every year.

How much does it cost to buy a trucking company?

The median trucking company sold for $1,137,500, on median revenue of $1,954,881 and median owner earnings of $400,000. The median price was $1,300,000 in 2021, dipped to $975,000 in 2022 when smaller fleets sold, peaked at $1,387,500 in 2023 when larger carriers came to market, and was back at $1,300,000 in 2025. Over the same years the median owner earnings of companies that sold rose from $424,996 to $477,848, so the price per dollar of earnings actually fell.

Trucking companies trade on a multiple of seller discretionary earnings (SDE), which is net profit plus the owner's pay, benefits, interest, depreciation and one-time costs. Read the price off the earnings of the company in front of you:

The 2.84x column is the median sale price divided by median owner earnings, the multiple that reproduces what the typical company closed at. The published median multiple is 2.96x, and unlike most sectors the two nearly agree, because trucking deals cluster tightly around three times earnings. The 2.29x and 3.56x columns are the lower and upper quartile of companies sold. Fleet age, contracted freight, customer concentration and the safety rating decide which column a company belongs in. The full spread, the five-year record and a comparison against six other transportation categories are on our trucking company valuation page.

How much money do you need to buy a trucking company?

On a $1,137,500 trucking company financed with an SBA 7(a) loan, plan on about $140,600 of cash for the equity injection and the SBA guaranty fee, before working capital, closing costs and the first equipment bill. Here is the arithmetic on the five-year median price, with the 2025 median alongside:

The coverage looks generous, and that is the trap. A lender wants 1.25 times coverage and the median company shows 2.41 times. But SDE adds depreciation back, so the $154,234 left after the payment and your draw is the entire budget for replacing tractors and trailers, tires, income tax and the next soft freight quarter. One new tractor takes most of it. Working backwards from the median price, the buyer who paid $1,137,500 was setting aside about $112,800 a year for equipment at an $80,000 draw. Budget that number, or a bigger one if the fleet is old, before you decide what you can afford.

The guaranty fee can be financed into the loan, and a seller note can count toward part of the injection under the SBA's standby rules, so the cash figure moves with how your lender structures the deal. Read how an SBA loan to buy a business works for the full set of rules, including the ten year maximum term on a purchase without real estate.

What does the fleet actually cost the buyer?

This is the question the listing will not answer. The equipment is in the price, and the equipment wears out. Run the same SBA loan on the median company at an $80,000 draw with a fixed annual fleet reserve taken off the top:

Every extra $50,000 a year of equipment spending removes about $274,500 of price the loan will carry. A fleet averaging four years old sits near the top of that table. A fleet averaging nine years old sits near the bottom, and the seller's price usually does not. Get the year, mileage and payoff on every unit before the letter of intent, price what you will replace in the first three years, and take it off the offer. Our note on how to calculate maintenance capex shows the arithmetic on a $2,000,000 trucking company line by line.

Should you buy the company or just the trucks and the customers?

In trucking, the deal structure changes what you are buying more than in almost any other sector, because the USDOT number does not transfer. In a bulletin dated March 19, 2026, FMCSA stated that a USDOT number belongs to the same legal person forever and may not be sold, transferred, rented or leased. If the seller runs a corporation or an LLC and you buy the entity, the number, the MC operating authority, the safety history and the insurance loss run stay with it. If the seller is a sole proprietor, or the entity is dissolved after an asset purchase, you apply for your own USDOT number and start in the new entrant program with no safety history.

That cuts both ways. A stock purchase keeps a clean CSA record, which shippers and insurers price, and it keeps contracts that would otherwise need reassignment. It also keeps every liability the company has ever incurred, which is why buyers of a corporation want representations, an escrow and a look at the loss runs going back five years. An asset purchase leaves the liabilities behind and gives you a stepped-up basis in the equipment, but you restart the safety clock. Price the two structures separately; they are not the same business at the same number.

What to check before you make an offer on a trucking company

Trucking diligence is heavily operational, and much of it is public before anyone signs an NDA. Work through it in this order:

• The safety record. Pull the company's CSA scores, inspection history, crash record and any out-of-service orders from FMCSA's public data. A conditional or unsatisfactory rating raises premiums, closes off shippers and, in the transportation M&A guide published by CT Acquisitions, compresses the multiple by 30 to 50 percent. This costs nothing and takes ten minutes.
• Revenue by customer and by lane. Three years, split between contracted freight with annual rate agreements and spot freight. One shipper above 25 to 40 percent of revenue is where CT Acquisitions puts the discount threshold, and above 40 percent buyers move to earnouts or walk. Ask whether the largest contracts assign to a new owner.
• The equipment list. Year, mileage, maintenance file and loan payoff for every tractor and trailer, plus the trailer-to-tractor ratio. Get dealer or auction values, net of the loans, and compare the total to your offer. If the net fleet value is close to the price, you are buying iron with customers attached, and the goodwill you are paying for is thin.
• The drivers. Roster, tenure, pay structure, and how many trucks are parked for want of a seat. The BLS median wage for heavy and tractor-trailer drivers was $58,640 in May 2025, and a parked truck is a hiring cost the buyer funds on top of a payment. If the seller drives, that seat costs the same to fill.
• Insurance. The current premium, the renewal date and five years of loss runs. Commercial auto liability has climbed for years, and you are underwriting the next renewal, not the historical rate.
• Fuel and emissions records. Fuel is the second largest cost after drivers, so verify fuel card statements against miles run. Larger shippers now ask carriers for emissions figures in bids, and a fleet whose fuel records are clean can turn its fuel purchases into a Scope 1 emissions report and keep that freight after the sale.
• Factoring and working capital. If the seller factors receivables, that cost sits inside the margin and a well-capitalized buyer will remove it. Expect the seller to argue that raises the earnings; it does not raise the price. Map the cycle from delivery to cash, because you fund it from closing day.
• The yard. If the sale includes property with service bays, a truck wash or fuel tanks, the lender needs a Phase I environmental site assessment, because SBA SOP 50 10 8 treats trucking (NAICS 484) as environmentally sensitive when those are present. A leased lot with no fuel or maintenance on site skips that step.

How do you know a trucking company for sale is priced right?

Rebuild the price yourself. Start from the earnings you verified, not the listing's, and apply the market's own 2.84x to 2.96x. Trucking listings are unusually honest on the multiple, asking a median 2.97x against 2.96x paid, and listed companies actually report 5.9 percent less owner earnings than the ones that sold. What runs high in listings is the revenue multiple, 0.78x asked against 0.59x paid, so ignore any price justified on revenue. Then run the loan with a fleet reserve: at a 10 percent injection and 1.25x coverage, can the company pay a 10 year loan, give you the income you need, replace the trucks that are due, and still leave something for a bad quarter? If the asking price only works with no equipment spending, it is the seller's price and not yours.

Expect to negotiate. Trucking companies closed at an average 0.93 of asking across the five years and 0.89 in 2025, so a 7 to 11 percent discount from a realistic asking price is normal in this market. If you are working the earnings figure out from the seller's books, start with how to calculate SDE, then put the numbers into the estimator at the top of this page for a value range benchmarked to real trucking company sales. It takes a few minutes and tells you whether the listing deserves an offer before you pay for an appraisal or a fleet inspection.

Frequently asked questions about buying a trucking company

How much does it cost to buy a trucking business?

The median US trucking company sold for $1,137,500 across 2021 to 2025 and $1,300,000 in 2025, with the fleet included. Half of companies sold for between 2.29 and 3.56 times owner earnings. A company earning $232,180, the lower quartile, typically prices between about $532,000 and $827,000, and often close to the value of its equipment.

How much do you need down to buy a trucking company?

With an SBA 7(a) loan, the equity injection is usually 10 percent of the project: $113,750 on a $1,137,500 company. Add the upfront guaranty fee of about $26,900 on that loan unless it is financed, plus closing costs, working capital to carry receivables from day one, and cash for the first equipment bill. A seller note can count toward part of the injection under the SBA's standby rules.

Can you get an SBA loan to buy a trucking company?

Yes, and the lender is rarely the constraint. At 10.5 percent, 10 years, 1.25x coverage, a 10 percent injection and an $80,000 owner draw, $400,000 of owner earnings supports about $1,756,700 of price before any fleet reserve. The median company sells for $1,137,500 because buyers set aside roughly $112,800 a year for trucks first.

Can you keep the MC number when you buy a trucking company?

Only by buying the legal entity that holds it. FMCSA stated in March 2026 that USDOT numbers belong to the same legal person forever and may not be sold or transferred. Buy the corporation or LLC and the USDOT number, the MC authority and the safety history come with it. Buy the assets of a sole proprietor and you apply for your own number as a new entrant.

How much does a trucking company owner make a year?

The median trucking company that sold earned its owner $400,000 on $1,954,881 of revenue, a 20.5 percent margin, and the 2025 median was $477,848. After a 10 year SBA payment on a median-priced purchase, a buyer keeps about $234,000 a year before the owner draw, taxes and equipment replacement, and about $154,000 after an $80,000 draw.