How Much Does a Truck Driver Make? Salary by State (May 2025)

How much does a truck driver make a year?

BLS publishes pay for "Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers" (SOC 53-3032) in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey. For May 2025 it reports 2,062,040 workers in the occupation, a median annual wage of $58,640 and a median hourly wage of $28.19 ^[1]. Half of these drivers earned less than the median and half earned more.

The range is narrower than in many careers. The 10th percentile was $40,140 and the 90th percentile was $79,380. Still, a gap of about $39,000 between the bottom and top tenth shows that employer, route type and experience matter.

Percentile	Annual wage, May 2025
10th	$40,140
25th	$47,960
Median	$58,640
75th	$69,120
90th	$79,380

The median across all U.S. occupations in the same survey was $50,980, so the median for these truck drivers was $7,660 above the all-occupation median.

How should you read the percentile range?

A percentile tells you the share of workers earning less than a given amount. At the 25th percentile, $47,960, a quarter of drivers earned less and three quarters earned more. At the 75th percentile, $69,120, the reverse is true. Only about one in ten drivers reached the 90th percentile of $79,380.

These are annual wages for people who were employed in the survey period. They say nothing about benefits or the costs a driver pays out of pocket, so two drivers with the same wage can have very different working lives.

What is the job, and how long are the hours?

O*NET OnLine describes these drivers as operating a tractor-trailer combination or a truck rated at a gross vehicle weight of at least 26,001 pounds, and says the job requires a commercial driver's license ^[3]. Typical tasks include inspecting loads to make sure cargo is secure, checking that safety and emergency equipment works, planning routes and keeping logs of working hours and vehicle service.

O*NET also reports survey results on working conditions: 80 percent of respondents said they work more than 40 hours in a typical week, 61 percent reported irregular schedules, and 60 percent said they face strict deadlines every day ^[2]. That matters for pay, because an annual figure spread over long weeks is a lower hourly rate than it looks. Treat these as survey answers, not as a rule for every job.

Are owner-operators included in these pay figures?

No. BLS OEWS surveys employers and counts wage and salary workers. Owner-operators, who own or lease their own truck and work for themselves, are self-employed and are not in the OEWS figures. The $58,640 median describes company drivers and others on a payroll.

An owner-operator's income is revenue minus business costs such as fuel, insurance and truck payments. We could not open an allowed source with a reliable typical figure for owner-operator income, so we do not give one. If you are considering that route, ask for every lease or contract term in writing, because a quoted rate is not the same as what a driver keeps after costs.

Do truck drivers get paid by the mile or by the hour?

Employers can structure pay in different ways, such as a rate per mile, a share of the load's revenue, or an hourly wage. We could not open a government source that reports how common each method is, so we do not say which is typical. What we can say is how the methods differ in principle. A per-mile rate rewards miles driven and may not pay for time spent waiting to load or unload, while an hourly wage pays for time on the clock.

That is why a per-mile rate and an hourly wage cannot be compared directly. The BLS hourly median of $28.19 is a wage-based number and, at a full-time schedule of 2,080 hours, matches the $58,640 annual median. We do not convert a cents-per-mile offer into an annual income, because that depends on miles actually driven.

When you compare offers, ask how the employer pays for waiting time, whether pay is per mile, per load or per hour, and what the guaranteed minimum is, and get the answers in writing.

Which states pay truck drivers the most and the least?

BLS reports median annual wages by state for the same occupation, and every state and the District of Columbia has a published figure.

Highest median	Annual wage	Lowest median	Annual wage
Alaska	$70,100	Louisiana	$49,320
Washington	$64,760	West Virginia	$49,480
District of Columbia	$64,170	New Mexico	$50,500
New Jersey	$63,570	Florida	$50,640
Massachusetts	$63,030	South Carolina	$51,130

Comparing each area with its own all-occupation median shows how far the job stands out locally. In 48 of the 51 areas, the truck driver median was above the all-occupation median. The three exceptions were the District of Columbia ($64,170 against $91,540 for all jobs), Massachusetts ($63,030 against $63,590) and Maryland ($59,360 against $59,510). The largest gap in drivers' favor was Nevada, with $62,290 against $47,660 for all jobs.

The state a driver is paid in is not always where the driver works. A long-haul driver may cross many states in a week, so these medians reflect where BLS counts the job, not every mile driven. Living costs matter too: a higher median in a high-cost state can buy less than a lower median elsewhere. You can compare other careers on our salary by state tool.

What affects how much a truck driver earns?

Sources point to a few factors, and we describe them only in general terms.

• Pay structure. Per-mile, per-load and hourly pay behave differently, as covered above.
• Employer and driver type. A payroll driver has a wage that BLS can measure. An owner-operator has revenue and costs instead.
• Location. The state medians above differ by about $20,800 between the highest and lowest.
• Experience. The gap between the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile, about $21,000, shows that pay varies widely across drivers, but BLS does not tell us how much of that is experience.

We cannot promise what a new driver will earn. Pay depends on the employer, the route and the pay structure.

Hourly pay or yearly pay: which number should you use?

BLS reports the median as $28.19 an hour, which equals the $58,640 annual figure for a full-time schedule. That match is arithmetic, not a promise: a driver paid by the mile may work more than 40 hours a week and still see a different yearly total, and a local driver paid by the hour may have steadier hours but fewer miles.

For planning, use the annual range in the table above to see where an offer falls, and the hourly figure only when an employer actually pays by the hour. If an offer is quoted per mile, ask how many paid miles a typical week includes. Remember also that the percentiles describe payroll drivers. They are a useful yardstick for company jobs and a poor one for lease or owner-operator arrangements, where costs come out of revenue.

What does it take to start driving a truck?

The entry steps in one paragraph: O*NET OnLine says these jobs usually require a high school diploma or GED, with on-the-job training that ranges from a few days to one year, plus a commercial driver's license ^[3]. Licensing rules are set under federal and state law, so check with your state driver licensing agency and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for current requirements. Full steps are on our how-to page for truck drivers, and you can browse more on the careers hub. For other pay comparisons, see our welder salary and real estate agent salary guides.