Free industry report
State of CDL Driver Pay 2026
An independent look at driver pay, training cost, fleet size, and route types across 18 major U.S. CDL schools and trucking companies — sourced from official carrier disclosures, not marketing copy.
Key findings
- Stevens Transport leads on advertised fresh-start pay at ~$70,000/year.
- CRST reports the highest sourced experienced-driver pay in this dataset, at ~$110,000/year.
- 7 of 14 company-sponsored carriers charge $0 up front for CDL training, recovering the cost through a driving-service commitment instead.
- Among schools that do charge tuition, the average is $5,639 — C.R. England is the least expensive at $4,995.
- Route-type availability across the 14 carriers in this dataset: OTR (14), Regional (14), Dedicated (13), and Local (8) — most carriers now run mixed fleets rather than a single route type.
Fresh-start pay, ranked
Same ranking methodology as the live comparison tool — see the full interactive table for pay-tier breakdowns and sourcing.
| # | School / Carrier | Fresh-start pay | Fleet size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stevens Transport | ~$70,000 | ~2,500 trucks |
| 2 | Roadmaster Drivers School | ~$66,809 | — |
| 3 | 160 Driving Academy | ~$65,000 | — |
| 4 | U.S. Xpress | ~$57,500 | — |
| 5 | Swift Transportation (Swift Academy) | ~$55,000 | — |
| 6 | KLLM Transport Services | ~$55,000 | ~2,730 trucks |
| 7 | TransAm Trucking | ~$55,000 | — |
| 8 | Werner Enterprises | ~$50,000(est.) | ~9,808 trucks |
| 9 | May Trucking Company | ~$48,000(est.) | ~1,080 trucks |
| 10 | United Tractor Trailer School (UTTS) | ~$48,000(est.) | — |
| 11 | SAGE Truck Driving Schools | ~$48,000(est.) | — |
| 12 | Prime Inc. | ~$46,800 | ~9,681 trucks |
| 13 | Roehl Transport (Get Your CDL program) | ~$46,000 | ~2,200 trucks |
| 14 | Schneider | ~$43,000 | ~14,500 trucks |
| 15 | Western Express | ~$38,000 | ~3,600 trucks |
| 16 | Covenant Transport | ~$31,200 | ~2,546 trucks |
| 17 | CRST | ~$30,000 | ~3,335 trucks |
| 18 | C.R. England | ~$26,000 | ~4,254 trucks |
Methodology
Figures are compiled from each school or carrier's official pages, cross-checked against Transport Topics' 2025 Top 100 For-Hire Carriers list and other public filings where available. Where a company didn't publish a figure, we either mark it "not disclosed" or show a clearly labeled industry-ballpark estimate — never a fabricated company-specific number. Independent schools (4 in this dataset) don't employ drivers directly, so their pay figures reflect graduate outcomes, not a guaranteed rate. Full source links are on each school's detail page.