Method · FMCSA registration · 4 minute read · For release October 2026
Who counts as a dump truck hauler
284,000
FMCSA does not record what kind of truck a carrier runs. To report on dump truck haulers, we first decide who counts.
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Cargo checkboxes
Every carrier's FMCSA registration, the MCS-150, has boxes for the cargo it hauls, including Construction and Building materials. On October 13, 2026, every active for-hire carrier that ticked Construction had also ticked Building materials: 337,985 of them, about one in four of the 1,385,869 active for-hire carriers in the country. The boxes can't tell a dump truck from a general freight hauler.
Cargo descriptions
The registration also asks for the cargo in the carrier's own words. That line is specific. The most common entries among the haulers we count are "sand and gravel", "dirt", "gravel", "aggregates" and "rock".
- Dirt, rock and aggregate haulers: active for-hire carriers whose own words name dirt, gravel, aggregate, rock, caliche, topsoil, limestone, rip rap, crushed stone, asphalt, frac sand or dump work. This is dump truck work: end dumps, belly dumps, side dumps, transfers. 85,299 carriers, 19,810 of them in Texas.
- Names that say the work: a carrier that wrote no cargo words but checked Construction is counted in the first group when its legal or DBA name has dump, dirt, gravel, aggregate, caliche, quarry or topsoil in it. Dumpster companies are excluded. Rock, sand, materials, hauling and trucking were tested and excluded; they catch too many carriers doing other work.
- Dry bulk haulers: active for-hire carriers whose own words name cement, fly ash, lime, slag or pneumatic hauling. 1,483 carriers. These are mostly pneumatic tankers.
Fleet size
61%
run one truck
90%
run five trucks or fewer
1,622
run 21 trucks or more
Dump truck haulers by number of trucks
Active dirt, rock and aggregate haulers, by the trucks each reports on its MCS-150.
FMCSA company census (az4n-8mr2), power units
Of 85,299 active haulers, 52,245 report one truck and 24,857 report two to five. Only 1,622 report 21 or more. The average is 3.3 trucks per hauler. Texas leans even smaller: 68% of its 19,810 haulers run one truck.
By state
Dump truck haulers by office state, top 10
Active dirt, rock and aggregate haulers, by the office address on the registration.
FMCSA company census (az4n-8mr2), physical address state
Texas has the most, 19,810, or 23% of the country's dump truck haulers, then Florida with 10,101. The top 10 states hold 51,536 of the 85,299. The state is the hauler's office, not where its trucks work.
Total trucks
About 284,000
trucks run by for-hire dump truck haulers
These haulers report about 284,000 trucks, setting aside 238 filings that can't be right: each reports at least 10 trucks and more than three per driver, such as one with 266,666 trucks and a single driver. Those 238 alone claim 424,333 trucks. Other reasonable cutoffs move the total by less than 6,000.
It's an estimate:
- It counts every truck these haulers run, including tractors or mixers beside the dump trucks.
- It leaves out dump trucks that contractors and producers run for their own work, which aren't for hire, and for-hire haulers that never described their cargo.
- It's only as current as the filings. Most were last updated more than two years ago, so a growing hauler can run more trucks than it reports. More on the paperwork.
Cement tankers
A cement tanker serves the same construction market as a dump truck, often the same ready-mix plant, but with a different truck and trailer, different inspections and often a different insurance policy. We report dry bulk haulers as their own group, side by side where the numbers are large enough, never inside the dump truck figures.
Frac sand haulers are in the first group, even when they also name pneumatic work. Frac sand moves mostly in pneumatic tankers and belly dumps, and more in belly dumps as wet sand systems spread. The checks for hiring them are the same.
What's not included
- Dump truck haulers that never wrote a cargo description, and whose name doesn't say the work, are not counted. The groups are a large, specific sample, not a census of every dump truck.
- The words describe what the carrier said it hauls when it last filed. A carrier can change work without updating them.
- Haulers that are not for hire, such as a contractor's own fleet, are not in either group.
Every HaulStanding report that says "dump truck haulers" or "dirt, rock and aggregate haulers" means the first group, exactly as defined here.
Next steps
Whatever group a hauler falls in, its federal record reads the same. Check a hauler on HaulStanding before the next load.
How we counted. FMCSA public tables on data.transportation.gov, counted October 13, 2026. How we define the groups.
Public records as FMCSA publishes them, which can contain errors. Figures describe groups, not any one carrier. Not legal advice.
Do we have something wrong? Let us know.
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