Carriers Report Double-Digit Rate Gains — What Brokers Are Paying in Q2

Are brokers actually paying double-digit rate increases in 2026?

Yes — at least some of them. Knight-Swift CEO Adam Miller told analysts his team is targeting double-digit rate gains, and XPO CEO Mario Harik said he wants his company to beat the industry's pricing gains if the macroeconomic situation supports the mid- to high-single-digit increases other carriers are seeing. Schneider National President and CEO Mark Rourke said on April 30 that his team is looking for 2026 rate renewals to be up mid- to high-single digits, and he added that the company is "acting decisively with the most transactional customers where there is more ground to make up."

The pricing power is showing up in first-quarter earnings calls across the LTL and truckload sectors. Nearly every executive team that reported numbers in late April said April was better than March, which was better than February. Tonnage and weight per shipment climbed through the quarter, and the momentum carried into the second quarter.

Why carriers have pricing leverage right now

Many fleets have been running lean in recent quarters as the freight recession dragged on. The combination of tightening supply and rising prices is producing sharp gains in operating ratios at some carriers. At TFI International, CFO David Saperstein said the company's LTL adjusted operating ratio this quarter could be up to 7 percentage points better than Q1's 95.3%.

"Fuel is a part of it only where we have real strong density," Saperstein told analysts, acknowledging that Q2's comparison to Q1 will be flattered somewhat by the rough weather in many parts of the country early this year. "It's really more around the volumes and some of the pricing actions that we'll be putting through."

Saia CFO Doug Holzgrefe sketched the possible Q1-to-Q2 improvement at between 400 and 450 basis points. Helping his teams' cause, he said, has been the work to build out Saia's network with a host of new terminals. While most of those are still working toward being profitable on par with established locations, they are bringing more business across Saia's network and growth to the older centers for the first time in more than a year.

What brokers should expect on rate renewals

Carriers are not treating all customers the same. Rourke said Schneider is "acting decisively with the most transactional customers where there is more ground to make up" — meaning brokers who pushed rates down during the freight recession should expect the steepest increases now.

Harik said XPO wants to beat the industry's pricing gains if the macroeconomic situation warrants the mid- to high-single digits that Rourke and others are targeting. That suggests XPO is willing to walk away from contracts that don't hit the company's pricing floor.

The pricing power is not universal. Most executive teams delivered the same message when analysts asked about the rest of the year: We like what we see, but we're also mindful that outside factors such as the Middle East conflict, rising inflation, and falling consumer sentiment could throw a spanner in the works.

As Rourke put it: "These factors push more demand risk to the right."

How long the pricing momentum lasts

With the second quarter likely to deliver solid numbers, some analysts wanted to look further down the road. Holzgrefe summed up the collective sentiment most succinctly: "I don't see an impediment short of a broader economic slowdown that would say that we can't continue to drive margin performance in this business and hit the long-term real value-creating goals […] that we have."

That broader economic slowdown is the risk. If consumer sentiment falls or geopolitical shocks hit freight volumes, carriers will lose the pricing leverage they have right now. But for Q2, the momentum is real — and brokers should expect carriers to push hard on rate renewals.