Free industry data
Freight Broker Health Index — 200 net brokerages lost between May 2025 and April 2026
How many freight brokerages are entering and leaving the market, built from FMCSA authority records going back to 2000. Free to cite and republish.
4,071 new, 534 returning
The 12 months from May 2025 to April 2026 — a rolling window, not a calendar year. The FMCSA authority feed runs roughly 6 months behind, so this is the most recent complete period available, not a current-month figure.
Net change by year
2023 began the current contraction: 3 consecutive years in which more broker authorities were revoked than granted, 21,889 exits against 15,997 entries — the first such stretch since 2013.
What is behind the numbers
The index measures what happened, not why. The explanations below are drawn from industry reporting and are offered as context — they are not conclusions from this data.
The 2021 surge
Dry van spot rates averaging roughly $1.50–$1.80 per mile in 2019 rose to $2.50–$3.00 by late 2021. Record rates met an unusually low barrier to entry — a few hundred dollars in filing fees plus the annual premium on a $75,000 surety bond — and pulled in a wave of new brokerages, many with little capital and no experience of a down market. Our series records a net gain of 5,078 authorities in 2021 — the largest single-year expansion since 2000.
Then the freight recession
The market turned in spring 2022 as pandemic-era demand unwound, beginning the longest and deepest freight downturn since 2007. Spot rates bottomed around May 2023, running roughly 30% below contract rates against a more typical gap of 10–15%. Capacity that had been added at the top of the market was still in the system, and there was not enough freight to support it.
Thin capitalisation, then no credit
Brokerages founded at the peak generally had no reserves and, in many cases, debt taken on during the boom. As revenue per load fell, so did the value of the receivables that newer brokers borrowed against — which removed the working capital the business model depends on.
And tighter enforcement
FMCSA has increased scrutiny of registration fraud and non-compliant operators, and the financial-responsibility rule effective 16 January 2026 suspends authority where a broker’s security falls below $75,000 and is not replenished within seven days — a materially faster mechanism than the process behind the 2013 spike. Whether it registers in the exit counts is a question this series is built to answer.
An outside check on these figures
Independent industry reporting put the broker population at 31,225 in November 2022, falling to 27,450 by March 2024. Our registry counts 26,183 active broker authorities today. The methods differ, so the figures are not directly comparable — but the direction and magnitude agree, which is the useful test.
Sources: FreightWaves, Transport Topics, SONAR, Overdrive, FMCSA.
The numbers
| Year | New | Returning | Exited | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 3,896 | 589 | 4,923 | −438 |
| 2024 | 3,985 | 560 | 7,686 | −3,141 |
| 2023 | 6,411 | 556 | 9,280 | −2,313 |
| 2022 | 8,841 | 640 | 6,726 | +2,755 |
| 2021 | 8,774 | 633 | 4,329 | +5,078 |
| 2020 | 5,945 | 508 | 3,982 | +2,471 |
| 2019 | 4,605 | 442 | 3,594 | +1,453 |
| 2018 | 4,058 | 407 | 2,830 | +1,635 |
| 2017 | 3,241 | 378 | 2,692 | +927 |
| 2016 | 2,869 | 376 | 2,203 | +1,042 |
| 2015 | 2,638 | 418 | 2,013 | +1,043 |
Cite this
Free to use with attribution. No permission needed, no link required — though one is appreciated.
SureLoadr Freight Broker Health Index, data through April 2026. https://www.sureloadr.com/freight-broker-health-index
Journalists and analysts: the CSV above carries the full monthly series from 2000. If you need a cut we do not publish — by state, by authority type, or a longer history — ask us and we will pull it.