The Freight Bill: Who Gets Paid to Move a Box
Summary
U.S. shippers moved about $18.0 trillion of goods in 2022 — roughly 12.2 billion tons (Census & Commodity Flow Survey). This Sky survey follows that freight dollar by mode: trucks capture nearly three-quarters of it, and one leg — for-hire carriers, the trucks a shipper pays by the load — is the single largest at 44.8 percent. Rail, water, pipeline, and air split a thin remainder, each for the kind of cargo it moves cheapest.
The dollar rides mostly on wheels
Every shipment travels by some mode: truck, rail, water, air, pipeline, or a handoff between them. By value, trucks dominate. Trucks of all kinds carried 73.5 percent of the freight dollar⧉ — $13.2 trillion of goods — on 68.1 percent of the weight. The other modes share what is left.
View data as table
| For-hire truck (carriers you pay) | 44.8% |
|---|---|
| Company-owned truck | 23% |
| Parcel, USPS, or courier | 13.4% |
| Customer pick-up (buyer collects) | 5.7% |
| Pipeline | 3.3% |
| Rail | 3.2% |
| Water | 1% |
| Air | 0.9% |
One leg collects most of the bill
Split the truck share and one leg stands out: for-hire carriers — the trucks a shipper pays by negotiated rate — moved 44.8 percent of all freight value⧉, the single largest leg. Company-owned fleets moving a firm's own goods were 23.0 percent, and customer pick-up, where the buyer simply collects the goods and nobody is paid to ship, was 5.7 percent. For-hire shipments also travel farthest among trucks, 381 miles on average — the longer hauls companies hand to a carrier rather than drive themselves.
Each mode carries what it carries cheapest
The thin modes are not small — they are specialized. Rail carried 12.0 percent of the weight but only 3.2 percent of the value: heavy, low-value bulk at about $390 a ton. Parcel, post, and courier⧉ were the mirror image — 13.4 percent of the value on half a percent of the weight, roughly $38,974 a ton. Air, the costliest leg, moved the longest average haul for goods whose value justifies the price. Where a box rides is mostly a question of what it is worth per pound.
- Most of the freight dollar moves by truck. Of about $18.0 trillion of goods shipped in 2022 (roughly 12.2 billion tons), trucks carried 73.5 percent of the value on 68.1 percent of the weight — the economy's goods ride mostly on highways.
- For-hire carriers are the single largest paid leg. The trucks a shipper hires by the load moved 44.8 percent of all freight value, ahead of company-owned fleets at 23.0 percent; parcel, post, and courier together were 13.4 percent, and customer pick-up — no carrier paid — was 5.7 percent.
- Each mode carries what it moves cheapest. Rail took 12.0 percent of the weight for 3.2 percent of the value (about $390 a ton); parcel took 13.4 percent of the value on 0.5 percent of the weight (about $38,974 a ton). Where a box rides tracks its value per pound.
Where this sits. This is one slice of Sky: Industries* — a survey, industry by industry, of how the money moves. Logistics' slice is the freight bill split by mode, and who collects it. The next slice is housing: how a house becomes an asset — its price, the mortgage, and the secondary market that buys the loan. Figures here use the most recent issuer data — the Census Bureau and 2022 Commodity Flow Survey (Table A1a) for the mode split, and value added for 2024. The covers goods shipped by manufacturers, wholesalers, and other selected industries; it is a large but not total census of freight, and its value figures are not adjusted for price changes.
Sources(3) ▾
- U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2022 Economic Census: Transportation — Commodity Flow Survey, United States (Table A1a, Shipment Characteristics by Mode of Transportation) (2025-06-26) — The 2022 Commodity Flow Survey () United States report, read via pdftotext -layout. Table A1a (Shipment Characteristics by Mode of Transportation for the United States: 2022) is the source of the national totals and the per-mode value and weight split: all modes $17,996,782 million and 12,169,793 thousand tons; truck as a single mode $13,222,965 million (73.5% of value) and 8,293,501 thousand tons (68.1% of weight); within truck, for-hire $8,062,541 million (44.8%), company-owned $4,141,550 million (23.0%), and customer pick-up $1,018,874 million (5.7%); parcel//courier $2,403,012 million (13.4%); pipeline $589,646 million (3.3%); rail $568,541 million (3.2%); water $171,131 million (1.0%); air $155,933 million (0.9%); plus the average-distance-per-shipment column (for-hire truck 381 miles, rail 614, parcel 776, air 1,254). counts shipments by manufacturers, wholesalers, and other selected shipping industries; it excludes most crude-oil pipeline, farm, and services shipments, so it is a large but not total census of goods movement. Value-of-shipment estimates are not adjusted for price changes. census.gov · original document
- U.S. Census Bureau, Census Bureau Reports Shipment of U.S. Goods Reached 12.2 Billion Tons and $18.0 Trillion (2025-06-26) — Census Bureau press release announcing the 2022 results. Corroborates the headline totals — 12.2 billion tons valued at $18.0 trillion — and the truck share (8.3 billion tons, 68.1%, worth $13.2 trillion, 73.5%) and customer pick-up ($1.0 trillion, 1.4 billion tons, 11.4% of tonnage) read from Table A1a. census.gov · original document
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross Domestic Product by Industry Group, Fourth Quarter and Year 2024 (Third Estimate) (2025-03-27) — -by-Industry release, read via pdftotext -layout. Table 14 (Gross Domestic Product by Industry Group: Level and Change) gives the current-dollar value added of the Transportation and warehousing industry for full-year 2024 ($969.2 billion) against total current-dollar ($29,184.9 billion) — the scale anchor placing the sector that moves the freight in the economy. 's Transportation and warehousing industry spans passenger and freight transport, transit, warehousing, and support activities, so it is broader than freight alone, and value added is a different measure than the value of goods shipped. bea.gov · original document
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In 2022, U.S. shippers moved about $18.0 trillion of goods⧉ — roughly 12.2 billion tons, about $1,479 of value for every ton. From altitude, all of it is one river of boxes, pallets, tankers, and rail cars. Follow the dollar that pays to move it and the river splits by mode. This slice follows that split — and lands on the one leg that collects most of the bill.