At least 16 carriers file for bankruptcy in a month as small fleets carry the debt

At least 16 trucking companies have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past month, according to FreightWaves on Oct. 21, reviewing federal bankruptcy records for Sept. 18 through Oct. 21. The filings span general freight, petroleum transportation and logging and timber hauling, and range from single-truck operators to carriers reporting dozens of power units. They split between Chapter 7 liquidations and Chapter 11 cases, which generally let a business restructure its debts while potentially continuing to operate.

The largest balance sheet in the review belongs to Chicago-based Midwest Expedited Co., which filed for Chapter 11 on Oct. 6 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The company lists 95 trucks on its LinkedIn page but identified just seven Freightliner trucks in its bankruptcy schedules, and reported approximately $2.31 million in liabilities against $108,351 in assets — $935,384 in secured claims and approximately $1.38 million in nonpriority unsecured claims. The seven scheduled trucks, Freightliner M2 models from 2023 and 2024, are collectively valued at $107,500, and FreightWaves noted they are not necessarily representative of the fleet the company previously reported.

Revenue collapse shows up in Texas. El Paso-based Site2Site Transport filed for Chapter 7 on Sept. 29 after gross revenue fell from approximately $2.1 million in 2024 to $1.6 million in 2025 — a decline of roughly 24% — and reported no gross revenue from Jan. 1, 2026, through its filing date; the filing disclosed leases on eight trucks and liabilities exceeding $493,000. McAllen-based American Petroleum Carriers filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas, listing 16 trucks and 10 drivers.

The rest of the list is mostly small fleets. KLS Logging Inc. of Lyons, Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 with 53 power units and 28 drivers hauling logs, poles, beams and lumber. Eskil Trucking of Lakeview, Oregon, filed for Chapter 11 reporting more than $1 million in liabilities and no more than $500,000 in assets, with nearly $855,000 owed to Sargent Transportation as its largest creditor claim. In Illinois, Maksteel Transport, with five trucks and three drivers, and Douglass Logistics, with 15 trucks and 10 drivers, both filed Chapter 11 on Sept. 23; Windy City Supply Chain filed Chapter 7 on Oct. 2 with 20 owner-operator drivers; and one-truck Lake Zurich carrier Xcalibur Logistics filed Chapter 7. Filings also landed in North Carolina, Michigan, Alabama and West Virginia.

FreightWaves' own caution is part of the story: the filings are another indication of financial stress among smaller carriers, but they do not by themselves establish an industrywide increase in bankruptcies. They land in the same week Heartland Express credited industry capacity reductions for its first real profit since 2023 — the exits of carriers like these are the mechanism behind that tightening, one small fleet at a time.