Shipper spending surged 32.1% in the third quarter — the biggest jump since 2021 — while freight volumes barely moved

U.S. shippers paid the most to move freight since 2021 in the third quarter, and they paid it for almost no additional freight, according to Business Wire on Oct. 29, distributing the latest U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index. Shipper spending surged 32.1% from a year ago — the largest annual increase since 2021 — and rose 5.2% from the second quarter. National shipment volumes, by contrast, increased just 0.5% year over year and 0.4% quarter over quarter. The index attributes the surge primarily to tightened carrier capacity and diesel prices climbing over $6.50 per gallon nationally. U.S. Bank processes $46 billion in freight payments annually, and the index is built from actual transaction payment dates across truckload and less-than-truckload freight, seasonally and calendar adjusted — it is a record of money that actually changed hands, not a survey of intentions.

One detail in the volume figures matters as much as the spending headline. The third quarter was the first time since 2021 that national shipment volumes increased both quarter over quarter and year over year at once — but the gains were, in the release’s own framing, modest at 0.4% and 0.5%. “What makes this quarter notable is that outlays are rising much faster than freight volumes,” said Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations. “Freight demand remains uneven, but companies are encountering tighter truck capacity, higher fuel costs and stronger carrier pricing power. As a result, shippers are spending substantially more to move essentially the same amount of freight.” Read against this week’s editions, the index is the demand-side receipt for what carriers have been saying on earnings calls: Werner’s Derek Leathers described an industry with about 15% of capacity still out of alignment with current regulations, and C.H. Robinson reported the average truckload linehaul rate it charged customers up 31.5% year over year — a figure that sits comfortably inside the index’s 32.1% spending increase.

The regional table shows where the capacity squeeze is biting hardest. Spending rose in every region, both sequentially and year over year. The Southwest posted the largest annual increase at 51.6%, on spending up 8.6% in the quarter even as its shipment volumes fell 2.6% year over year — the release ties that directly to enforcement, noting the region faced especially tight capacity as enforcement actions reduced the availability of drivers hauling domestic loads. The Southeast paired the strongest quarterly shipment gain, 4.7%, with a 9% quarterly and 32.7% annual spending increase. The West’s shipments fell 3.1% in the quarter and 2.1% year over year while spending still rose 31.1% annually, with the release noting California diesel reached $8.25 per gallon in late September. The Midwest was the softest spending region and still rose 25.3% year over year; the Northeast led annual shipment growth at 2.8% with spending up 25.4%.

The fuel half of the story will be familiar to anyone who read Tuesday’s edition: the Energy Information Administration’s national diesel benchmark stood at $6.352 a gallon in the Oct. 27 edition, and the index’s third-quarter average sits in the same territory, with diesel climbing over $6.50 per gallon nationally during the quarter. What the index adds is the pass-through arithmetic. Shippers are not, in aggregate, absorbing the increase by shipping less — volumes ticked up — nor are carriers absorbing it in margin, at least not at the payment level the index measures: the money moved. “Freight conditions vary by region, but cost pressure is widespread,” said Bobby Holland, director of freight business analytics at U.S. Bank. “Even where volumes are flat or declining, tighter capacity and higher operating costs are driving spending higher.”

The practical takeaway is about who holds leverage in the fourth quarter, and the index says it is the carrier with compliant capacity. A market in which spending rises 32.1% on 0.5% more freight is a market paying a scarcity premium — for trucks that can be vetted, insured and crewed under the current enforcement regime, in the regions where that regime has removed the most drivers. For drivers, that is the same negotiating map Werner’s hiring numbers drew on Tuesday, now confirmed from the shipper’s side of the ledger: the money is demonstrably there, and it is concentrated where capacity is tightest. For carriers signing fourth-quarter and 2027 business, the regional spread is the working document — a Southwest shipper paid 51.6% more than a year ago for fewer shipments, which is what a rate conversation sounds like when the other side has already published its desperation in an index.