Carrier & Broker Failures in 2024–2025 and Why 2026 May Bring One Last Wave
Written by: David Jencks, Esq., Jencks Law, P.C.
By any historical measure, the last few years have been brutal for transportation companies. The “Great Freight Recession” has dragged on through weak demand, low spot rates, stubbornly high costs, and tightening credit. Closures and bankruptcies have hit both ends of the over-the-road ecosystem: asset-based motor carriers and non-asset freight brokers.
This piece pulls together what we know about 2024 and 2025 from FMCSA-based data and industry research and then looks ahead to 2026, where there is a credible case for one more shakeout before the market finally rebalances.
1. Motor carriers: from bloodbath to grinding correction
2024: another year of heavy carrier attrition
FMCSA authority data analyzed by TruckInfo.net showed a net contraction of nearly 10,000 motor carriers in just the first half of 2024.[1] That was on top of an estimated 88,000 trucking authorities revoked in 2023, making 2024 a continuation of a historic capacity purge.[2]
A few themes stand out:
Closures > new entrants. Trucking Dive’s review of Q2 2024 FMCSA data found that more trucking businesses left than entered the market, with around 9,000 carriers exiting in April alone, even as the monthly exit pace began to slow into May and June.[3]
Not just “truck-for-a-year” fleets anymore. By late 2024, analysis from Motive noted that the average age of carriers leaving the market had risen to three years, and that half of all exits in 2024 involved carriers older than three years, up from 37% in 2023, evidence that the downturn was catching more established operators, not just pandemic-era startups.[4]
Many exits, few formal bankruptcies. For small fleets, the default path is still to park equipment and surrender authority rather than file Chapter 11. The “bankruptcy” part of the story is under-counted because so many closures are administrative, not judicial.[2]
In short, 2024 was still a carrier-capacity destruction year—just less explosive than 2023, but from a higher base of authorities.
2025: closures remain elevated, bankruptcies more visible
Moving into 2025, the numbers say the purge didn’t stop—it just changed shape.
A mid-2025 synthesis of FMCSA data and trade reporting estimated:
Carrier exits remained extremely high, with some analyses pegging shutdowns in the range of 1,000–1,500 carriers per week in early 2025 and thousands of authorities revoked or surrendered each month.[2]
Individual months were still ugly: one widely circulated breakdown cited over 7,000 trucking businesses exiting in a single spring month of 2025, the highest in more than a year.[2]
What did change is that formal bankruptcies among mid-sized fleets became more visible. Trade and finance press began tallying identifiable Chapter 11 filings, documenting dozens of carrier bankruptcies across 2024–2025, including long-standing regional and specialized fleets.[2]
Year-over-year read:
Relative to 2024, the rate of carrier exits started to slow, but from a historically high level.[3]
However, the proportion of failures ending in Chapter 11 appears to be climbing as more mid-sized fleets, with equipment loans and structured finance, turn to the courts rather than simply walking away.
For credit and risk purposes, 2025 looks like a grinding correction phase rather than a sudden collapse: capacity is still leaving (net stabilization positive), but more of the “next tier up” fleets are now showing up in the bankruptcy data.
2. Freight brokers: thousands of exits, then a fragile floor
2024: broker cull in earnest
The freight brokerage side has its own version of the story, and the data are somewhat cleaner because broker authorities are tracked as a distinct population.
Two key sources agree on the magnitude:
A Saint John Capital analysis, based on FMCSA data, reports that over 3,100 freight brokerages shut down in 2024, on top of almost 2,400 broker closures in 2023.[5]
Brush Pass Research, using Carrier Details data, likewise notes that 2024 closed with 3,104 fewer freight brokerages than 2023, and a total of 5,409 brokerage authorities removed since January 2022.[6]
By early 2024, Freight Caviar/Brush Pass coverage was already highlighting a 7–8% year-over-year decline in the number of active brokers and multiple consecutive months of net broker losses.[7]
The bottom line: between 2022 and 2024, the U.S. lost roughly one in five freight brokerages.
2025: still shrinking, but the descent slows
By early 2025, the broker story shifted from “free fall” to “slow grind”:
Brush Pass’ January 2025 update reported a net decrease of just 63 brokerages that month, bringing the total to 25,271 active brokers, a 9.9% year-over-year decline—still negative, but the trend “appears to have stabilized since Q4 2024.”[8]
A follow-up April 2025 post noted that active freight brokerages were down 8.6% versus March 2024, with 25,087 active MCs and a two-year decline of 18.3%.[9]
Subsequent social-data snapshots show monthly net changes easing even further—one May 2025 look cited a net decline of just 15 brokerages, a stark contrast to the multi-hundred monthly losses of 2023–2024.[10]
Year-over-year read:
Broker attrition clearly continued from 2024 into 2025, but the rate of decline is slowing, suggesting we’re closer to the “bottom” in broker count than we were a year ago.[6] [8] [9]
The brokers that remain are, on average, larger and better-capitalized, while the fringe of ultra-thin, single-person shops has thinned out.
3. What’s been driving the damage?
Across both carriers and brokers, a few structural drivers keep repeating in the data and commentary:
1. Long, shallow freight recession. Multiple analyses describe the period through 2024–2025 as the longest modern downturn in truckload freight—the “Great Freight Recession”—lasting more than three years of weak demand and low rates.[11] [12]
2. Persistent overcapacity. Even after tens of thousands of carriers exits, TruckInfo.net notes the industry still had over 64,000 more motor carriers than before the pre-COVID boom as of mid-2024, implying excess capacity remained despite the purge.[1]
3. Cost inflation outpacing rates. The Financial Times reported that while U.S. trucking demand began to show signs of life in 2024, rate gains lagged a sharp rise in marginal costs, with insurance, maintenance, technology, and interest costs rising more than 6% and hitting small and mid-sized fleets hardest.[4] [13]
4. Credit tightening and higher-for-longer rates. Industry and investment-research pieces describe small carriers and brokers as squeezed between elevated borrowing costs and limited pricing power, with many failures attributed to cash-flow stress rather than lack of freight alone.[4] [18]
5. Regulatory and enforcement questions. Commentators also point to stricter drug/alcohol enforcement, English-proficiency rules for CDL holders, and immigration crackdowns as accelerants for capacity exits—especially among small fleets relying on non-traditional driver pools.[11] [14] [18]
Together, these forces explain why the market hasn’t “snapped back” despite some positive demand indicators: too much capacity, too much debt, too many fixed costs, and too little rate power.
4. Looking ahead: will 2026 bring one more wave of bankruptcies?
The natural question for any factor, lender, or secured creditor is: Are we past the worst, or is there another leg down?
No one knows exactly, but several credible signals suggest 2026 could bring one final shakeout of carriers and brokers before the industry truly rebalances.
4.1 Carrier Forecast: rebalancing, not a boom
ACT Research’s late-2025 outlook characterizes the current phase as an “extended correction cycle”: the sharp 2023 contraction is over, but capacity rebalancing is slow and uneven, with fleet profitability still near recessionary lows.[15]
Their 2026 commentary is even more pointed:
ACT’s commercial vehicle outlook projects “considerable declines in equipment demand in 2026”, noting that truckload margins remain at historic lows and spot/contract rates are not sufficient to offset cost inflation.[16]
Separate ACT analysis of Class 8 truck sales projects that as fleets move into late 2025 and early 2026, priorities will center on cost containment, equipment-life extension, and liquidity, with any meaningful rebound in equipment demand dependent on a clearer freight recovery and regulatory outlook.[17]
4.2 Freight brokers: bottoming, but not out of the woods
On the broker side, Brush Pass and Somerset Logistics data show that the pace of broker exits has slowed markedly in early 2025, but the sector is still 8–10% smaller year-over-year, and about 18% smaller than two years ago.[6] [8] [9]
Looking forward:
If truckload capacity continues to consolidate and regulatory enforcement trims fringe carriers, brokers with strong carrier relationships and balance sheets may benefit from tighter capacity and improving margins.
But smaller, undercapitalized brokerages with thin shipper portfolios remain at risk, especially if shippers consolidate volumes with larger 3PLs and credit standards tighten further.
It’s reasonable to expect fewer, but larger, brokerages in 2026, with another round of exits among shops that lack scale, working capital, or technology. However, a counterintuitive proposition could also exist: larger brokerages struggle to continue to access the liquidity to survive continued margin pressures. This would expose larger brokerages to market exits. Large broker exits are where the most pain will be felt for Factors.
5. Practical takeaways for 2026: how to underwrite “one more wave”
Putting all of this together, there is a defensible, research-backed thesis that:
2023–2024 were the violent phase of the shakeout; 2025–2026 will be the grinding phase where one last wave of marginal carriers and brokers exits under pressure from costs, regulation, and higher-for-longer interest rates.
For factors, lenders, and other trade-credit providers, that suggests a few concrete implications:
1. Do not interpret slower closure counts as “all clear.” The data show net exits slowing, not reversing. In a slow-recovery environment, that’s often when leveraged, mid-sized players finally run out of runway.[3] [6] [15]
2. Watch leverage and fixed-cost intensity more than size alone. The profiles most at risk in 2026 are likely:
Mid-sized fleets that expanded aggressively during the 2020–2021 boom and are now servicing high-cost equipment debt in a low-rate environment; and
Brokerages or carriers that rely on sub-prime capital, that are already heavily leveraged, have limited shipper diversity, or face heightened compliance exposure.
3. Expect continued consolidation of both carriers and brokers. Forecasts calling for slow demand growth and lingering excess capacity through 2027 imply that rationalization is not finished.[18] [19]
4. Price in a “final wave” scenario. From a risk-pricing standpoint, it is prudent to assume one more round of elevated bankruptcies and closures in 2026, especially if:
Interest rates remain high;
Tariffs and trade frictions continue to suppress goods demand;
Sub-prime lenders struggle; and
Traditional lenders turn an increasingly tough credit eye toward existing heavy leverage and the transportation industry as a four letter word.
If that wave is smaller than expected, so much the better.
6. Summary
2024 saw massive carrier and broker attrition, with 10,000 net carrier exits in H1 and more than 3,100 broker closures for the year.[1] [5] [6]
2025 has shifted into a slower but still painful correction, with fewer net exits but more visible mid-sized carrier bankruptcies and continued broker consolidation.[2] [3] [8] [9]
2026, based on ACT, FTR, and other outlooks, is unlikely to deliver a broad-based carrier side boom. Instead, forecasts point to weak but improving freight, persistent but less overcapacity, declining equipment demand, and uncertainty over the regulatory environment related to non-English speaking drivers and CDL holders, all of which are consistent with one more wave of failures before the market finally tightens.[15] [16] [18] [19] [20]
For anyone extending credit into this sector, the working assumption for 2026 should be “rebalancing through attrition”—and underwriting standards should reflect that reality.
About David Jencks, Esq.
David Jencks is an attorney with more than 25 years of experience in transportation and transportation finance. He represents factors and transportation companies in both transactional matters and litigation. David is a member of the Transportation Lawyers Association and serves as co–general counsel to the International Factoring Association. For nearly two decades, he has been a featured keynote speaker at the IFA’s Annual Conference and its Transportation Factoring Meeting. He has also led numerous trainings and webinars on all facets of transportation factoring, including account management, credit, technology issues, fraud prevention, risk management, problem-load resolution, billing practices, and legal compliance. David can be reached at davidjencks@jenckslaw.com.
The views expressed in the Commercial Factor website are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the International Factoring Association.
Footnotes
TruckInfo.net, Thousands of Motor Carriers Close in First Half of 2024 (Sept. 10, 2024).
Trucking Bankruptcies in 2024 & 2025 (YTD), The Logistics War Room (June 16, 2025).
Trucking Dive, ‘Still highly negative’: Capacity attrition slows in Q2 (July 12, 2024).
Motive, Trucking Industry Trends: Recovery & Stabilization Ahead (Nov. 22, 2024).
Saint John Capital, As Freight Broker Closures Are Rising, True Non-Recourse Factoring Is Essential (2024).
Brush Pass Research, 2024 closes with 3,104 fewer freight brokerages (Jan. 7, 2025).
Freight Caviar / Brush Pass Research, 7.8% Fewer Brokerages Than a Year Ago (Jan. 24, 2024).
Brush Pass Research, January 2025 Freight Brokerage Data: A Positive Outlook (Feb. 27, 2025).
Brush Pass Research, Still no traction in the freight brokerage market (Apr. 2, 2025).
Kevin Hill, LinkedIn post on April 2025 freight brokerage data (2025).
Tank Transport Trader, Great Freight Recession 2025 – Grim Unprecedented Downturn (Aug. 6, 2025); see also Freight Waves coverage of the prolonged freight downturn.
Intek Logistics, Freight Exits Persist – What Does It Mean for the Market? (Feb. 9, 2024).
Financial Times, Trucking industry shows signs of life after long downturn in US (Aug. 9, 2024).
Cogo Insurance, Immigration Crackdown and Trucking Capacity: What Fleet Owners Need to Know in 2025 (2025).
ACT Research, Trucking Industry Forecast for 2025 (blog, Nov. 21, 2025) and related coverage.
ACT Research, A New Breaking Point – Freight Forecast blog on 2026 equipment demand (2025).
ACT Research, Class 8 Truck Sales Forecast for 2026 (blog, 2025).
The Trucker, Uncertain outlook: Analysts look ahead to the future of freight (Oct. 31, 2025); CCJ coverage of FTR’s slow-recovery forecast (July 11, 2025).
Wicker Park Logistics, Weak Demand, Continued Overcapacity Keep Rates Depressed (Sept. 18, 2025); JOC summary of FTR’s excess-capacity outlook through 2027.
RSM US, A capacity shakeout could rebalance freight in 2026 (2025).