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Cost per Mile Calculator
Enter a truck's fixed costs for a year and its running costs per mile or per kilometre, and see what it costs per mile driven — and per loaded mile once empty running is counted.
Your truck
Costs that stay the same however far the truck goes. Any currency — use the same one throughout.
Running costs go up with every mile. A driver on a salary is a fixed cost — add the pay above instead.
ATRI found US trucks ran 16.7% of their miles empty in 2024.
- Cost over loaded distance only
- 2.804per mile
- Fixed costs
- 0.518per mile
- Running costs
- 1.818per mile
- Total cost a year
- 233,600
Every loaded mile has to pay for the empty ones too — quote loaded work above the loaded-distance cost.
The formula
Cost per mile = fixed costs for a year ÷ miles driven, loaded and empty + running costs per mile · Cost per loaded mile = a year's total ÷ loaded milesPer kilometre, use kilometres throughout — or divide a cost per mile by 1.609344, the kilometres in a mile.
| Group | What it holds | Per mile | A year at 100,000 miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed | Truck and trailer payments, insurance (0.106), permits | 0.518 | 51,800 |
| Driver | Wages (0.818) and benefits (0.210) | 1.028 | 102,800 |
| Fuel | Diesel | 0.482 | 48,200 |
| Upkeep | Repairs and maintenance (0.215), tyres (0.05), tolls (0.043) | 0.308 | 30,800 |
| Total | 2.336 | 233,600 |
ATRI publishes the total, USD 2.336 a mile, and the total excluding fuel, USD 1.854 — so fuel is the USD 0.482 between them. Take the driver's USD 1.028 from the rest and USD 0.826 is left for the truck itself; less upkeep, that is USD 0.518 of fixed cost.
Worked example
At the opening values the truck costs USD 233,600 a year, or USD 2.336 for each of its 100,000 miles. But 16.7% of those miles are empty, so only 83,300 earn money: each loaded mile has to carry USD 2.804 of cost. In kilometres, the same truck costs about USD 1.45 per km driven.
When the answer misleads
When the miles change. Fixed costs are spread over the distance, so the same truck driven 80,000 miles instead of 100,000 costs about USD 2.47 a mile, not 2.336: USD 51,800 over fewer miles, plus the same USD 1.818 of running cost — every idle week pushes the number up. And ATRI's averages are US figures from carriers that answered its survey; wages, fuel and insurance differ by country and by fleet, so replace the defaults with your own year's costs.
FAQ
Cost per Mile Calculator: common questions
- How do I calculate cost per mile for a truck?
- Divide a year's fixed costs — truck payments, insurance, permits — by the miles driven that year, loaded and empty, then add the running costs per mile: driver pay, fuel and maintenance. ATRI's US average for 2025 was USD 2.336 a mile.
- What does it cost to run a truck per mile in 2025?
- USD 2.336 a mile on average in the US, according to ATRI's July 2026 report — up 3.4% on 2024. Excluding fuel it was USD 1.854, and driver wages and benefits were the largest share at about USD 1.03.
- Why work out cost per loaded mile?
- Because empty miles earn nothing. At ATRI's 16.7% empty share, a truck that costs USD 2.336 a mile overall costs about USD 2.80 for every loaded mile — the least a load has to pay to cover the truck.
- How do I convert cost per mile to cost per kilometre?
- Divide by 1.609344, the number of kilometres in a mile. USD 2.336 a mile is about USD 1.45 a kilometre.
Sources
- ATRI, Operational Costs of Trucking — release of 15 July 2026
- ATRI, Operational Costs of Trucking — release of 1 July 2025
- Trucking is getting more expensive: ATRI report explains why — The Trucker, 20 August 2026
- NIST Guide to the SI (SP 811), Appendix B.8 — conversion factors