Dry van spot rates reached $2.14 per mile in May 2026, a 31.29% increase over the same month in 2025 and a 9.74% gain from April, according to the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index Rates Edition, a quarterly collaboration between U.S. Bank and DAT Freight and Analytics.

Contract rates registered $2.18 per mile in the same month, up 9.00% year over year. Shipment counts moved the opposite way. Spot shipments fell to 1.11 million in May from 1.31 million in April.

The spread between contract and spot rates narrowed from roughly $0.39 per mile to about $0.11, removing most of the pricing cushion shippers have historically relied on when routing guides fail. The report ties the repricing to the supply side of the market, noting that linehaul pricing has risen faster than fuel costs and that rates climbed while volumes declined. The index describes that divergence as "a clear indicator of a supply-led transition in the market."

Less-than-truckload pricing followed a separate track. Old Dominion reported first-quarter LTL shipments per day down 7.9% year over year while revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel rose 4.4%. XPO posted North American LTL yield excluding fuel up 4.0% with shipments per day rising 3.0%. The report attributes that resilience to the structural mechanics of LTL pricing, including revenue per hundredweight frameworks, contract cycles, and freight classification that insulate rates from real-time spot swings.

The index states that contract rates continue to trail spot movement, and that cost exposure may increase without a corresponding increase in shipment activity.

Source: FreightWaves - https://www.freightwaves.com/news/us-bank-freight-payment-index-rates