Van spot rate hits $3.05 a mile in October, highest since early 2022

Spot rates reached their strongest monthly levels in more than four years in October, according to DAT Freight & Analytics on Nov. 10, as brokers paid carriers roughly a dollar a mile more than a year ago to move fewer loads into the holiday season. The average dry van spot rate rose to $3.05 a mile for the month, up $0.04 from September and up $0.98 from a year earlier — the highest monthly average since February 2022. Reefer averaged $3.60 a mile, down $0.02 from September but up $1.12 year over year, and flatbed averaged $3.61, unchanged from September and up $1.10 from a year ago. DAT put all three equipment types about 45% higher than a year earlier.

Those spot figures are broker-to-carrier prices, and they are all-in: DAT notes that spot pricing is normally negotiated as a single rate rather than as linehaul plus a separate fuel surcharge — unlike the contract numbers below, which include fuel. The October spot averages also had to absorb diesel prices near the year's highs, which is why the linehaul-versus-fuel split inside the rate, covered further down, matters.

The October result was not a one-month spike. DAT's average spot rates for the first ten months of 2026 — $2.78 a mile for van, $3.25 for reefer and $3.36 for flatbed — are the highest for that January-through-October stretch in the company's monthly records, which go back to 2010. The previous highs for the period were set in 2022, the last time the market ran this hot. In other words, 2026 has quietly out-earned the 2022 market on a ten-month average, and October extended that pattern.

Contract rates, which include fuel surcharges, moved to record territory of their own. The van contract rate rose $0.04 to $3.28 a mile, matching the record set in May 2022. The reefer contract rate reached $3.62 a mile and the flatbed contract rate $4.05 a mile, and DAT said those two set records for a second and a third consecutive month, respectively. For drivers on percentage pay, the gap is the story: contract van is paying above spot van on an all-in basis, while spot remains the more volatile of the two heading into peak season.

Inside the spot rate, the fuel portion is doing more of the work than the freight portion. Spot linehaul — the rate with fuel stripped out — averaged $2.22 a mile for van, up $0.05 from September and up $0.55 year over year; $2.69 for reefer, down $0.01 and up $0.65; and $2.61 for flatbed, up $0.01 and up $0.59. All three sit below their 2026 highs, which came in July for van at $2.39 and reefer at $2.75, and in June for flatbed at $2.94. Since July, van linehaul has fallen $0.17 a mile while the fuel component inside the van rate rose $0.21 — a reminder that part of the headline rate strength is diesel pass-through, not freight demand. Contract linehaul rose as well in October, to $2.45 a mile for van, $2.71 for reefer and $3.05 for flatbed.

Volumes moved the other way. DAT's Truckload Volume Index, which counts loads moved of 250 miles or more in the U.S. and Canada against a baseline of 100 for January 2015, put van volume at 254 in October, down 1% from September and down 2% from a year earlier. Reefer volume was 184, up 1% on the month but down 9% year over year, and flatbed volume was 298, down 1% on the month and down 7% year over year. Fewer loads, higher prices: the combination points to capacity, not demand, as the force setting rates — which DAT's load-board data supports, with equipment posts on DAT One running about 22% to 26% below last year.

Fuel is the cost eating the other side of the rate. The national average diesel price was about $6.25 a gallon in October, according to the Energy Information Administration figures DAT cited — down slightly from $6.29 in September but about $2.60 a gallon higher than a year earlier. DAT's estimated average fuel surcharge slipped $0.01 from September's record levels to $0.83 a mile for van, $0.91 for reefer and $1 for flatbed, roughly double the year-earlier amounts. Put as daily math: a tractor running 500 miles a day at 6 miles per gallon burned about $521 worth of fuel a day in October, against about $310 a day in February.

"Brokers moved fewer loads than a year ago and paid carriers about a dollar a mile more to move them last month," said Dean Croke, DAT's principal industry analyst, adding that carriers head into the holiday season positioned to be selective about freight and negotiate better rates despite high fuel and operating costs. For drivers, the practical read is twofold. First, judge an all-in spot quote after fuel: at October's diesel prices, the linehaul underneath a $3.05 van rate is $2.22, and that number has to cover everything else. Second, with capacity this thin and contract rates at records, carriers and owner-operators renewing agreements now negotiate from the strongest position since 2022 — but the volume index says freight itself is not growing, so the leverage comes from scarcity, which can cut both ways if demand slips after the holidays.