Trucking companies in Chattanooga: a small market built around two national headquarters

This report is for shippers choosing a Chattanooga-area carrier, drivers comparing employers, and B2B sellers whose customers are trucking companies: technology and data vendors, recruiters, equipment suppliers, insurers and service firms.

A small market with very large sites

County Business Patterns 2023 covers NAICS 484 (Truck Transportation) in the Chattanooga, TN-GA Metro Area (CBSA 16860).

The Census Bureau doesn't publish the three largest size classes for Chattanooga. By subtraction, 11 establishments have 100 or more employees, so four have at least 250. Fewer than half (47%) have under five employees, a much smaller share than in most metros.

Long-distance truckload is 43% of establishments but 71% of jobs, at 63 employees per site. That's consistent with a headquarters town, where dispatch, safety, maintenance and corporate staff are counted alongside drivers.

The Census Bureau published employee totals for the four smaller counties but flagged them as high-noise (the noise it adds for confidentiality moved them by 5% or more), so we leave them out. The metro is small enough that one company's choices move the totals, and remember what County Business Patterns leaves out: owner-operators without employees and private fleets.

Headquarters in Chattanooga

Covenant Logistics Group (NYSE: CVLG) lists its principal executive offices at 400 Birmingham Highway, Chattanooga. Its 2025 10-K says it was founded in 1986 as an expedited carrier running two-person driver teams on transcontinental lanes and has grown from 25 tractors to about 2,300. It reported 2025 revenue of $1,164.5 million across four segments:

At 31 December 2025 Covenant employed about 2,900 drivers and 1,800 non-driver staff, and engaged 110 independent contractor drivers. Team driving shows in the register: Covenant Transport LLC's filing reports 1,741 drivers for 816 power units.

U.S. Xpress has been part of Phoenix-based Knight-Swift since 1 July 2023. Knight-Swift's 10-K calls it one of the largest asset-based truckload carriers in the United States and says its Chattanooga headquarters covers about 29.4 acres with about 100,000 square feet of offices.

The rest of the register

FMCSA's Company Census File, updated 29 October 2026, has 1,006 active for-hire carriers with at least one truck in the six metro counties. Of these, 636 updated their self-reported MCS-150 filing in the past two years: 87% are registered for interstate work, 332 (52%) run one power unit and 17 run more than 50. 137 (22%) list motor vehicles and 102 (16%) report hazardous materials. Cargo types are self-reported by carriers, and FMCSA's open-data file doesn't always match a carrier's own SAFER record, so treat the motor vehicle share as indicative.

For-hire filings only, ranked by power units as reported, after dropping one large fleet whose driver count was under a tenth of its power units.

Traffic matters for anyone running through the city. The American Transportation Research Institute's 2026 ranking of US truck bottlenecks puts I-75 at I-24 at #30 and I-24 at US 27 at #34, where peak-hour truck speeds average 38.5 mph.

Checking a Chattanooga carrier

1. Pull the carrier's record in FMCSA's SAFER Company Snapshot, then check interstate authority and insurance in Licensing and Insurance.
2. Check which state it's based in. 171 of the metro's current for-hire carriers are on the Georgia side, in Catoosa, Walker and Dade counties.
3. For a large carrier, confirm the operating company. Covenant and Knight-Swift each run several USDOT numbers, and the one on your contract should match the one in SAFER.
4. For expedited freight, ask whether a team will run your load and what transit time the carrier commits to.

Selling to Chattanooga trucking companies

With only 17 current for-hire fleets over 50 power units, this is an account-based market: research each headquarters, map the people, and tailor the approach. The larger carriers buy centrally for terminals across the country, so a win here can travel. The account-based marketing strategy guide covers the method.

Illustrative example. The software firm and its numbers are invented; the counts are FMCSA register data and SEC filings.

Lookout Pulse (lookoutpulse.example) runs short weekly driver surveys and flags drivers likely to quit. Its list is short: the 17 current for-hire fleets in the metro with more than 50 power units, including the two headquarters. Three contacts each (operations, safety and the people or recruiting lead) gives 51 people. At a 10% reply rate that's 5 conversations; if two run a 90-day pilot on one division, that's two references that can open doors with the same companies' other terminals. Bebop can map the people at each fleet and research each one before the first email.

Subject: Driver turnover at [company]'s [division]

Hi [first name],

[Company] reports [number] drivers on its FMCSA filing, and at that size every driver who leaves costs a recruiting cycle.

We send drivers a two-question survey each week and tell your managers which drivers are at risk, before they hand in notice.

Would a 90-day pilot on one division be worth a short call on [day]?

[Your name]

Chattanooga sources

Next step: see Chattanooga alongside Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville in the report on trucking companies in Tennessee.