Trucking companies in Orlando: a market of small fleets, and how to find the right one

This report is for Central Florida shippers, contractors and distributors looking for a carrier, drivers comparing employers, and B2B sellers whose customers are small trucking companies: insurers, truck dealers and lessors, fuel, factoring and software firms.

How Orlando compares

County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 484 (Truck Transportation), for Florida's large metro areas.

Orlando's carriers are small even by Florida standards. The metro has no seaport, and its trucking is mostly local delivery, construction materials and long-haul truckload run by one- and two-truck owners.

Orlando trucking by the numbers

Orange County has 59.4% of the establishments and 71.9% of the jobs. Osceola and Seminole are almost entirely owner-run businesses. Lake County, to the west, has the same number of establishments as Seminole and two and a half times the employees.

The Census Bureau withholds the two largest classes. In broader bands, 1,559 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 74 have 20 to 99 and 19 have 100 or more (the total less the smaller bands). The count leaves out owner-operators with no employees, which in Orlando is a large group.

The 106 less-than-truckload establishments pay best and employ slightly more people than the 517 local general freight ones.

The register: 19,984 registrations

FMCSA's Company Census File (29 October 2026) lists 19,984 active carrier registrations in Orange, Osceola, Lake and Seminole counties, 12.1 for every Census establishment. Carriers report these details themselves on form MCS-150.

Orlando (9,246) and Kissimmee (3,184) have the most registrations. FMCSA's open-data file records identical counts for building materials and construction, so the table shows them as one combined figure. Cargo types are self-reported by carriers, and the open-data file doesn't always match a carrier's own SAFER record, so treat these counts as indicative. The passenger share is higher than in Florida's other big metros, which likely reflects shuttle and charter operators in a tourism market.

The largest for-hire freight fleets, filtered to 2024 or later updates and driver counts consistent with the fleet:

Waste Pro of Florida in Longwood has the metro's biggest registered fleet overall, 2,412 power units, as a private carrier. No SEC-listed trucking company is headquartered in the metro.

Hiring an Orlando carrier

Florida's section 316.302 applies most federal safety rules to intrastate carriers but exempts trucks under 26,001 pounds that run only in Florida and carry no placarded hazmat from part of them; those trucks must still meet the drug testing, driving and equipment rules (49 CFR parts 382, 392 and 393) and parts of the inspection rules. For a small Orlando carrier, ask:

• What's your USDOT number? Check it in FMCSA's SAFER Company Snapshot for inspections, out-of-service rates and crashes.
• Do you cross state lines? If so, confirm operating authority and insurance in FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance search; the federal minimum is $750,000 for general freight (49 CFR 387.9).
• Who drives, and whose truck? Many small fleets lease owner-operators; ask whose insurance covers the load.
• What's your backup? A two-truck carrier with one truck in the shop has half its capacity gone. Line up a second carrier for peak weeks.

Selling to Orlando's small fleets

At most Orlando carriers the owner is also the dispatcher, the bookkeeper and sometimes the driver. Messages have to be short, mobile-friendly and about money or time. For more on that style of selling, see how to sell to small businesses.

Illustrative example. The agency and its rates are invented; the counts are from FMCSA's register.

I-4 Fleet Insurance (i4fleet.example) writes commercial auto and cargo policies for fleets of two to ten trucks, where a broker can still save an owner money by bundling. The register lists 5,038 carriers in the metro with 2 to 10 power units. The agency texts and emails owners in the month before their policy anniversary; at a 4% reply rate that's about 200 conversations a year, and if one in ten binds, 20 new fleets. Bebop can build that list from a description and research each fleet.

Subject: [company]'s truck insurance

Hi [first name], quick one. When does your commercial auto policy renew? For fleets of [number] trucks in Central Florida we've been saving owners money by putting auto and cargo on one policy. If you send me your current dec page, I'll send back a side-by-side quote within two days.

[Your name], I-4 Fleet Insurance

Orlando sources

Next step: see Tampa's port and petroleum haulers in the report on trucking companies in Tampa.