RXO: TL market seeing ‘biggest structural change’ since deregulation

“January and February are often the slowest shipping months of the year, yet industry-wide tender rejections are at their highest levels since 2022 and are outpacing seasonality,” RXO said in a report. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Todd Maiden

Wed, February 25, 2026 at 4:08 AM GMT+9 4 min read

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Freight broker RXO said it expects truckload spot rates to run ahead of contract rates in the coming months, noting “the capacity situation is much more fragile than at any point since 2022.”

RXO’s (NYSE: RXO) proprietary spot rate index was up 5.2% year over year in the fourth quarter after increasing just 1.8% in the third quarter. The latest period snapped a three-quarter trend of decelerating rate increases, according to a quarterly outlook from the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company.

It characterized the fourth quarter as “still predominantly a shippers’ market,” but said the dynamic shifted in December due to “continued attrition in carrier capacity” alongside late peak season demand and winter storms. The company’s spot rate index, which excludes fuel, is up 18.7% y/y so far through the first quarter.

“Over the last two years, while we’ve had some spikes, the market couldn’t seem to sustain any significant upward momentum and would return to baseline shortly afterwards,” said Corey Klujsza, vice president of pricing and procurement at RXO, in a news release. “This time has been different, as we’ve seen the market continue to run hot well after the busy holiday season.”

SONAR: National Truckload Index (linehaul only – NTIL.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). The NTIL is based on an average of booked spot dry van loads from 250,000 lanes. The NTIL is a seven-day moving average of linehaul spot rates excluding fuel. Spot rates stepped higher through peak season as new constraints on the driver pool took hold. Severe winter weather amid a tighter capacity backdrop kept rates elevated in recent weeks. To learn more about SONAR, click here.

English-language proficiency requirements, non-domiciled CDL restrictions, a crackdown on ELD providers and forced closures of driver schools are tightening the screws on capacity, which had been loose for over three years. While demand remains subdued, the for-hire market continues to firm.

Derek Leathers, chairman and CEO at Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN), said last week at an investor conference that the industry is still “only in the early innings” of heightened regulatory enforcement. He believes the impacts are much more severe on the fragmented one-way side of the market, where operators are “coloring outside the lines.”

RXO’s report also pointed to a net reduction of 2,648 operating authorities last year, with nearly half being relinquished in the fourth quarter. (This group is largely represented by fleets, not owner-operators.) Several years of outsized cost inflation amid depressed rates continued to force carriers out of the market. While more than 19,000 authorities have terminated over the past two years, there were roughly 100,000 additions from 2020 to 2022.

“We believe this represents the biggest structural change to the U.S. carrier market since industry deregulation in 1980 — much more than the ELD mandate in 2017,” the report said.

SONAR: Van Outbound Tender Rejection Index (VOTRI.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). A proxy for truck capacity, the tender rejection index shows the number of dry van loads being rejected by carriers. Current tender rejections show a tightened truckload market.

The company’s all-in cost-per-mile index, which includes fuel, registered the highest reading in three years during the fourth quarter. RXO’s prior forecasts said “rates were unlikely to move materially lower” in 2025 as “carriers were getting similar spot rates to those they were getting during the market peak in 2014, though their operating costs (diesel, insurance, labor, etc.) have risen significantly since then.”

Story Continues  

RXO’s data showed contract rates were up 2.4% y/y in the fourth quarter, a step up from the third quarter’s 2.1% increase.

Fourth-quarter reports from publicly traded TL carriers signaled an expectation for contract rates to increase by low- to mid-single-digit percentages in 2026. However, some said they were leaning toward the upper end of the range and left the door open for bigger increases if spot market strength holds or if demand meaningfully returns.

“January and February are often the slowest shipping months of the year, yet industry-wide tender rejections are at their highest levels since 2022 and are outpacing seasonality,” the report said. “Rates and capacity may stabilize somewhat by the end of the first quarter, but the lull likely won’t last too long with Roadcheck and produce season right around the corner.”

RXO is the third-largest TL broker in North America following its 2024 acquisition of Coyote Logistics. The company’s rate datasets are compiled from thousands of daily shipments over the past 18 years.

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden:

2026: The year TL carriers turn the tide?

J.B. Hunt ‘a little bit more positive’

TL rates up again without help from volume

The post RXO: TL market seeing ‘biggest structural change’ since deregulation appeared first on FreightWaves.

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