NFI appeared in the 2026 rankings for the top truckload/dedicated, refrigerated, flatbed/heavy specialized, intermodal/drayage and tank/bulk carriers in North America. (nfi)
key takeaways:
- North American trucking sectors reported mixed 2025 results, with the truckload and dedicated segments exemplifying the choppy business environment.
- Weak demand and excess capacity put pressure on rates, leading to broad declines in the LTL and refrigerated segments, even as package delivery and some flatbed and tank carriers showed resilience or gains.
- Carriers are repositioning through actions like FedEx Freight’s spinoff focus on LTL and Schneider’s expansion following the Cowan Systems acquisition.
While freight market conditions have begun to improve this year, the largest carriers in several trucking segments have reported largely mixed revenue results for 2025 as rates continue to decline due to excess capacity.
Knight-Swift Transportation, the largest truckload carrier in North America, faces a 3.4% decline in revenue for its truckload business in 2025. On the other hand, the rest of the top five in this year’s list of largest truckload and dedicated carriers managed to grow their business compared to 2024.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services and TFI International retained their No. 2 and 3 rankings, respectively, from a year ago, while significant revenue growth pushed Penske Logistics and Schneider into the top five.
Schneider’s growth in this area can largely be attributed to its acquisition of Cowan Systems. In its first full year after purchasing the Baltimore-based carrier, Schneider has rapidly expanded its dedicated capacity and regional footprint.
The top 10 includes Ryder Systems’ dedicated operations, Landstar Systems, Werner Enterprises, Crete Carrier and Ruan.
On the truckload/dedicated area list, year-over-year results fluctuated as 10 of the top 30 carriers increased revenue in 2025 compared to last year, while another 12 in the same category reported declines.
The less-than-truckload market faces difficult conditions in 2025, resulting in another decline year for many of North America’s largest LTL carriers.
The top five on this year’s list of the top LTL carriers in North America, unchanged from a year ago, reported less revenue last year than in 2024. Seven of the top 10 reported lower revenue than the previous year, as did 18 of the 35 carriers listed.
FedEx remains the freight industry’s largest LTL carrier and will continue its focus on LTL services after completing its spinoff from FedEx Corp. on June 1.
FedEx Corp. and UPS Inc. Led by , the package delivery segment remained resilient despite the uncertain business environment last year.
New to this year’s package/courier list are No. 3 Amazon Logistics and No. 4 United States Postal Service. Notably, Amazon Logistics projects its parcel revenue to increase by 16.7% in 2025, bringing that business up by nearly $6 billion from the previous year.
Revenue results were more mixed in the intermodal/drayage segment, where J.B. Hunt Intermodal remains the leader with revenues of just under $6 billion last year.
Forward Air, meanwhile, remains the leader in the air/accelerated sector with revenues exceeding $1 billion by 2025.
Like their counterparts in most other segments of the trucking industry, the largest tank truck carriers in North America face tough business conditions in 2025.
Kenan Advantage Group maintained its position on the Tank/Bulk sector list, reporting revenues of more than $2.4 billion last year. The North Canton, Ohio-based bulk carrier projects its revenue will grow 2.9% year over year in 2025, versus a 1.8% decline year over year in 2024.
Quest Liner and sister company Foodliner are ranked third on this year’s Tank/Bulk sector list. (Quest Liner)
The top four include Quality Carriers, Foodliner/Quest Liner and Quantix Supply Chain Solutions, all of which have reported declines in revenue in 2025.
United Petroleum Transports and Groendyk Transport, which ranked 5th and 6th respectively on this year’s list, have both returned to the sector rankings due to updated data. United Petroleum Transports was last ranked at No. 13 on the 2021 list, while Groendyke came in at No. 7 in 2023.
Most of the industry’s largest flatbed and heavy-haul carriers grew their business last year, but market conditions proved more challenging for temperature-controlled transportation providers.
Flatbed segment leader Landstar Systems projects its revenue to grow 5.7% in 2025, maintaining a slight lead over No. 2 TFI International. PS Logistics, which is ranked No. 3 on the list, registered a growth of 18.4%.
While many top refrigerated carriers battled a tough market in 2025, segment leader Prime Inc. recovered and expanded.
After reporting a 0.8% year-over-year decline in 2024, Prime rebounded by increasing its revenue to more than $200 million in 2025, an improvement of nearly 10%.
