Prior to the oil shock stemming from the war in Iran, the freight recession that has permeated the trucking industry for more than three years had continued to see promising signs of abating.
According to transportation intelligence provider FTR, preliminary orders for Class 8 heavy-duty trucks soared 159 percent year over year in February. The 47,200 units ordered is the highest order total since September 2022 and the third straight month of 20 percent year-over-year order growth.
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The 2026 order season, which lasted from September 2025 to February, is now up slightly at 4 percent annual growth, a notable improvement from the double-digit declines earlier in the cycle, FTR says.
The steady narrowing of the deficit in recent months, alongside strengthening freight conditions, suggests that the market is not only stabilizing but also transitioning into the early stages of a cyclical recovery.
“While a portion of demand still reflects previously deferred replacement purchases reentering the market, the consistency and breadth of recent order activity suggest momentum is now being driven more meaningfully by improving freight fundamentals,” said Dan Moyer, senior analyst, commercial vehicles of FTR, in a statement.
On Monday, the company followed up the news with its latest Trucking Conditions Index (TCI), which rose to 9.3 in January from December’s 4.85 reading. The January reading was the highest level on the TCI since February 2022, and marks the seventh straight monthly increase since June 2025, when the index fell to -1.83.
A TCI reading above zero represents an adequate trucking environment, with readings above 10 indicating that volumes, prices and margin are in a good range for carriers. The index tracks changes representing five major conditions in the U.S. full-load truck market: freight volumes; freight rates; fleet capacity; fuel price; and financing.
“Surging diesel prices in the wake of military operations in the Middle East will temper overall financial conditions for trucking companies in the near term, though even that development arguably will tighten capacity further by forcing out many of the weakest players,” said Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, in a statement. “However, much stronger freight rates and rising utilization probably will keep most operations afloat, and the longer-term recovery in trucking looks solid.”
Vise noted that carriers dependent on consumer spending face more risks as gas prices rises, namely that the numbers at the pump can add to consumers’ stress from inflation, a weakening job market and tighter cash reserves.
Iran’s attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz has constricted roughly 20 percent of the world’s daily oil supply, thus rapidly escalating fuel costs. The average on-highway price for diesel increased 25 percent to $4.859 for the week ended Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Another indicator said the industry isn’t out of the woods yet. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 0.5 percent in January from the prior-year month, but tonnage gains have still failed to materialize.
“Tonnage has lifted off the recent bottom in October with modest gains in November and January,” said ATA chief economist Bob Costello. “However, truck freight tonnage in January was down 1.3 percent from the 2025 high point in August. The trucking recovery story is more of a supply-side one with those motor carriers remaining benefiting from reduced overall capacity.”
Costello noted during the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) annual convention in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month that the sectors that matter most for trucking, like manufacturing, are not showing strong momentum. Additionally, he noted that services generate roughly two-thirds of GDP growth.
“You’re not putting services in trailers. You’re putting goods in trailers. And we need to focus on that side of the economy,” Costello said, adding that in Q4 2025 goods consumption declined by 0.1 percent.
California revokes 13,000 CDLs; points finger at federal government
A federal crackdown on trucking accreditation and English language proficiency has arguably been another tailwind for the industry, as capacity further aligns with demand as more drivers are taken out of service.
The federal government has ordered the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMVs) to revoke approximately 13,000 non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDL).
California had balked at a prior attempt from the government to get the state to cancel 17,400 CDLs, but the Department of Transportation (DOT) likely forced its hand after pulling nearly $160 million in funding that would have went to highway and infrastructure programs.
“This federal administration is using their war on immigration to remove qualified, hardworking commercial drivers from our workforce who meet language and safety rules,” California DMV director Steve Gordon said in a news release.
Not all non-domiciled CDL holders are affected by this action and all those affected had already received notice from DMV that their licenses are subject to cancellation. Non-domiciled individuals do not have citizenship or lawful permanent resident status, and includes holders of various visas, alongside refugees and asylees.
The DMV previously sought to issue corrected CDLs to affected drivers, consistent with California and federal law, but was blocked from doing so by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
The FMCSA issued a final rule last month in which an employment authorization document would no longer be enough to obtain a non-domiciled CDL. Additionally, asylum seekers, asylees, refugees and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients would be ineligible.
That rule is scheduled to take effect on March 16.
Of the 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders estimated by the FMCSA, the final rule will force about 194,000 to exit the freight market. That would represent roughly 5 percent of the roughly 3.8 million total truck drivers in the U.S., according to 2024 employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
FMCSA administrator Derek Barrs referred to the rule as closing a “critical safety gap” that “allowed unqualified drivers with unknown driving histories to get behind the wheel of commercial vehicles.”
Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied an emergency stay requested by the DMV that would have allowed the department to reissue corrected non-domiciled CDLs to eligible individuals without the risk of retaliatory action by FMCSA.
