The trucking industry has seen a notable surge in new operating authorities during the second and third quarters of 2025, generating a net gain of more than 5,000 unique authorities year to date. However, this figure comes despite 19,594 net revocations over the same period, according to FreightWaves SONAR CNDCA data reviewed on August 12. The churn follows a prolonged freight downturn that began in mid-2022 and extended through 2024, a period that drove elevated fleet bankruptcies and a significant contraction in active carriers across the sector.

Julie Van de Kamp cautioned that the headline number exaggerates actual available capacity. She argued that brokers and shippers are unlikely to tender freight to carriers holding brand-new MC numbers with no safety ratings, given widespread fraud concerns and liability exposure in the current environment. Industry groups including the Transportation Intermediaries Association have documented escalating losses from cargo theft and double-brokering schemes, prompting many freight brokers to implement stricter carrier vetting protocols that effectively sideline new entrants.

The net gain was distributed unevenly across quarters. Q1 produced a modest increase of just 400 authorities. Q2 added 2,910, while Q3 posted a net gain of 1,996 through the week ending August 7 — trailing Q2's pace by 914 but leading Q1 by 1,596. Van de Kamp also noted that a visible June spike in the data is partially a data artifact resulting from a registration outage tied to the Modus system transition, during which no authority data was collected from May 16 through June 5.

"Are brokers still tendering freight to carriers with new MC numbers and no safety rating based on current fraud conditions as well as certainly litigation and liability concerns?" Van de Kamp said. "I don't know that it's necessarily translating to more capacity being available."

She further questioned whether the industry can sustain capacity growth given persistent driver shortages and rising labor costs.

"I don't see the case for continued increase in capacity because you're not going to be able to find drivers to fill the seats. That even if fleets wanted to expand, we've heard this consistently, is that they're having to pay more for drivers. The driver environment is getting harder and harder. And that is going to keep the cap on capacity," Van de Kamp said.

Van de Kamp identified immigration policy as a structural constraint on the driver pool. Bureau of Labor Statistics data placed the share of non-U.S.-born immigrant drivers at roughly 20% as of 2019, while insurance industry estimates put that figure as high as 40% of the total driver population. Tightening immigration enforcement, she argued, eliminates what has historically served as a relief valve for driver supply, compounding pressures from an already aging driver demographic.

On the demand side, SONAR's Truckload Volume Index shows volumes running above the prior three-year average on a seasonal basis, with a minor uptick visible since August 8. Tender rejections — a key indicator of how willing carriers are to accept offered freight — held at 13.5% as of the August 12 update, consistent with April levels but indicating some cooling in recent weeks. The metric remains well above the sub-5% trough levels seen during the 2023 freight recession, though far below the 25%-plus peaks recorded during the 2020-2021 capacity crisis.

Loaded inbound ocean container volumes tracked by the IOTI index have been running higher than last year since June, though the pattern is more elongated compared to the sharp, tariff-driven import spike observed in 2024. Inventory levels remain a key metric to watch, with LMI data showing inventories down 9% year over year.

A mode-conversion dynamic is also reshaping apparent truckload volume. SONAR O-Rail data show domestic intermodal loaded containers up 7% over the past two years and up 5% over the past six months. International loaded containers, by contrast, are down 13% over two years and down 2% over six months. Craig Fuller, FreightWaves founder and CEO, noted that this shift helps explain why tender rejections have softened without a corresponding decline in overall freight demand.

Looking ahead, both Fuller and Van de Kamp expect demand to continue rising into peak season. They pointed to the end-of-August "brake check" period — a seasonal inflection point for capacity — as a likely signal of whether the market is entering a hotter cycle. Van de Kamp added that structural supply constraints, combined with a potential broadening of industrial activity beyond data centers into housing and auto, could extend the current upcycle well beyond the summer of 2026 timeline cited by some analysts.