There are 23,562 trucking companies in the United States that specialise in hauling vehicles: active interstate carriers that list cars as their cargo and not general freight. The typical one is a single truck, has been registered for about ten years, carries $1 million of liability insurance and has never been given a federal safety rating.
This is a portrait of that industry, built from FMCSA’s records in October 2026. It answers the questions people actually ask before they hand over their keys: who are these companies, how big are they, how long do they last, and what does the data say about their safety.
Key findings
- 23,562 active interstate carriers specialise in hauling vehicles. Another 87,700 or so list vehicles among other freight.
- 57% run one truck or less, and 88% run five or fewer. Only 588 companies, 2.5%, have more than 20 trucks.
- Half of the car haulers registered in 2010–2015 are still active today. Of those registered in 2024, one in four is already gone.
- 95% have never received an FMCSA safety rating. Among single-truck operators the figure is 98.5%.
- 80% of car haulers with liability insurance on file carry $1 million, above the $750,000 federal minimum.
- Roadside inspections of single-truck operators ended with the driver or truck placed out of service 43% of the time, against 16% for fleets of 21 to 100 trucks.
- Florida has the most car haulers (2,348), and 81% of them are one-truck operations.
How many car haulers are there?
FMCSA does not have a “car hauler” category. Every carrier ticks the types of cargo it carries on its registration, and “Motor Vehicles” is one of the boxes. In October 2026, 111,286 active interstate for-hire carriers had ticked it. Most of them are general freight carriers that will take a car now and then, so in this report we focus on the 23,562 that list motor vehicles but not general freight. These are the companies whose business is moving vehicles, and the ones most likely to show up at your door with a car carrier.
They are not the same as the companies you book with. Many bookings go through brokers, who arrange the move and hire one of these carriers to haul it. Only 1,803 of the 23,562 carriers (7.7%) are also registered as brokers. Our guide to brokers and carriers explains the difference.
Most car haulers are one truck
| Fleet size | Carriers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| No power unit listed | 1,729 | 7.3% |
| 1 truck | 11,619 | 49.3% |
| 2–5 trucks | 7,323 | 31.1% |
| 6–10 trucks | 1,544 | 6.6% |
| 11–20 trucks | 759 | 3.2% |
| 21–50 trucks | 356 | 1.5% |
| 51–100 trucks | 124 | 0.5% |
| 101+ trucks | 108 | 0.5% |
| Total | 23,562 | 100% |
The median car hauler has exactly one truck. Many are owner-operators running a pickup with a three-car wedge trailer or a single tractor with a seven- to nine-car trailer. The 1,729 companies with no power unit listed usually lease their trucks or have not updated their registration.
This matters for you in a practical way. With a one-truck carrier, the person who answers the phone is often the driver. If that truck breaks down, there is no second truck. That does not make small carriers worse: plenty of them are careful, experienced and easy to reach. But it is worth asking who will actually drive and what happens if the truck is out of service on your pickup day.
How long car haulers have been around
| Years since registration | Carriers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 | 1,660 | 7.0% |
| 1–2 | 2,029 | 8.6% |
| 2–5 | 3,748 | 15.9% |
| 5–10 | 4,749 | 20.2% |
| 10–20 | 6,681 | 28.4% |
| 20+ | 4,695 | 19.9% |
The median active car hauler registered its USDOT number in April 2016, ten and a half years ago. Almost half (48%) have been around for more than ten years. At the other end, 3,689 (16%) are less than two years old, which means they are still inside FMCSA’s 18-month new entrant period or have only just left it.
How many survive
Registering a trucking company is easy. Keeping it running is not. We took every car hauler registered each year since 2010 and checked how many still have an active USDOT number today.
| Registered in | Car haulers registered | Still active in 2026 | Share still active |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 7,108 | 3,540 | 50% |
| 2015 | 8,072 | 4,079 | 51% |
| 2018 | 5,297 | 2,472 | 47% |
| 2020 | 5,480 | 2,911 | 53% |
| 2021 | 6,207 | 3,195 | 51% |
| 2022 | 5,262 | 3,025 | 57% |
| 2023 | 4,872 | 3,099 | 64% |
| 2024 | 5,128 | 3,834 | 75% |
| 2025 | 5,711 | 4,959 | 87% |
The pattern is steep at first and then flat. One in four car haulers registered in 2024 is already inactive. By five years, survival falls to just over half, and from there it barely moves: half of those registered in 2010 are still active 16 years later. A carrier that has made it past its first few years has usually found a way to stay in business.
New companies keep arriving: between 4,600 and 6,200 new car haulers registered every year from 2016 to 2025, and 3,439 more in the first nine months of 2026.
Where car haulers are based
| State | Car haulers | Share with one truck or less |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 2,348 | 81% |
| Pennsylvania | 1,545 | 55% |
| Georgia | 1,174 | 64% |
| Texas | 1,134 | 63% |
| New York | 1,097 | 54% |
| Illinois | 1,051 | 59% |
| California | 1,001 | 66% |
| Maryland | 902 | 59% |
| New Jersey | 875 | 60% |
| Ohio | 848 | 53% |
Florida leads by a wide margin, and its carriers are also the smallest: 81% run one truck or less. That fits Florida’s role in the car shipping market, with snowbirds, auctions and ports keeping a large pool of owner-operators busy. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and New York follow. Where a carrier is based says little about where it drives, since most of these companies run interstate routes.
Safety ratings: most carriers have none
FMCSA gives a carrier a safety rating (Satisfactory, Conditional or Unsatisfactory) only after an on-site compliance review. Those reviews are rare, so most carriers are simply unrated. Among specialist car haulers:
| Safety rating | Carriers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Not rated | 22,350 | 94.9% |
| Satisfactory | 906 | 3.8% |
| Conditional | 290 | 1.2% |
| Unsatisfactory | 16 | 0.1% |
An unrated carrier is not a bad carrier. It usually means FMCSA has never audited it in depth, which is normal for small companies. But it also means a rating cannot tell you much about most car haulers. For a one-truck operator, the useful signals are elsewhere: active operating authority, insurance on file, time in business and the results of its roadside inspections. Our car shipping company lookup shows all of them in one place.
Inspections and crashes by fleet size
Every roadside inspection is recorded, and some end with the driver or the truck placed out of service on the spot until a problem is fixed. Here the gap between small and large carriers is wide:
| Fleet size | Inspections | Ended out of service | Carriers not inspected in 12 months | Crashes per 100 trucks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 truck | 7,870 | 43.4% | 81% | 1.6 |
| 2–5 trucks | 7,787 | 31.5% | 66% | 1.7 |
| 6–20 trucks | 8,754 | 23.7% | 39% | 2.2 |
| 21–100 trucks | 6,106 | 16.5% | 15% | 1.8 |
| 101+ trucks | 14,626 | 7.9% | 8% | n/a |
Two things stand out. Single-truck operators are inspected rarely: 81% had no roadside inspection at all in the past year. But when they are inspected, 43% of inspections end with the truck or driver out of service, more than twice the rate of mid-size fleets. Crash rates per truck, on the other hand, are similar across fleet sizes up to 100 trucks, between about 1.6 and 2.2 reportable crashes per 100 trucks a year. In total, specialist car haulers were involved in 2,345 reportable crashes in the 12 months, 40 of them fatal. Crash records do not say who was at fault.
We left out the crash rate for the largest fleets because a few registrations in that group report implausible truck counts, which would make the rate meaningless.
Insurance: $1 million is the norm
Federal rules require a car hauler to keep at least $750,000 of liability insurance on file, or $300,000 if it only uses vehicles under 10,001 pounds, such as a pickup with a small trailer. Most carry more:
| Liability coverage on file | Carriers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $750,000 (light-vehicle carriers) | 132 | 1.2% |
| $750,000 | 1,994 | 17.5% |
| Between $750,000 and $1,000,000 | 5 | 0.04% |
| $1,000,000 | 9,058 | 79.5% |
| More than $1,000,000 | 199 | 1.7% |
| Total with a filing | 11,388 | 100% |
$1 million has become the standard because many brokers, dealers and auctions will not hire a carrier with less. The insurers behind those policies are concentrated too. These are the ten insurance companies that appear most often on car haulers’ filings:
| Insurer (as filed with FMCSA) | Car haulers |
|---|---|
| United Financial Casualty Company | 889 |
| Progressive Casualty Insurance Company | 478 |
| AmGUARD Insurance Company | 425 |
| Artisan & Truckers Casualty Company | 401 |
| Northland Insurance Company | 365 |
| GEICO Marine Insurance Company | 339 |
| Pioneer Specialty Insurance Company | 303 |
| Progressive Northern Insurance Company | 285 |
| Progressive Southeastern Insurance Company | 268 |
| Great West Casualty Company | 232 |
United Financial Casualty and Artisan & Truckers are part of the Progressive group, so together with the policies filed under Progressive’s own name, Progressive companies insure more than one in five car haulers. One caution: liability insurance pays for damage the truck does to others. Damage to the car on the trailer is covered by cargo insurance, which federal rules do not require. Always ask for a certificate that shows cargo coverage and its limit.
How our listed companies compare
790 of the companies listed on Best Car Shipping Companies fall into the specialist car hauler group above. The rest are brokers or carriers that also haul other freight. Compared with the whole market, our listed carriers are much less likely to be single-truck operations and a little more likely to have a safety rating:
| Listed carriers | All specialist car haulers | |
|---|---|---|
| One truck or less | 7% | 57% |
| Registered less than 2 years ago | 11% | 16% |
| Has an FMCSA safety rating | 9% | 5% |
| Average years since registration | 10.8 | 11.9 |
Every listing is checked against FMCSA records when it is added and again every day after that. How we verify companies explains the checks.
What this means when you choose a carrier
- Expect a small company. Most carriers are one or a few trucks. That is normal, not a red flag.
- Check time in business. A quarter of new car haulers do not last two years. A carrier with several years behind it has proven it can stay running.
- Do not rely on the safety rating. 95% of carriers have none. Look at roadside inspection results and out-of-service rates instead.
- Confirm the insurance. Liability on file with FMCSA, plus a cargo insurance certificate that names your vehicle’s value range.
- Check the specific carrier. Ask your broker which carrier will haul your car and run its USDOT or MC number through our car shipping company lookup before pickup.
Carriers also lose their authority every month, usually over insurance. Our quarterly report on car haulers that lost their authority tracks how often.
Methodology
- Source: FMCSA Company Census, inspection, crash and insurance files from data.transportation.gov, copied on October 9, 2026.
- Specialist car hauler: an active USDOT registration with an MC number for interstate for-hire work that lists “Motor Vehicles” as cargo and does not list “General Freight”. Some of these companies carry other specialised cargo as well.
- Fleet size is the number of power units the carrier reports on its registration (form MCS-150). Carriers update it at least every two years, so some figures are out of date.
- Survival compares all carriers with this cargo profile registered in each year with those whose USDOT status is active today.
- Inspections and crashes cover October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026. An inspection counts as out of service if at least one driver or vehicle out-of-service violation was recorded.
- Insurance is the primary liability (BIPD) filing in FMCSA’s licensing and insurance records. Carriers without a current filing are not counted.
Frequently asked questions
How many car hauling companies are there in the US?
In October 2026, 23,562 active interstate carriers specialised in hauling vehicles, according to FMCSA records. In total, 111,286 active interstate carriers list motor vehicles or drive-away/towaway among the cargo they carry.
Are most car shipping companies small?
Yes. 57% of car haulers run one truck or less and 88% run five or fewer. Only 2.5% have more than 20 trucks.
What insurance does a car hauler need?
At least $750,000 of liability insurance on file with FMCSA, or $300,000 for carriers that only use vehicles under 10,001 pounds. 80% carry $1 million. Cargo insurance, which covers the car being shipped, is not federally required, so ask for proof of it.
Should I avoid carriers without a safety rating?
No. 95% of car haulers have never been rated because FMCSA rates a carrier only after an on-site review. Check its operating authority, insurance, time in business and inspection history instead.