Trucking companies in Tennessee: the state with the biggest trucking sites in the country

This report is for shippers choosing a Tennessee carrier, drivers comparing employers, and B2B sellers whose customers are trucking companies: tire and parts suppliers, equipment dealers, insurers, technology vendors and staffing firms.

The state with the biggest trucking sites

County Business Patterns 2023 counts NAICS 484 (Truck Transportation) establishments in Tennessee.

Ranking the same state file ourselves, Tennessee is 8th by trucking employment and 1st by average establishment size.

In broader bands: 2,244 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 401 have 20 to 99 and 123 have 100 or more. Small carriers are still the majority (57% have fewer than five employees), but 47 sites have 250 or more.

Truckload and LTL, at scale

Long-distance truckload employs half of Tennessee's trucking workforce, and less-than-truckload (LTL) another quarter. LTL pays the most, about $67,500 on average, our calculation from payroll and employees.

Four metros, four freight hubs

Hamilton County has the largest sites in the state, 46.9 employees each; the Chattanooga trucking report explains why. The Memphis metro, which crosses into Mississippi and Arkansas, has its own Memphis trucking report.

County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, not companies, and excludes the self-employed. A carrier's head office and each of its terminals count separately, and private fleets are counted in their owners' industries.

Who's in the federal register

FMCSA's Company Census File, updated 29 October 2026, has 14,314 active for-hire carriers with a Tennessee address and at least one truck. Of those, 8,477 updated their self-reported MCS-150 filing in the past two years; we use those, minus 4 large fleets whose driver counts were under a tenth of their power units. 83% are registered for interstate work, 4,543 (54%) run one power unit and 91 run more than 100. 1,281 (15%) report hauling hazardous materials, against 10.5% nationally.

We left out Federal Express Corporation's air-express registration and a fleet that lists only refuse as cargo. FedEx Freight, the largest trucking company headquartered in Tennessee, isn't in this table either, because its USDOT filing (17,633 power units) carries an Arkansas address.

Public trucking companies headquartered here

FedEx Freight became independent on 1 June 2026, when FedEx distributed 80.1% of its shares. Covenant's segments are Expedited, Dedicated, Managed Freight and Warehousing, and Landair in Greeneville operates under its name. Knight-Swift, based in Arizona, keeps its U.S. Xpress headquarters in Chattanooga after buying the company in July 2023.

Bottlenecks that shape the day

The American Transportation Research Institute's 2026 ranking of the 100 worst US truck bottlenecks includes eight in Tennessee:

Memphis has none on the list. Nashville has four, which matters for any carrier promising delivery windows there.

Checking a Tennessee carrier

1. Search the USDOT number in FMCSA's SAFER Company Snapshot and confirm interstate authority and insurance in Licensing and Insurance.
2. Check the hazmat side if your freight needs it. With 15% of current carriers listing hazardous materials, ask for the cargo classes, the driver endorsements and the insurance level that go with them.
3. Ask which terminal will serve you. For the big carriers, service quality is set terminal by terminal, so ask for references from shippers on your lane.
4. Get a certificate of insurance naming you and confirm the policy covers the commodity.

Selling to Tennessee trucking companies

The big fleets buy through formal programs, often from headquarters for every terminal at once, so expect a request for proposal, references and a pilot. Before you pitch, work out who holds buying authority at that fleet.

Illustrative example. The retreader and its numbers are invented; the counts are FMCSA register data.

Cumberland Retread (cumberland.example) retreads drive and trailer tires and runs a casing-management program for fleets. Its list is Tennessee's 193 current for-hire carriers with more than 50 power units. Two contacts each (maintenance director and procurement) gives 386 people; at a 6% reply rate, 23 conversations; if one in four agrees to a 90-day pilot at one terminal, about 6 fleets, each a path to every terminal it runs. Bebop can build that list from a description and research each fleet's terminals and leadership first.

Subject: Casing costs at [company]'s [city] terminal

Hi [first name],

[Company] runs [number] power units from [city], so tires are probably one of your top three maintenance costs.

We retread and track every casing for Tennessee fleets, and report cost per mile by terminal each month. A 90-day pilot at one terminal shows whether the numbers hold for you.

Would a short call on [day] be worth it?

[Your name]

Tennessee sources

Next step: compare Tennessee with a state of very small carriers in the report on trucking companies in California.